by Sylvia Plath
Forgive me for being so vehement! I wander on and on. But there are so many things which disturb me. I can’t just sit back and take them calmly. I must cry out against them. And I take advantage of your patience by doing so. I wish you would also reveal to me your joys and your angers.
Today it rains. Yesterday it rained. We have had no snow all winter, except once in November. How I long for spring! But now I must work for my college exams and my term paper . . . . I await your next letter eagerly –
Best wishes,
Sylvia
TO Hans-Joachim Neupert
Monday 20 February 1950
ALS (photocopy), Smith College
February 20, 1950
Monday
Dear Hans,
How thoughtful of you to send me all that writing about Thomas Mann! It will be very helpful to me since I don’t have to turn in my paper until April. Your letter gets to me in about 10 days when you send it “via air mail” . . . I think it is quite wonderful that my thoughts can go to you across sea and land in such a short time, don’t you?
I will write you later about the dates that my student friends will visit Oberammergau. I don’t know it just now.
This week we have vacation. But for me, it will mean more studying, for I have college Board exams in less than a month, and I must read many History, French and English books before then. Those are the important exams which tell whether or not we get accepted into college. I have to get good marks if I am to get a scholarship.
Last week we had our first big snowstorm of the year, and today I am sitting downstairs in the dining room, writing to you. Outside the sun is shining brightly on the blinding white snow, and the sky is a brilliant windswept blue. Oh, how cold it is! The wind is shrieking and wailing around the corners of the house, and the floorboards are creaking. It is good to be warm inside the house. However, I think that after I finish writing you I shall put on my winter jacket and mittens and walk into the woods for a little while. I like to battle the cold winds.
Tell me, what do you think of the U.S. producing hydrogen bombs? Have you heard anything about it? If so, do let me know your ideas. A friend of mine and I wrote a letter of protest to a newspaper concerning the new bomb.*
This is my first day home for three days. Last Friday I packed my suitcase to go to a winter carnival at the University of New Hampshire. Perhaps you can find it on a map of the United States. It is one of the states above Massachusetts.
On Friday evening there was a formal dance,* with colored streamers and balloons for decorations. Saturday we went to watch ski and toboggan events, while in the evening we went out to diner with two other couples, and then to a dance hall called the “Stardust” in Maine.* I took the train home on Sunday with another girl. We were both very sleepy, so as she dozed, I stared out of the window at the countryside speeding past. The afternoon was shading into twilight, and in the west hung a red ball of sun in a smoky gray sky. The dirty, sooty houses along the railroad track had a bleak, ugly, cheerless look, and the dingy, snowy fields were very bare and lonely. In spite of this, the barren sadness of the landscape had a strange fascination for me. Do you understand what I mean? Sometimes cheerless places have more appeal to the heart than a scene of all pretty sunshine and flowers.
At any rate, I was soon in Boston, carrying my heavy suitcase, which seemed to get heavier every minute. On the way home in the bus I watched the bright lights sparkling in the frosty air – and here I am, with only memories of a lovely time. It is as if it were a dream, now, and I begin to wonder if I imagined that I went away.
Sometimes I wish there were one universal language, so that everyone would understand everyone else. How many new friends we would have! . . . across the world!
I will say “good-bye” until your next letter –
Your friend,
Sylvia
TO Hans-Joachim Neupert
Tuesday 30 May 1950
ALS (photocopy), Smith College
May 30, 1950
Dear Hans,
How impatient you must be with me for not writing until now – but so much has happened in the last month – and I have so much to tell you.
Our high school days end in a week with our graduation ceremony. I cannot believe that I have arrived at the end of 12 years of school! But the most wonderful thing has happened---after months of suspense and exams I was notified that I was accepted at Smith College at Northampton, in the northern corner of Massachusetts. Naturally I could not go unless I got a large scholarship, but the college voted me a sufficient amount---so next fall I’ll be able to pack my things and be off to another four years of school. Of course I’ll have to resist the temptation of college parties in order to keep my marks up! But, even so, the thought of it is delightful.
