by Sylvia Plath
Love,
Syl
PS: A thousand thanks for the lovely Xmas parcel! I have read & read the Duck Book to F & worn the apron (veddy English & very me!) every minute since I got it---instead of the ghastly old rags I’d been wrapping round!
TO Olive Higgins Prouty
Wednesday 2 January 1963
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1, England
January 2, 1963
Dear Mrs. Prouty,
At last I find myself with a moment to sit down with a cup of coffee & wish you a Happy New Year and thank you for the lovely Christmas card, which reminded me so of my beloved Boston Common under snow, and the generous enclosure! I am absolutely in love with my flat & quite amazed when I look round after having been here only a little over 3 weeks, to see what I have done single-handed! I have painted all the floors (2 coats!) except the halls & stair & laid down rush matting---very cheap & beautifully Oriental looking. My colors in the lounge are midnight blue, apple green & lilac, a refreshing change from my scheme at Court Green & I have some little handblown Arabic glasses I love, to carry it out, & plan to get bit by bit second hand pieces of pleasing lines & lacquer them in black & handpaint designs on some. I am trying Frieda at a little nursery school for 3 hours in the morning, which will give me a bit of time to work until I finish sewing all the curtains for the mother’s help room, paint her bureau & go to the agency to find a good one! Then I should really be able to work. What I hope to do is rent this charming place out furnished by the week from about May 1 through September to visiting Americans---I shall send notices to the various universities, as it is ideal for a sabbatical year, & rent my lovely Court Green in fall & winter at much less if I can find someone! I do hope I can thus make a business proposition out of it!
Already I find my being in London is getting round---I have a job on the BBC this next week to broadcast “live” my opinions on an Anthology of American poetry on a weekly New Comment program so have to study these next evenings instead of painting bureaus! If I am lucky in getting a mother’s help I should be able to finish my novel this winter and try my hand at a few short stories. The BBC is considering a 20 minute broadcast of my new poems with comment & explanation & I do hope they take it. I have also to do this program about the influence of my childhood landscape which I look very forward to. I am enjoying living off my own potatoes, hand-strung onions, apples & honey & the doctor’s wife’s strawberry jam! The midwife’s son who is a policeman in London stopped by for dinner this week & to help me paint one floor.
We have had the first real snowfall I’ve seen in all my years in England! The street looks like a frosty 18th century engraving. Of course the English, being English, have no snowplows, so to get from shop to shop one climbs mountains of sludge. The children & I have all had flu over Christmas, it has been very cold, but I am back with my old, wonderful doctors, & he is giving me tonic to help me eat more & gain back the 20 lbs. I lost this summer & sending me for chest xrays, so I am in fine hands & glad to be away from the Devon doctor who improperly bandaged my badly cut thumb last month so it went septic & was unnecessarily deformed! Luckily this London doctor helped save the top, though I did lose the side. It is so beautiful here, & I so love living in Yeats’ house. Do write soon! Did I say I had two long bee-keeping poems taken by the Atlantic Monthly?
Love,
Sylvia
TO George MacBeth
c. Fri.–Tues. 4–8 January 1963*
TLS, BBC Written Archives Centre
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1
Dear George,
Sorry this is late, but I’ve been down with the flu & so have the children. If there’s any ghastly message or changes or such maybe you could call Ted & he could get a message to me before Thursday night when I’ll see you at the BBC at 7. I won’t be getting a phone for a couple of weeks yet & the md’s put me pretty much incommunicado.
Best wishes,
Sylvia
TO Charles Osborne
Wednesday 9 January 1963
TLS, University of Texas at Austin
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1
January 9, 1963
Dear Charles,
Here is the cheque back, with some more poems.* I am at present writing by candlelight with cold fingers, a sinister return to Dickensian conditions thanks to the Electricity Board, from Yeats’ house off Primrose Hill where I’ve just moved into a flat with the two babies. If you are not a childphobe & ever happen to be in the district, I’d be happy to have you drop round for a cup of coffee or tea.
All good wishes,
Sylvia Plath
PS ‘Berck-Plage’ has been read on the 3rd Programme but not published
TO Gilbert & Marian Foster
Wednesday 9 January 1963
TLS, Private owner
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1
January 9: Wednesday
Dear Gilbert & Marion,
Happy New Year to you. I am just crawling to consciousness after 10 days of influenza which the babies had too, all of us flat out with a day-nurse through this ghastly weather. I hope you are all right & that Court Green has not collapsed under a great weight of snow.
