The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1
Page 18
As always, in the few weeks before school starts (September 8), I feel wistful and nostalgic. It is a bit sad to be caught between two worlds. When school begins, life will be entirely different. All the good friends that I have made this summer will go back to their respective homes, and I will miss them in spite of my school-friends.
This has been my last summer of really carefree youth – next summer I will get some sort of job and earn money in preparation for college. I would like to be able to live on the college campus but unless some miracle happens, I will consider myself fortunate if I win a scholarship, although I have to live at home. Wellesley has a very wealthy class of people dwelling here, and in my school life almost all my acquaintances come from well-to-do homes. Naturally, their only worry is to get good marks so their parents can send them any where. With me it is the other way – I have the high marks, but a sad lack of funds. In this land of wonderful, unbelievable opportunities, however, I can work for the money-awards set up to aid school-children. If a person has talent and ability, there are many situations open to him.
I have tried to improve my health and gain weight in these last two months, because I work so hard in the winter that I am usually run-down by the end of the year. I have biked regularly to and from the tennis courts almost every day. This is my first season at tennis and already it is my favorite sport. Of course I am not very good, yet, but several excellent young men have played with me, and under their instruction I have rapidly improved. I live outdoors as much as I can, taking hikes, canoeing and swimming. (Unfortunately the dry season has made our lakes stagnant and scummy, so I have not swum too often.) Yesterday I was driven out into the country with a very good friend of mine. We climbed a water tower* and stood up on top, looking over a sea of green leaves to the hills beyond, melting away bluer & bluer into the distance. The wind blew the clouds over our heads and the sunlight was clean and warm. Nestled in the valleys we could see the roof tops of neighboring towns. (like the view on the front.)
I have written a few stories and poems this summer and sent them to various magazines. As usual, they all come back home again with a rejection slip attached. Sometimes, if I am lucky, I get a note of encouragement from the editor. Still, in spite of my continual failures, I will keep trying.
This evening I am playing a tennis match at the courts. I was a bit silly to enter the annual summer tournament* since this is my first season playing. The girls that I have played and beaten are really not too good, but this one is small, well-built, and about 21. I expect to lose but I hope I can lose by a respectable score – and give her a fight. There will be people watching, and I have to overcome my nervousness of an audience but quickly! I am really scared – of what exactly I do not know – it’s only a game after all! I must talk firmly to myself and be convinced that it is not a matter of life and death or lifelong disgrace if I lose! By the time you get this letter I will be involved in something else and tennis will be far behind me – but the six long hours until I play that game! Ah – it seems eternity. I can’t wait till this time tomorrow when it will be all over.
Sometimes, when you are by yourself for a while, do you ever wonder little things? Like why you are you and not someone else . . . it sounds silly to say it, but it is absorbing when you think of it. I mean, why couldn’t I have been born into the body of a cripple, instead of my own . . . or into a family in another country? I wonder, too, what makes us like certain things and fear others? Is it our environment that accustoms us to our surroundings, or some inherited partiality that comes down from our parents?? I think that many of our opinions are not really our own, but rather ideas that we have unconsciously borrowed from other people. For instance, when I meet someone here who has a German background, I immediately say to myself inside, “Hmmm, must be a nice person.” I have a partiality – for no good reason except that I, too, have a german background. Then, also, I do not think I got my fear of high places just all by myself. I have often heard my mother speak of her fright of heights, so probably I unconsciously cultivated that fright in myself. What I am trying to say is – I do not believe that children are naturally afraid or full of hate. I think that they can be trained to love. Naturally, all of us have a few inherent animal instincts – self-preservation, for example, but we are not born with hatred or killing instinct . . . are we?? That is one of the reasons I think wars are totally against the principle of humanity. It is entirely against reason to kill the best and the healthiest – why not the aged cripples, if we must kill . . .? enough for fumblings in a wide darkness . . .
Do write soon, your friend,
Sylvia
BEST WISHES –
TO Hans-Joachim Neupert
Tuesday 10 October 1949
ALS (photocopy), Smith College
Tuesday
October 10, 1949
Dear Hans –
How nice to get your letter once again! That trip you took with your class sounds simply fascinating! And what a beautiful description you gave me of the river-side at night. We saw some colored slides of the ruins in large German towns last Sunday, and they were a sad contrast to the jolly story in your letters. Is it true that many bodies are still buried under the crumbled rubble of the large buildings?