My Thomas Mann paper went over well. Our teacher of English decided to have each of us give an hour’s oral report instead of doing a paper so that the whole class could benefit by our research. I enjoyed my reading in Thomas Mann very much, and plan to do more this summer. My two favorite books were Buddenbrooks and Der Zauberberg (where the two brothers are named Hans and Joachim!) Perhaps you would be interested to know that I read to the class the part of your letter about Mann’s last visit to Germany---and the students enjoyed it very much!
Of all the luck, I have a job this summer to help me with my college expenses this year. I didn’t especially want to work indoors (I love the sunshine and the country air), and jobs were scarce. But finally I obtained one after my own heart. It is working on a farm in a nearby town.* I will be working in the fields and in the greenhouses---rain or shine. I imagine that the first few weeks will be hard on my poor muscles, but I hope to get accustomed to the work soon and end the season tan and healthy. I will bike over and back every day. How does this sound to you?
I would appreciate it very much if you’d send me a photo of you again you mentioned that you’d had some taken. I’m not sure if I sent you the last photo of me – it’s small, of just my head. If I did not already send it, let me know, and I will enclose it in my next letter!
As I write, I am seated in the back yard in the hot sun. This is the first nice day we’ve had this spring. May has been a cold, rainy month. Now the air is thick with heat, and no breeze comes to relieve the humid rays of the sun.
You may be amused to know that I feel my German background very strongly. I noticed a sort of patriotic pride when I read Mann.
We’ve been hearing much about the F.D.J.* In fact pages in our news magazines were devoted to pictures of them. Did you see them? I was amazed to see how like regular children---my own school mates---they looked. What a pity that youth cannot unite. We’re all working for the same thing – peace & prosperity, but we don’t seem to be able to work together.
That’s all for now, my friend. Write soon –
Best wishes,
Sylvia
TO Edward Cohen*
Sunday 6 August 1950
TLS, Indiana University
August 6
Dear Eddie
My first sneaking suspicion on receiving your letter was that you spend you spare time sending out scintillating notes to all “Seventeen” contributors* while chuckling, “MY, what a thrill I’ll give the little darlings.” However, brushing this nagging thought aside, I decided to be honest and admit that your letted did appeal to me, or rather to my ego. So, accepting the adequate chaperonage of 1500 miles, here I am.
You asked for particulars. I live in a six room white house in what would be called a suburban environment. My father is dead; my mother teaches. I have a kid brother. I am going to enter college as a prospective English major this fall. Since I am surprisingly bad at describing myself, I think you have enough integrity to read between the lines. English majors are noted for their integrity.
I don’t know just what you would like to learn about me, so I shall just sprinkle this with anything that comes to mind. You see, all I know about you
is that you are impulsive, extremely entertaining and that you have a writing technique. As for me, I like to write. And I am determined to write well. After receiving over fifty rejection slips from various magazines, I finally got an acceptance from “Seventeen”. Other stories which I considered better, less trite, less syrupy, came home with those horribly polite little slips. I would be delighted to have a critic. Corresponding with an English major interests me. So if you will let down your little wall of polished humor and permit me to know you, I will be glad to reciprocate.
This summer I am working on a truck farm in a neighboring town. It is My First Job, and I’m firmly convinced I couldn’t have done better. A ten mile bike trip plus an eight hour day picking beans, loading radish crates and weeding corn six days a week is hardly relaxation, but the people I work with---Negroes, Displaced Persons, and boys and girls my own age---are worth the low pay. I’m up at six, in bed by nine, and very grimy in between. But I just smile when my white collar acquaintances look at me with unbelievable dismay as I tell them about soaking my hands in bleach to get them clean.
I would like very much to read some of your stories, so if you will send me samples of your writing I will do the same.
I too will be peering into the mailbox during the next few weeks.
One last shot . . . how in the name of heaven did you know I live at 26 Elmwood Road?
Sincerely
Sylvia Plath
P.S. On considering your letter more carefully I am even more skeptical than I was at first. I consider my story not far from the usual “Seventeen” drivel. Why is it that my particular brand of drivel rates such subtle flattery? Have you a long standing bet with Ernest Hemingway on the gullibility of would-be female writers? At least I deserve a commission or something. Please set me straight. I was about to send you some of my writing, but have decided to reserve it until I see some of yours. Now you know that my nature is far from sweet and trusting.