Nurse D. tells me the town opinion is that I should give Nancy the opportunity to ‘look after’ the place since she’s done it for 11 years etc. & so since I do want her back very much as house-help next spring I’m writing in the same mail to her to say if she feels strong enough (she had been ill), would she get the key from you, keep an eye on it & take over the feeding of the cats. I rely on Nurse D. to keep me informed of the general cess-drift of town furies. Did I tell you there’s a big potato ‘pie’ in the back garden, to the right as you enter the gate at the end of the court? You are welcome to this, & if they are not rotted (Ted packed it), could you sometime send me up a bag? I’ve got plenty of apples & onions but we’ve been living on potatoes. Let me know if Nancy takes up her option to do the cats---if she does maybe you could give her the remnants of that cheque, if any? How are they? And you & our Friend & Rector! Do write.*
Fondest good wishes,
Sylvia
TO Paul & Clarissa Roche
c. Wednesday 9 January 1963*
TLS, Smith College
23 Fitzroy Road
London NW1
Wednesday
Dear, dear Paul & Clarissa,
I am writing you from bed where the doctor has put me to say how wonderful it was to see you & the beautiful children that day.* I shall never forget the dear tea you left me with – I really thought I was dying & began having blackouts that night while the two babies later ran scalding fevers. My very wise and kind doctor got me a private day-nurse for 10 days or I don’t know what I would have done. Your wonderful perceptive letter about the novel* –you are the first to read it – came at a most needed moment & I think you see just what I meant it to be. One day when there is a good enough one it shall be dedicated to you both. I am slowly getting able to breathe & see & hope a darling little 18 year old ‘au pair’ I interviewed while more or less in a coma may move in at the end of next week, if she wasn’t too frightened by the hospital atmosphere!
Much love to all,
Sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Wednesday 16 January 1963
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1, England
Wednesday: January 16
Dear mother,
Thanks very much for your letter & the cheque. I am slowly pulling out of the flu, but the weakness & tiredness following it makes me cross. I had a day nurse for a week when I was worst & the children had high fevers (little Frieda got a ghastly rash which turned out to be an allergy to penicillin which she can’t have) but then she got a cold & went home, just as well, for she used up that $50
cheque, they are very expensive! The children are themselves again, thank goodness. I took Frieda to nursery school again yesterday & she seemed to really enjoy it, the mistress said she was much more at home. Catherine Frankfort has been so sweet, coming round with her boys & doing some shopping for me. The weather has been filthy, with all the heaped snow freezing so the roads are narrow ruts & I have been very gloomy with the long wait for a phone which I hope to get by the end of the month after 2 months wait! which makes one feel cut off, and the lack as yet of an “au pair”. I did interview a very nice German girl of 18 from Berlin whom I wanted & engaged, but her employer is making difficulties for her leaving & I hope to goodness I hear this week that she is coming. Then I should feel cheered to cook a bit more---I’ve been so weak I’ve just wanted boiled eggs & chicken broth. I did get out for a small BBC job the other night, very pleasant, reviewing a book of American poetry & entertained with drinks & sandwiches, & I have a commission for a funny article* which I just haven’t had time or energy to think of. I still need to sew the bedroom curtains, have some made for the big front room windows & get a stair carpet & oddments---it is so hard to get out to shop with the babies, but I’ve decided to use the agency babyminders who are very good though expensive for a few nights out this week---a very sweet couple have invited me to dinner tomorrow & me & the babies to dinner Sunday & I think I may go to a play with this Portuguese girl. I just haven’t felt to have any identity under the steamroller of decisions & responsibilities of this last half year, with the babies a constant demand. Once I have an au pair, the flat finished---after all, it is furnishing for at least 5 years done, and should always be my “London furniture”, so it is an investment---and a phone & routine I should be better I think. Ted comes about once a week to see Frieda & sometimes is nice & sometimes awful. It is very hard for me to think of him living in an expensive flat,* being wined & dined, taking his girlfriend to Spain without a care in the world when I have worked so hard all these years & looked so forward to what I saw was to be our good fortune. But I get strength from hearing about other people having similar problems & hope I can earn enough by writing to pay about half the expenses. It is the starting from scratch that is so hard---this first year. And then if I keep thinking, if only I could have some windfall, like doing a really successful novel & buy this house, this ghastly vision of rent bleeding away year after year would vanish, I could almost be self-supporting with rent from the other two flats---that is my dream. How I would like to be self-supporting on my writing! But I need time.
I guess I just need somebody to cheer me up by saying I’ve done all right so far. Ironically there have been electric strikes & every so often all the lights & heaters go out for hours, children freeze, dinners are stopped, there are mad rushes for candles. Sue & her sweet boyfriend Corin took me out to a movie the other night, & I realized what I have missed most, apart from peace to write, is company---doing things with other people. Thank goodness I got out of Devon in time, I would have been buried for ever under this record 20 foot snowfall with no way to dig myself out. Nancy is feeding the cats, I sent her a $15 check. I hope to be able to rent this place furnished from about Mayday through September & go to Court Green then. I was very lucky in calling the Home Help Service* which sends out cleaners to sick or old people & got a wonderful vigorous woman, named Mrs. Vigors (!)* who works at about twice Nancy’s pace & had the place gleaming in about 2 hours. I got a terrific lift from it & hope I can persuade her to come to me on her own Saturdays after I no longer qualify as a person in need. It is very hard to get good cleaners here & she has two young girls & is very good with the babies.
Do give my best love to Dot & Joe and Warren & Margaret & I hope to write in a week or so saying I have got this au pair---she left some of her stuff & seemed a very nice cheerful girl whom the children liked.