My English teacher (a very intelligent and thoroughly remarkable man) plans to take a group of young people to Europe this summer – not on a “conducted tour” which jumps from the most obvious highlights of one country to another, but rather on a bike trip through the countries themselves whereby the students will gain an understanding of the way the people really live. Unfortunately, all my small savings must be hoarded toward college expenses, so I can not afford to make this wonderful journey.
I know just how you feel about going to a dance during school time. The boy whom I “go around” with,* as we say over here, is away at college, but he did not leave until after I had started school. Although he is nice to be with, it was a rather difficult time for me, because he expected me to stay up at night and spend all my hours with him rather than on my studies! But I survived, and it is so much more convenient to write to him!
As to my poems and stories, I am quite at a loss about what to send you. I wish I could be there when you read anything I send you to explain just what I was trying to express. The poems are all very different, expressing various moods, many of which I no longer can feel, but I have selected a few for you – every one is written in traditional rhyme except “City Streets.” Perhaps if you read them aloud you will get more from them. I do not know what they will mean to you – which you like & which you don’t, but I’ll give you a brief idea of what “inspired” each one:
White Phlox – Here I tried to express the feeling that one moment could last forever which I experienced while sitting before a vase of flowers in a quiet house.
Gone is the River – a contrast between the frenzied heat of the hurried city and the timeless peace of summer in the country.
The Farewell – a feeling of nostalgia just
as the last snows were melting into spring – a vague lonesomeness.
The Stranger – A feeling that I was near to the answer of some question, but that the truth (the Stranger) was never found through my own inability to grasp it.
City Streets – The dull finality of a rainy day in the city –
I do hope you will evaluate these attempts of mine!
My birthday, in case you do not know, will probably be over by the time you receive this. It is October 27th, and I will be 17. I accept your congratulations in advance with many thanks!
I feel a strong kinship for anything German. I think that it is the most beautiful language in the world, and whenever I meet anyone with a German name or German traits, I have a sudden secret warmth. Austria too, I love! Johann Strauss waltzes always make me feel like shedding happy tears.
Here are some books you might enjoy!
Boston East The Late George Apley – John Marquand
Main Street / Arrow Smith – Sinclair Lewis
West My Antonia – Willa Cather
Poems of Robert Frost
Plays by Eugene O’Neill: Strange Interlude, Great God Brown, Emperor Jones
Civil War Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
All these are very worthwhile – expressive of various sections & eras of American culture.
Write soon!
All my best wishes –
your good friend
Sylvia
Sylvia Plath
Age 16
Wellesley, Mass.
White Phlox
From the silver vase
White phlox petals fall;
Silence floods the parlor
And fills the narrow hall.
The only sound’s a clock,
Ticking on the wall.
Is there naught to measure thought
Save the ticking of the clock,
And the fitful drift of white
Petals from a withered stalk?
Is the house asleep?
Are the tenants gone?
That the clock and I
Keep our watch alone?
Are we the only ones to mark
The petals falling in the dark?
The present moment seems
That it will ever be;
Can the fall of a blossom
Take eternity?
Sylvia Plath
Age 16
Wellesley, Mass.
Gone is the River
The heat of the noonday
Lies heavy upon the city.
It rises in waves from the sidewalks;
From the sweltering steel and the sunbaked brick.
The buildings are steeped in the merciless glare.
It is hot, hot everywhere.
(The earth is soft with wet green moss;
Blue dragonflies dart where the sunbeams quiver;
A breeze murmurs drowsily through the tall grass,
And willows flaunt their leafy parasols
All along the river.
A blackbird twitters, low and sweet,
And the water is cool on my dusty feet.
Oh, I could stay in the shade by the river
And listen to the song of the water forever.)
But the river is gone that was once so pretty,
And the heat of the noonday blankets the city.
Sylvia Plath
Age 16
Wellesley, Mass.
The Farewell
Oh, the sun beats down on the dusty town,
And a little breeze is sighing;
But in the street there’s the patter of feet
And the sound of someone crying.
Oh, the tulips blow in a crimson row,
And it’s spring, there’s no denying;
But in the lane there’s the rustle of rain
And the sound of someone crying.
Oh, the woods are green, and April’s queen,
And the tattered clouds are flying;
But in the shade where the snow has stayed
There’s the sound of someone crying.
Sylvia Plath
Age 16
Wellesley, Mass.
The Stranger
He tapped upon my pane last night
As he went by,
But, being proud, I did not heed.
Not I.
He passed again when snows lay deep
Beneath the moon;
I heard him whistle to himself
A tune.
Once yet, a third time, he drew near
My bolted door.