Another thing . . . what college are you an English major at?
S.
TO Edward Cohen
Friday 11 August 1950
TLS (incomplete),
Indiana University
August 11,
Dear Eddie,
Hello again! You guessed it, I’m back for more. And indeed, after your last--er--shall we say epistle, I should find it rather difficult to resist such a magnetic correspondant. Ah, yes, it’s amazing what 1500 miles, a writing technique and long eyelashes can do. Seriously, though, I wasn’t aware that anyone quite like you existed. Oh, I’ve known my share of intellectuals who were fascinating when it came to discussing evolution and destiny, but who didn’t know the left foot from the right on a dance floor . . . and then the big brawny lettermen who used one word to describe every conceivable situation. But never, in my seventeen (almost eighteen) short years of experience, have I come across such an absorbing combination of characteristics rolled into one. (By now you are probably hiding modestly in your waste basket, so I’ll look the other way while you crawl out. In fact I’ll even begin another paragraph.)
It appears that you like frankness. Well, I can serve up plenty of that little commodity. I was just about to follow your lead and start off by plungiing into a list of external characteristics when I remembered that you have already had the profound misfortune to see a picture of me. I have enough vanity to believe that I have changed considerably since that was taken. How about a few statistics not visible? I’M tall, tipping the yardstick at five feet eight; slender (this morning’s breakfast of steak, fried potatoes and apple pie not adding an ounce); tan enough so that women tap my shoulder on the beach: “Podden me, miss, but what sun tan oil do you use?” None, lady, but forty eight hours in the blazing sun per week does wonders. I have light brown hair, on the blondish side in the summer, and dark brown eyes. Top this off by a mercurial disposition and there I am. A red-blooded American girl. (Do I hear strains of the national anthem in the background?)
Ice cream and pickles are my dish. Perhaps it’s because that concoction describes my own character rather well. I like to think of myself as original and unconventional. (Unfortunately, several thousand other girls in the United States like to think the same thing.) At any rate, I didn’t emerge from the awkward stage until a couple of years ago . . . a lot later than the average girl, and during that period when my little pals were trying out their first formals, I was reading Brave New World, by Huxley and doing self-portraits in pencils. Noble as that may sound, it didn’t compensate . . . then. Now, as I look back, I’m darn glad I had a hard time. Maybe you don’t know how it is not to be accepted in a group of kids because you’re just a little too individual. Shyness, in their terminology is conceit, good marks signify the horror of horrors . . . a brain. No doubt this all sounds oozingly pathetic, but it’s one of the reasons that I’m the way I am. I’m sarcastic, skeptical and sometimes callous because I’m still afraid of letting myself be hurt. There’s that very vulnerable core in me which every egoist has . . . and I try rather desperately* not to let it show.
Then I grew up, and just like it says in Seventeen,* You Too Can Be A Party Girl. So there were boys all of a sudden, and I’ve forgotten what it was like not to have some guy in the kitchen* eating mother’s cookies and discussing the World Series with my brother. (I’ve gone babysitting of Bob Elliot,* but I wouldn’t know a batting average if I saw one.) My biggest trouble is that fellows look at me* and think that no serious thought has ever troubled my little head. They seldom realize the chaos that seethes behind my exterior. As for the who am I? what am I? angle . . . that will preoccupy me till the day I die.
If I tried to describe my personality I’d start to gush about living by the ocean half of my life, being brought up on Alice in Wonderland, and believing in magic, for years and years. Maybe a little bit about my background would shed a ray of light on the subject. I’m of German-Austrian descent. My late father was a college professor. Even wrote a book on Bumblebees (MacMillan, 1934) and countless scientific articles. My brother, a scholarship boy at Exeter, takes after him. I’m more subjective than objective, and take after my mother. By the way, I’ll be starting my freshman year on scholarship at Smith this fall. I
I’ve touched on the social and statistical side. Now for religion. I don’t go to church much, because I’m a firm believer that the individual has to figure out his own purpose, his own destiny. I don’t like the idea of salvation being spooned out to those too spineless to think for themselves. I suppose I could be labeled an atheist, but I’ve a great respect for life and for the potentialities of man. Sounds flowery, doesn’t it. But I am pretty much disgusted with human behavior most of the time. I too could write satirical little essays on such subjects as the Unknown Soldier, Christmas and polygamy. One last note, I’m Unitarian by choice.
