by Sylvia Plath
Wednesday 17 January 1951*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Wednesday night
Dear Mum—
Once again it is midnight as I go to bed. I passed in my source theme this morning & felt one of my many weights roll off my head. I only had Eng & Gym this a.m. & did history the rest of the time. After section in Hist., about 3, I came up to my room & fell asleep from 3-5. As a result I felt a little more capable to read the 100 pages of Botany for a test tomorrow. I’m so glad I take Art. I would perish if I had another exam. As it is, I feel remarkably happy. Perhaps it is because the pressure & demand for my hours is so heavy that I can’t afford to* think about it! I do enjoy life here, and feel so sorry for girls who live at home. They miss so much – you get to know people by living with them. I do love my art course – it is such an escape from routine. Did I tell you I did a still life of which I’m rather pleased? It’s all transparent and done in flat areas of color. I just love experimenting. See you in a week.
Love,
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 18 January 1951*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Thurs.
Dear Mum –
Well, today the accumulation of this week’s tiredness hit me full blast with the result that I can hardly hold my head up. However, tonight I am free to go to bed at 10 & sleep till ten tomorrow morning, so I feel pretty good about that, I am amazingly chipper, about life in general. Ann’s departure might even be a good thing for me, considering I am now seeking out other freshmen more deeply than I ever would have if she had always been there for me to lean on. There are some lovely girls in this house, and I feel privileged to be one of them. I am probably going to the movies with two of my favorites this Sat. night. There is a lovely girl from Oklahoma* (won one of the regional scholarships) who paints all the time with me in art. She’s a dear.
Love everybody. You specially! –
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Friday 19 January 1951*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Friday –
Dear Mother –
It is now 11 and I have just taken a hot bath and am ready to turn in. I slept till about 10 this morning, and after French, Botany & lunch I spent from 2-6 and 7-10 in the art studio doing this week’s work. Tonight it was really fun. There were about four or five of us, and Bessie (the girl from Okla.) brought her portable with her, so we had Strauss waltzes while we worked. I am doing a big painting in flat areas (like the one of mary) of two women sitting over a round table and eating. I am having the time of my life doing it. Tomorrow night I will probably go on a blind date* to the University of Massachusetts – Sunday, all of Monday except for 3 hours of classes, and all of Tuesday I will devote to studying French. Got a stiff little postcard from Warren in response to my news about the $100 – not even a word of congratulations!!!! Oh well –
XX
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Sunday 21 January 1951*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Sunday 10:30
Dear Mum –
Well, I am taking my usual Sunday morning relaxation period till lunch and sitting curled up in my room jotting down a few things in that notebook of mine – I don’t write in it especially often, but when I do I go to town. Since August I’ve written about 60 pages (only 400 more to go.) It helps so much to see what you thought about a month ago – a year ago. For the memory is such a feeble thing – and blurs and distorts past impressions. It’s one thing to reason out my reactions in the light of the present, and quite another to read how I felt then. Last night I went to a fraternity party at the U. of. Mass. It was amusing, for the enjoyment of liquor & girls was present as at Amherst, of course, but on a bleaker and more obvious scale. It is one level of society to get plushily tight on highballs and maraschino cherries and another to get “stewed” on beer and greasy potato chips. Ruth will have fun there I hope. If you live there you can pick your own sort of person. I’ll see you in three days. Love your letters
Love,
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Sunday 21 January 1951*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Sunday P.M.
Dear Mum –
This is certainly a January thaw.– After a sickish gray foggy morning the sun at last came out around noon and a viscious wind is whipping the sky into a white-and-blue froth and scraping clear lines of sun and shadow across the frozen campus. I took a walk before dinner with Marcia Brown – who is the dearest girl. She is so alive, and we were shouting out our opinions about life while striding along into the bitter wind and antiseptic sunlight. So I came back to a chicken & mashed potato dinner. Sat at Mrs. Shakespeare’s table as she had a Unitarian minister for a guest – there are loads of Unitarians in the house. – We had a lovely meal, eating in the white-woodwork and white-linen atmosphere. I do love living here – On to French. – Bye for now
Love,
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 29 January 1951*
ALS, Indiana University
Dear Mummy –
Thank you for putting up with me for 4 and a half days – for feeding me good meals, baking me my favorite desserts, buying me perfume and stockings, letting me sleep late, keeping the house quiet and a hundred other thoughtful little favors –
Love –
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Tuesday 30 January 1951*
ALS with envelope,
Indiana University
Tuesday AM
Dear Mum –
It is now 9 A.M., and after two donuts, orange juice, rhubarb, milk, and two cups of coffee, I am ready to face the world. I am going to the libe now, for four hours of history.
I really am glad that I stayed home for four days. I feel so rested and “ready for work”. It is so lovely out that it makes my heart ache – I hate to shut myself up in a carrell. Let’s hope it’s nice this weekend.
The ride up was without event – Got here at 5 past 6, and luckily supper wasn’t till 10 past. Hope you got the telegram all right. (taxi = 60¢ for a two minute ride.)
