by Sylvia Plath
“The same,” he replied.
That settled, he asked me to a dance at the U. of M. Saturday. I refused, not wanting to stay out late with 3 writtens the next week, but arranged to go out to lunch with him Saturday afternoon & see the horticultural show over there.* Thus I only involve myself for a few short hours, and get a good break in study time. (Course I could have flunked out & gone to Princeton. Imagine how awful I’d have felt if I accepted Constantine & found later that I had 3 writtens to cope with instead of one!)
Eddie Cohen may come out again Xmas vacation,* & said he had no desire to repeat our last meeting, but would like to say hello if I’d let him. Thought I’d invite him to one meal at least to show him N. Englanders aren’t all cold at heart.
Gord Stanway, the Canadian, wants a picture of me. Says, and I quote, “I was just saying the other day to my mother what a lovely place New England would be in the fall. I would like to get some land down there by the ocean – I am quite serious about it.”
Well, there’s my chance – travel to the foreign plants of Colg-Palmolive, & have a summer mansion overlooking the sea. Jolly, wot?
Ilo sent me a beautiful framed pen-and-ink sketch today which I’ll hang in my room. Unfortunately the glass broke, but it looks the same. Odd coincidence, since I just wrote the story about him* which is due tomorrow. It’s uncanny – I hadn’t heard for months, then this, mental telepathy, mebbe.
Also, Eddie is sending me a prose-poem by Nelson Algren called Chicago: City on the make.* It is autographed specially to me, as Eddie met the poet one night on the streets of Chi. Ah, me!
News office loved my tryout articles – used my lecture cover as basis for correspondents report. Love Press Board dearly.
Tonight I hear Buckley.* Wish I’d read book & criticisms, but I’ll take notes on his speech anyhow.
Eddie made a terrifically good comment on Constantine – to the point, admirably so: “He reminds me, in a vague way, of someone I know. I dunno, some romantic type critter I run into now & again who discusses love & literature & atomic power with equal glibness & appears and disappears with the suddenness of Mephistopheles.”
Not bad for a thumbnail sketch.
If I can only swing all 3 courses into line this weekend, I’ll live to see you Nov. 11 or thereabouts.
Only about 3000 thank-you notes to write, so I write you first.
Loved every minute of this weekend,
your hectic Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Friday 2 November 1951*
TLS, Smith College
Dear mother . . .
Just a very quick note on my wonderful typewriter to tell you that several days here have breezed by since last I was home, and that in less than three weeks I’ll be seeing you again. I still have a pile of thank-you notes to catch up on, but hope to do them before the weekend. I’m going to high mass, which you will be glad to hear, in preparation for the written next Thursday. As you know, this weekend will be spent in rabid study, since I have that frightening English written Tuesday, the equally ominous Government written Wednesday, and the aforesaid Religion on Thursday. As you may imagine, I will rejoice to get the whole mess over with. By the way, I was amazed to get a straight A on my Religion written on Judaism. Good marks always give me the impetus to study much harder.
Heard Buckley, as I told you. Ask Dick for details. I wrote him about ten pages of vindictive review. Eddie’s gift arrived: a lovely thin book autographed for me for “success in my writing career” from the author . . . . a prize possession as far as I’m concerned.
I’m enclosing a sonnet composed when I should have been reading the mass. It’s supposed to be likening the mind to a collection of minute mechanisms, trivial and smooth-functioning when in operation, but absurd and disjointed when taken apart. In other words, the mind as a wastebasket of fragmentary knowledge, things to do, dates to remember, details, and trifling thoughts. The “idiot bird” is to further the analogy of clock-work, being the cuckoo in said mechanism. See what you can derive from this chaos.
I won’t be writing more than an occasional postcard for a week now, by the way, but let me know if you can come up with the O’Neils.*
Love,
Sivvy
SONNET*
All right, let’s say you could take a skull and break it
The way you’d crack a clock; you’d crush the bone
Between steel palms of inclination, take it,
Observing the wreck of metal and rare stone.
This was a woman: her loves and stratagems
Betrayed in mute geometry of broken
Cogs and disks, inane mechanic whims,
And idle coils of jargon yet unspoken.
Not man nor demigod could put together
The scraps of rusted reverie, the wheels
Of notched tin platitudes concerning weather,
Perfume, politics, and fixed ideals.
The idiot bird leaps up and drunken leans
To chirp the hour in lunatic thirteens.
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Saturday 3 November 1951*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Saturday 4 pm
Dear mum –
Just got back from my 3 hour “break” with the mysterious Ed Nelson. I sure go for queer characters – he’s shorter than I, homely, with a lovely tenor voice and a future in poultry genetics, of all things. I spend a rainy three hours having lunch with him, tracking through stock yards, patting dear baby cows, young colts and kittens. Never came so close to animal life – really fun! The horticulture show was breathtaking, and Mr. Nelson bought me a little corsage. The trip was, as far as I’m concerned, a case of materialistic acumen on my part. I saw Ruthie for a lovely chat, while Edor dociley waited below – also, I’ve got a ride home with him on Thanksgiving in his little red Crosley. Not bad, if I do say, much cheaper and quicker than bus. It is now snowing into slush, and I must plunge into my week of intensive study without much more ado. Just pray I live through next week. Eric is coming next Sat. night. Whoopee! Will I see you?