There are so many incidents I could tell you about, so many people I would like you to meet. Up at the farm there’s Ilo,* a good-looking blonde from Estonia who wants to go to New York to be an artist. He’s studied in Europe and just came over here this spring . . . and tries so hard to catch on to all our american expressions. Out in the strawberry field we were talking about German writers, and he suddenly burst out You like Frank Sinatra, ja? He is so sendimendal, so romandic, so moonlight night.” And then there’s Robert, the negroe who ran away with his wife’s pay and came haome from Bost n the next mornig at five with a taxi bill of $8 and very v ry inebrieated
TO Hans-Joachim Neupert
Saturday 12 August 1950
ALS (photocopy), Smith College
August 12, 1950
Dear Hans-Joachim,
How thoughtful of you to send me the lovely postal card from the Passion Play. And then the nice letter. I hope that we will always be able to keep writing to each other. Perhaps when both of us are old and gray we shall still be sending letters. But I would like so much to see you some day. We get letters from our group in Europe, and I feel ver
y sad that I had not money enough to go with them. They are having such wonderful times. My only secret hope is that I shall do well enough in college to be sent to spend my third year in Europe.
My job this summer is quite hard for one who is used to sitting and studying all year instead of doing heavy physical work. I like being out in the sun, though, and the farm is on a hill where you can see the blue distance from the fields. It is good to be working with the earth. The pay is not much, but the people I work with are very interesting. There are several displaced persons. One from Estonia who wishes to be an artist, and one from Poland. They came over here this spring and speak English quite well, considering the short time they have been here.
Then there is the old, weather-beaten farm worker who tells us funny stories. Only most of them are not at all humorous, but one must laugh, and he is pleased.
I pick strawberries, beans, radishes, spinach, peas, and I weed other vegetables. The summer has gone so fast. I work six days a week, am up at six in the morning and so tired that I go to bed about nine. I have no time or energies for the gay parties I attended last summer when I did not work. I wish sometime that one did not have to think of money but could do all the wonderful things, like traveling, without it.
As for the Korean situation, I feel ill every time I read about it. On the farm they are always talking about war, and I look at the sunny blue sky, the green leaves, the tan young boys working, and I think, what fools are men to fight when there is so much in nature to live for already. We are using our own men to fight for Korea, a little piece of land, and the whole thing seems so futile. Of course the leaders say that once we let Russia advance a little she will feel she can run over the world, and that must not happen. But there was a picture in the newspaper of a young Marine, crying as his train left, for he was being sent over. There is nothing brave or heroic about this war. What are we fighting for? For nothing. Against communism. That word, communism, is blinding. No one knows exactly what it means, and yet they hate everything associated with it. One thing I am convinced of: you can’t kill an idea. You can kill men, but an idea springs up in people’s minds and grows there unseen, and you can’t get rid of it. Another thing: war isn’t “human nature”, not if you’re fed and clothed and peace-loving. When I think of my younger brother, with his love of life, even in small animals, I would hate the government that put a gun in his hands and told him to kill men. Yet that is what is happening. My only hope is that the great horror of the atom bomb will be great enough to prevent such a terrible war. That the A-bomb was ever dropped seems like a sin to me. Perhaps you smile and say, what a silly girl. She does not know how a boy feels about fighting. But I think of you, of my brother, of my school friends, strong and healthy. I cannot picture any of you, crippled, maimed, dead. I like people, everybody. And war to me seems so terrible that it is absurd. Like little children playing with fire crackers. But the American children who have never seen the effects of war, they are the dangerous ones, too. They are not aware of what it means, they do not take it seriously. Oh, there is so much I could say, but I will leave it for another letter.