He called my name and waited as
Before.
It was so late when I arose
He’d gone away.
And oh, I wish I’d asked him if
He’d stay!
Sylvia Plath
Age 15
Wellesley, Mass.
CITY STREETS
The dreary wetness of the rainy streets;
The doleful drops that fall forlornly from the shingled roofs;
The slim, black slipperiness of a tree
Gleams chill and cold as the wind whines by.
A yellow fog slinks low along the ground
And clings to the dingy brick walls of the tenements that crowd by the gutter.
A damp newspaper somersaults along with the wind
And then succumbs on the flat pavement, lonely, left behind.
Blue spirals of smoke curl out of the sooty factory chimneys.
A lean gray cat sulks around a rubbish heap,
Seeking food, yet finding none.
These are the wan, gray shreds of the tattered day.
TO Hans-Joachim Neupert
c. Saturday 26 November 1949*
ALS in greeting card (photocopy),*
Smith College
Dear Hans,
Hello! How are you? I thought I’d send you a note of greeting and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Much has happened since I last wrote you. I am in the midst of my last year in high school and my life is very happy. I am writing this card during the Thanksgiving vacations . . . you know, celebrating the good fortunes of the Pilgrims so many years ago. I have to study especially hard this year, as we have our long exams next spring which determine whether or not we get into college. I wish you could see my room now – I have hung up on the walls all the best drawings I have done, and it looks quite nice now. This year I am editor of our high school newspaper (4 big pages) which comes out six times a year. No sooner do we get one issue published, then there is another to start working on.
You may be interested to know that I have another 30 page term paper to do for English this year, and I have chosen as my subject Thomas Mann! Any advice you could give me about this great German writer would be a big help. Our English teacher, as I have no doubt often told you, is an extraordinary man. I like him so – he does not try to indoctrinate us with ideas whatsoever, but is continually striving to get us to speak for ourselves and think also for ourselves. This summer he is conducting a European tour for 15 students from high school. I would have given anything to sign up – but $800 was too much to pay – I could not afford it. So I am very wistful, thinking that perhaps I could have seen you as the group passed through Germany. They are going to see the passion play, visit the music festival at Salzburg, cruise down the Rhine, and do all sorts of other wonderful things.
Let me hear from you soon –
Best wishes,
your friend, Sylvia
1950
TO Hans-Joachim Neupert
Monday 2 January 1950
ALS (photocopy), Smith College
January 2, 1950
Dear Hans,
How I admire you for writing so well in English! I wish I could do the same in your language, but alas, I must fumble along in my own. At these times I wish that there were ways of transmitting ideas to you by a purer method instead of just words. How much easier it w
ould be to understand someone’s thoughts without having first to transpose them into a language! I think that then there would be less misunderstanding.
We have read in our magazines about the government in West Germany. I would like to discuss it further with you in my next letter.
Over the holidays, which today come to a close, I have gone to many dances with a friend of mine who is home from the university. I told him about you, for he, too, is one of these rare people who likes to exchange ideas. I am so tired of all the young girls here who think of nothing but party dresses and of boys who care for nothing but money and pretty faces. It is a relief to find someone who will talk about ideas of life and religion with one. I think that spiritual companionship is very necessary in a world where so much is superficial – and so few attractions are genuine.
If you could attend some of the parties! Of course, in a community where most boys use the “family car” to take girls places (movies, dances, etc.) there is much more opportunity for social gatherings. But after awhile such parties become so meaningless! There is always loud laughter and gay chatter and cigarette smoke filling the room. And always the same empty faces with painted smiles. And all the noise and music can not cover up the emptiness that lies beneath. Why must people try to fool themselves by thinking that money, clothes and cars are so important? Are they afraid of facing their souls? Perhaps they unconsciously realize that they can never reach spiritual perfection and must try to get something they can reach . . . something concrete and material.
But every day the inner world of our minds and souls is being invaded. Every home usually has a radio. True, it keeps us in contact with the world . . . but there is so much worthless drama and poor music that comes over the airwaves to hypnotize those who are too lazy to think for themselves. And television! It has become the goal of the poorest family to own a television set . . . to sit around a screen and watch crude vaudeville shows and baseball and football which are a national craze. It is so easy to shut off thought . . . to be lulled into a dreamy, semiconscious state to these entertainments which numb our creative intelligence. I would much rather read a book and have the pictures and images made in my own mind than to have someone else think for me. I believe that everyone must think for himself – and imagine for himself. Why live if we are just an echo and a reflection?