Don’t forget to send up the pictures – I hope one is good, ’cause I forgot to take the one from my scrapbook – copied my expenses for you –
Love,
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Wednesday 31 January 1951*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Wednesday night
Dear Mum –
Got your cheerful letter this morning just before I left for my Botany exam along with a long letter from Ann Davidow. I will bring it home when I come in spring – and you will see from it what a dear friend I might have had. Already she is wishing that she had come back. I stayed in the library from 9-1 and 2-6 yesterday just outlining the french empire – and I have so much more to learn & do. All I did for Botany was spend last evening and an hour this morning glancing over what I did at home. I didn’t even need to do that. The questions were the same type as usual “why, when a cow is turned out in a fresh spring pasture, does it’s butter become deeper yellow?” Now I ask you if that isn’t laughable. I washed my hair tonight, as it’s the only chance I’ll have. As it has snowed all day I hope I will be going this weekend. I have been having trouble getting to sleep – my eyes are so sore from 10 hours solid reading a day! I guess I’ll take sleeping pills till after exams are over
Love you
XX
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 1 February 1951*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Thurs. night
Dear Mum –
It is now just after supper, and in 24 short hours I will either have hung myself with typewriter ribbon or joined the A. Anonymous Society. I have
a horrible feeling of tension and pressure, and as soon as I look at a general question, all the hundred Philips and Johns and Henries and Charlies of the various Empires promptly shuffle themselves around maliciously in my head, while dates and trends leak out like water from a seive. To top it off, Bob called tonight and said he couldn’t get the car because of the weather, so he’ll have to hitchhike to Brattleboro himself, since he has no way of getting me. I hadn’t realized how much I had counted on a weekend out-of-doors until I felt the let down after hanging up. Oh, well, I will devote the weekend to rest and the charming company of females for which I have been starving so long. I hope I don’t sound too bitter, but I would have liked to have something to frost the mudpie of this damn exam. I just know the questions will involve some obscure angle I never studied. Wish me luck.
XXXXX
Love,
Sivvy
TO Ann Davidow-Goodman
Saturday 3 February 1951*
ALS, Smith College
Dearest Ann –
After feeling rather bereft at not getting mail for days and days, your lovely plump letter arrived. Although the way you write brings home to me how much I’ve lost, I still love hearing from you and I love writing to you. It’s funny – but the two people I spill over most to are now both writing irretrievably from Illinois.
There is so much to tell you, but I had to wait until exams were over before I really could feel the freedom necessary to write the way I want to.
Now about a few items of news you wanted. Eddie is still writing,* but as I told you perhaps, he has finally got another girl – Rita, is the name. I am afraid that the beloved Eddie I once adored is disintegrating. It’s sad, but there are times when I have to smile a bit wistfully at some of his pearls of philosophy, because the hard edges of his environment and experience are beginning to show. For one thing, he has quit college (Roosevelt) to work selling shirts in Marshall Field. However, he is going back to RC the second semester to finish up last year’s work which he threw up to live with the femme fatale – Bobbe. Although he blithely told me how fascinating it was to work at odd jobs (the four boys in the apartment had a total of twenty odd jobs in a six month period), I have a strong feeling that it is hard for him to toss it off so carelessly now that he is getting older. He also mentioned (you would love this) that he was afraid of the consequences of meeting me (i.e. going to Springfield) because “two people of such sensitive & emotional natures”* would no doubt get hopelessly involved – and he actually confessed he would fall for me and there was no solution since the three-date-a-week angle would be tantalizing and since marriage and any other reasonably fulfilling solution (hinting delicately that I would not live with him) were impossible at my tender age. You can imagine that made me feel rather good inside. It’s pretty sad when a girl has to rely on typewritten words from a guy she’s never met (and no doubt would not get along with if she did) to send a little shiver of excitement and tenderness up her spine. Shows how much she needs affection – or something.
As for my three dimensional males. For my own enlightenment, as well as yours, I shall review the situation concisely. (As if I could ever be concise!)
I had a date with Guy the 1st week I came back from Xmas. I had just got my notice from 17 (the story doesn’t come out till May) and had had supper with Pat O’Neil to celebrate. Any dumb oaf could have seen I was walking on air, but all the way down to the movies in Hamp (we walked) Guy kept up a steady stream of chatter (maybe he’s nervous & wants to make noise?) At any rate, I got more & more teed (sp?) off, and especially so when I found he didn’t even look at me to see my reactions to his statements. (I am egotistical enough that I like to talk about me sometimes too.) So I amused myself by staring at him with exaggerated expressions of emotion as he rattled on oblivious to all my annoyance. (At least the movie was good – All About Eve.) I made the faux pas on the porch steps of telling him in no uncertain terms that I thought fraternities were demoralizing for a large number of reasons (which I made up, mostly.) I guess I was desperately determined to make him have some sort of reaction to me – unpleasant or not. He did. He was supposed to call me after exams. I never heard from him. Damn glad too, I must say.
As for Bill – the veteran. I haven’t heard from him since before Xmas when under the influence of 20 eggnogs he vowed to show me New York on New Year’s Eve. He is now going with a girl from Chapin. I don’t expect to hear from him either.