XX
Siv
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 8 November 1951*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Thursday 6 pm
Dear Mum!
Whee! I’m the happiest girl in the world. I just got through 3 horrible consecutive writtens, and haven’t felt human for a whole week. What with cramming my head with charts & data all last weekend and up to 12 every night till now. Marcia & I picked out THE DRESS for me this afternoon. Yup! It’s a basic, beautiful Charcoal gray jersey that you can do anything with – at one of the best simplicity shops in town – only $23!!! It’ll last me all my life. Wait till you see it. Also, if you want a shock, buy several issues of the Nov. 6 & 7 Monitor* & look guess where. I thought I should emphasize art & writing “ability” for our Elks* friends. So I sacrificed my mountain day in writing & sketching what you see before you.
XX
Siv
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Tuesday 13 November 1951*
TLS with envelope,
Indiana University
Dear mother.
After nine on a Tuesday night it is, and in spite of the fact that I owe ten people letters, I must needs talk to my favorite human beings for a little while. Writtens are over until the after-vacation seige in early December. I will briefly summarize the events of the past days.
A check of fifteen dollars arrived from the Monitor, which generosity prompted me to buy a beautiful pair of red leather pumps to go with my new dress . . . for $8.95. I also bought a matching lipstick and a red belt. I looked very nice when Eric came Saturday.
Friday night I took Louise Giesey to our Unitarian Young people’s meeting where we heard and discussed the records of T. S. Eliot’s “Cocktail Party.”*
A provocative evening, as you may imagine.
Saturday morning I shopped. Eric and his friend arrived in the middle of a clear cold afternoon. We took a walk around campus and had a delightful dinner at Rahar’s. After which we went to free movies at Sage Hall* to see O’Niel’s “Long Voyage Home” and “Anna Christie”* starring none other than the great Greta Garbo. They were both oldies, but extremely interesting, if over dramatized. Rahar’s again, with dancing. Got a letter from Eric today saying what a nice time he had.
Sunday I wrote an essay for English on a nebulous walk down a street at night.* I realized with horror today that it was much too seamy to pass in, and so have composed another one about my summer job* on the typewriter tonight. Much more concrete and sarcastic.
I’m enclosing another sonnet about the mechanical age as versus the natural world.* The green and red lights of traffic signals are equated to the poetic symbols of jade and garnet. The recurring images of neon lights and cars in the first verse are meant to express the bright artificial mechanism of the twentieth century world. The wind, symbolizing nature, is shut out from the mechanical cruel city. Wistful imagination is excluded by scornful logic. The naturalness of the pagan girl in sunlight, the kings and dragon, express again the theme of nature and imagination. The last two lines sum up the whole. Note the new rhymes in my experience . . . “garnet” and “car yet”, “olives” and “all gives” . . . more attempts to get away from being continually hackneyed.
Can’t believe I see you in ONLY ONE WEEK.
All my love,
Sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Saturday 17 November 1951*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Sat. am.
Dear mum –
This purports to be a relatively quiet weekend – no date, and Marcia is off to dartmouth. I have begun to catch up on sleep and to keep on working. By the way, among the many things I must try to do over vacation is write a 1500 word paper on Unitarianism,* emphasizing history, beliefs, customs. Any books or pamphlets you can line up for me on the subject will be much appreciated. Only got B+ on my last Religion written. I plan to go out with Dick Wed. night – to a party at HMS. Edor hasn’t called yet, so I hope I still get a ride. Funniest thing: While covering Far Eastern lecture* for press Board, on International Students Day, a good looking blonde guy* sat down by me (of all the 300 other females – what luck.) Turned out he came over from Frankfurt 7 weeks ago – goes to Yale Law. We had ice cream & talked.
XXX
Sivvy
TO Hans-Joachim Neupert
Saturday 17 November 1951
TLS (photocopy), Smith College
Saturday, November
17
Dear Hans . . .
Again I am back at Smith College, well in the middle of my second year. It is already late autumn, and as you asked, I am writing before the first snow falls. The air is cold and thick with clouds, and the leaves are long fallen. From the window of my room I can see the distant hills through the bare trees, a smoke-purple in the distance. I dread the coming winter in a way . . . because there will be so many months of sleet and mud before the spring.
I am now nineteen, and suddenly I am struck by the fact that I have been living for almost twenty years. Does that not sound like a venerable old age? And then I wonder what I have been doing with my life, and whether I will live out my days in normal sequence, or whether my brother, and all the boys I know will be killed, and the land destroyed. I sometimes wish that I had been born in some obscure corner of the world . . . In Iceland, perhaps, or some South Sea Island, where one could live a normal life without being part of the great insane world struggles.