Love to all,
Sivvy
TO Leonie Cohn
Tuesday 22 January 1963
TLS, BBC Written Archives Centre
23 Fitzroy Road
London N.W.1
January 22, 1963
Miss Leonie Cohn
Talks Department
THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORP.
Broadcasting House
London W.1
Dear Miss Cohn,
Thanks very much for your extremely helpful letter of January 17th.* It does give me a much clearer idea of what you want and I think 20 minutes would be fine, with incidents. I have been slowed up a bit by a move from the country to London and nursing my two infants through the flu, but hope to have the script to you in a week or two.
Yours sincerely,
Sylvia Plath
TO Olive Higgins Prouty
Tuesday 22 January 1963
TLS (aerogramme), Indiana University
January 22, 1963
Dear Mrs. Prouty,
How good to get your letters! They are like soul letters to me. I have not answered sooner for since Christmas the babies and I have been very ill with high fevers & flu and had to have a day nurse. And as you have no doubt heard, the weather has been fierce. It is a miracle I got out of Devon in time---it is buried under mountains of snow. In London they have no snow-removal equipment, so one climbs treacherous mountains to shop, & it is months before they let you have a phone. I am still waiting. My doctor here---my old doctor---has been a source of great help to me (I am still on sleeping pills & tonics to help me eat), but I do occasionally miss that wonderful Doctor Ruth Beuscher I had at McLean’s who I feel could help me so much now. She did write me a letter or two, very helpful, but it’s not the same as those hours of talk. I have, miraculously, an 18-year-old German girl I am trying to train, living in as of this week.* In return for food, a room & about $5 a week she will take care of the children for 6 mornings and babysit an occasional evening. I have not been alone with myself for over two months, when I had my dear young nurse in Devon, and this has been the keenest torture, this lack of a centre, a quietness, to brood in and grow from. I suppose, to the writer, it is like communing with God.
I am hoping now to get back into shape with this article for the BBC on my childhood landscape---the literal seascape, with incidents and perhaps a story or two, then the novel I have not dared to touch, as you say, until I saw ahead I could sit to it every morning and fear no interruption. You were so wise to advise me to wait till I could have some more hours daily without break.
I think when my health comes back a bit more strongly, I shall paint the remaining floors and bureaus and fight spartanly with words all morning, being wholly a mother in the afternoon with my two darlings, taking them to tea and the park. Frieda makes me so sad. Ted comes once a week to see her, she hangs on him dotingly, then cries “Daddy come soon” for the rest of the week, waking in the night, tearful and obsessed with him. It is like a kind of mirror, utterly innocent, to my own sense of loss. Ted is, for the time, allowing me $280 a month which pays for food, gas, light and taxes in Devon, but not the rent or furnishings for the flat. I spent all I had to put down on the year’s rent in advance, which I had to do to get it, & hope to get it furnished nicely enough to rent it this summer when I go back to Devon. How often I feel the need of business advice, now I have all this on my shoulders! I was just feeling, after 6 years of spartan work & living, that our lives were moving into a wider phase of ease, Ted was getting so successful & I loved my mornings at my desk, which helped, my home, my babies. Now this awful woman who is still deceiving her 3rd husband & has abortion instead of babies is dangling him, it is all very public & I face this, and he lives in an expensive flat in Soho, showers everything on her, takes her on flights to Spanish holidays & so on. I think my salvation will be to plunge into my work---I simply can’t afford to think whether is is any good or will be good—that is a luxury. I must just write.
The rent is my one worry---five years of rent would be a deposit on the house, and at the end of 5 years I will have nothing. So I dream of writing a novel that could e
arn me the right to go down to Surrey & make the owner an offer for the house---I could just about live off the income from the bottom two flats & would not have this awful sense of hurling blood-money into an abyss. The schools in London are good, the jobs are here, the mother’s helps are here: Devon is blessed in the summers and holidays and wonderful for the children. I must just resolutely write mornings for the next years, through cyclones, water freezeups, children’s illnesses & the aloneness. Having been so deeply and spiritually and physically happy with my dear, beautiful husband makes this harder than if I had never known love at all. Now he is famous, beautiful, the whole world wants him and now has him. He has changed so that the old life is impossible---I could never live under the same roof with him again, but I hope for the children’s sake that each week he visits I can be brave and merry, without sorrow or accusation, and forge my life anew. My Xrays, thank goodness, are clear. I hardly glimpse my young children’s nurse at all, now she is back at work, but went to a movie with her last week. Ted has---together with the dear, kind man you & I both saw & knew---some of the inhumanity of the true genius that must kill to get what it wants. Now he has utter freedom, to live, adored & the center of gossiping women who collect social lions, to have affairs, holidays. It is hard, his casting off me and the children at this moment and after all these years of love & work, but I desperately want to make an inner strength in myself, an independence that can face bringing up the children alone & in face of great uncertainties. Do write me again! Your letters are like balm, you understand the writer in me, & that is where I must live.