I went on a blind date to the U. of M. with Sue Slye* after I came back, and met the saddest group of slobs I have yet run across. My date was supposedly the best-looking boy in his dorm – & he was attractive in a weak-dark hair-tonic sort of way. He was one of the those fool Americans who think of girls as a clotheshorse with convenient openings and curved structures for their own naive pleasure . . . no thoughts or anything else. Which illustrates one of my pet theories that I picked up from some essay or other: The American male does not think of woman as a friend and companion (the mature outlook) but childishly as a combination of mother and sweetheart.
While I’m throwing out bits of wisdom, get this: (I made it up myself whee!) The difference between Amherst & the U. of M. is: at both places the boys go in for the same things in a big way (girls & gin) but at Amherst you get stoned on a cocktail with a cherry in it in a plush fraternity bedroom, while at the U. of M. you get klobbered on beer and greasy potato chips. (A small technical difference, to be sure, but all the space between the multimillionaire who becomes inebreated (sp?) in his libr’y under the moose-head to the bum who gets picked up from the gutter to spend the night in the town cell.)
I broke up with Bob (U. of N.H. – remember?) Rather finally at Xmas. He was sick – especially about the war – and thought he could make me bolster him up as usual. Unfortunately I like the bolstering to be mutual, and as I was feeling horribly low all Xmas vacation, I told him I hated everyone, didn’t give a damn about anyone except myself, and had been attacked by a veteran, all of which was subconsciously calculated to make him sick. He was. And I didn’t give a darn. I have not been emotionally involved for almost a year – since August & Emile. I am beginning to see how you can ignore sex if you aren’t being excited by one of the opposite (sex.) I have a strange feeling I told you about Bob before?
So here I am. There is but one male on the horizon that hasn’t run in the opposite direction or been sent packing. His name is Bob Humphrey & he goes to R.P. I. I like him for some obscure reason. I had a blind date with him Thanksgiving and was supposed to go out with him New Year’s Eve. I went home last weekend for four days (supposedly to rest & study) and Bob came over & kept me in hysterics for three hours. That is a rather hard job, but his New England drawl & delightful sense of humor brought me up to a gay state I haven’t been in for ages. As mother said afterwards, she hadn’t heard me laugh for six months. He is 6'5" and rather rugged – loves to ski and can’t write a letter for the life of him, so I am determined to learn to ski (you know how I can’t do things other people do!) He’s the sort of guy I’d like now – I’d never get emotionally involved, yet he’s a nice man to have around the house.
After my rambling on for pages about my males (what is duller than another girl’s love [ha!] life?) you are asleep, no doubt.
This letter is reaching huge proportions. – But one parting shot!
It’s the funniest thing – remember how much you thought of Marcia Brown? Well I am now sitting in her aunt’s cosy living room in Francestown, N.H., and writing while she does her History. I have somehow gotten to know her better, and find her one of the most thoroughly delightful people I’ve ever run across. I can only admire her hopelessly, feeling that as soon as she gets to know me better, she’ll run too. – I don’t feel I’ve anything to offer her in the way of personality or ideas. She is so adorably logical & intelligent – I just gape. So I will close now – write about life. (I wish to hell you’d get a tutor, or make up a course or two & come back. – We’d all love it if you would – a
nd I know you could do it.)
Oh well – I’ll shut my large and egocentric mouth.
All my love,
Sylvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Saturday 3 February 1951*
ALS with envelope,
Indiana University
Saturday
Dear Mother –
No doubt you are wondering what I am doing with my little self during this free weekend after Bob escaped sans me to Brattleboro. Well, I am actually glad he did, because I am having one of the loveliest times I’ve had all year. I left right after the history exam yesterday with Marcia Brown and her mother for Francistown New Hampshire to visit “Aunt”* – one of the most delightful people I’ve met in a long time – with a history that involves marrying and divorcing a chilly old English naval commander, and then a seabee in Bermuda, and finally leaving him in Texas and establishing her self and her three children in a delightful white new England house up here. The only time that I could compare to it was the time I went up to Colerain with the Powleys* – the same snowy bleak views and cosy interior. All the way up it was like driving in the bleak wilds of Russia, still, black, with pines and stars and no light anywhere – just the headlights chiseling a tunnel in to the dry ice air ahead. We talked about everything from what we wrote in the exam to what is the line between heredity & environment to how horrible a fate television is for children. We stopped somewhere when a diner jumped out of the dark at us and brought back a little feeling in our numb veins with coffee and a club sandwich. On again, through Peterboro and finally we arrived at “Aunt’s.” She is a dear, and I love the way the house is decorated – one of those set ups that appeals to my Puritan nature – a very striking arrangement of dark gray floor, white-simple walls, yummy dusty green wood work, dusty rose curtains, very straight and clean-cut, and a lovely thick gray rug on the floor with dull pewter on the mantel – a low bookcase, cosy chairs, and portraits hung all around the simple walls. (Aunt Harriet can certainly catch the spirit of some of the new Englander’s around here in her charcoal sketches.)