Believe me, most of the people in America don’t want war. Especially the young people are still hoping that something will happen, that something will be done to avert crises. What is the opinion of your young German friends of the battle going on in Korea? Whose side do they take? I am disgusted with the “truce” talks, which have been getting nowhere. All they do is quibble over artificial boundaries and dirty, bomb blasted soil. If people could only realize that it is not “saving face” that matters, but only saving lives. I am interested to hear the German opinions of the American tactics. I should not imagine that they are very pleased with us, or with the way things are going. I do want to know how the sentiment is in Germany, and you are the person best equipped to tell me at first hand. The newspapers are so impersonal . . . one never knows what to believe in them. Let me know also what plans there are for unification of Germany. Do you talk about it much? How is the government in your zone run? There are so many things that I am curious about, Hans. Sometimes I wish I could talk to you face to face, and have a real conversation.
I think about you often, and wonder how your work is coming. You say you start again schooling for five more years . . . and your practicant work sounded very hard and demanding. Just what exactly will you be learning in the next years? Will you be keeping up with English?
My job this summer taking care of the three little children, age 2, 4, and 6, proved at the same time difficult and enjoyable. The difficult part was that I had to do all sorts of laundry, ironing and cooking as well as caring for the lively and mischievous youngsters. Their parents were extremely wealthy, and did not seem to care too much about how much they saw their children, only as long as they were not too noisy. My room was beautiful, though, with a view of the ocean and a great porch overlooking the lawns which sloped down to the sea. And somehow the ocean gave me great comfort when I felt lonely or tired from the children’s tantrums. I enjoyed it on stormy days when it was gray and forbidding beyond the rainwet windows, and on glittering sunny days, when the blue was so bright that it made me almost want to cry. You know what I mean.
I too am using the typewriter, as you can see, and hope that it will make my printing clearer to you also. If I use it enough, I hope I can write really fast. Practice is all it takes, and it is very convenient, especially in typing papers.
The other night I went to one of the evening lectures here for Press Board, an organization on campus that covers speeches and news for the out of town papers. It was a nasty wet evening, and I felt somewhat weary, sitting in the auditorium full of girls and teachers who had come to brave the weather, when all of a sudden a very nice young man came to sit beside me. He was a young Law student, and had just come over from Germany seven weeks ago, from the Frankfurt area. It was International Students Day at Smith, and foreign students from all over New England had come up to celebrate the day here. It was just chance that made me meet this boy, and I was foolish enough to ask him if he knew you. Now that I think of it, it was a silly thing to do, as Germany is a great big place, and there would be hardly a chance of his knowing you. But I asked him anyway.
Do you have much chance for social life? I was wondering if there were dances and so on even while you are working hard at school to relieve the routine. No doubt your young people are much like ours. I think so, judging from this boy I met.
It is a Saturday night, and I should be doing all the work I have piled up beside me . . . Government, Religion, English literature, Art. But I write to you instead. Outside a clear cold November moon is shining behind the thin black lace design of the naked tree branches . . . very lovely, very nostalgic somehow.
And so I hope to hear from you when you are not busy. Somehow I hope we never stop writing, even if there are long spaces of silence in between our letters, which I hope there won’t be. I like to feel that I have a contact with someone my own age, someone who thinks much as I do about life and the world.
Thank you for being such a delightful correspondent . . .
yours with
best wishes,
Sylvia
TO Marion Freeman
Saturday 17 November 1951*
ALS with envelope,
Smith College
November 18,
Dear Aunt Marion –
You
don’t know how touched I was to hear from you the other day. It was dear of you to take the time to write me about the article in the Monitor, and I did so appreciate it.
Ruthie probably told you that I had a chance to drop over and see her a few Saturdays ago. It was wonderful to see her room and house,* and to have time for a chat. She certainly is growing to be a beautiful young woman, and she looked so happy! I don’t blame her, with her lovely friends and her pretty room with the breath-taking view. I could hardly pull myself away from staring out the window – what gorgeous countryside!
I told Ruthie, and I want to take this opportunity to tell you too, how much I love “Come One, Come All!” The illustrations alone are exquisite, and the book as a whole is an impressive addition to my slowly growing “library.”
I had a chance to meet the friend Ruthie brought home with her, and thought that they must get along quite well – both keen and attractive and full of wit.
Best wishes for a rich, full Thanksgiving holiday. My love to all –
Affectionately,
Sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 26 November 1951*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Monday
Dear Mother –
Trip back last night swift & cramped, but otherwise O.K. We left Wellesley a little after 8 and got here a few minutes before 11. Marcia & I were in bed by 11:30. One of my friends in the house (Betsy Whittemore – the tall girl who helped me make my brown skirt) got engaged over vacation & will get married in June. I was just amazed. She’s my age! The slush makes life even more annoying – what with all the work. Providentially my gym schedule is changed for the better – so next week my time will be well arranged for work at least. Crew MTW at 3 is changed to Individual gym Thursday at 9, Bowling Thu & Fri at 12. Which fills in my end of the week schedule but lightens, thank god, the beginning. Hope the meet Sun was good.