by Sylvia Plath
Saturday night I went to the early showing of “Jour de Fête”* at the college auditorium. It wasn’t more than mildly amusing, but we were all so tired that we laughed hysterically. A good night’s sleep last night did wonders for me psychologically. Mary Bonneville’s (my senior roommate) mother – a homespun schoolteacher of first grade in Pittsfield – took us out to Jack August’s for a great seafood dinner. I must take you there! Nothing but seafood in a great atmosphere – red-checked tablecloths and lobster things hanging everywhere: everything from shrimp cocktail, hot clam juice, lobsters, oysters, swordfish, smelts, etc – all served with french fries & cole slaw.
Our house has a lot of really interesting girls in it – I am now sitting in the room of a Jewish girl who lives in Greenich (sp?) Village along with* a Negro girl from Washington* who has a perpetual “black eye” because of some sort of capillary bleeding . . . really fun.
Keep up the activities – it’ll look good on your record to have an “all round” program – you know how important the rounded (bullet-head) individual is these days.
Glad you heard from Ann and Cynthia* – use my policy of being nice and honest (well, mostly) with everybody – also, why not drop a line to Judy H? Never hurts.
Jim McNealy asked me to come to the Yale-Brown game next weekend but I refused for many reasons – it just didn’t seem worth the money & time & resulting hard work I’d have to do to make up for it.
I’ve just been reading a rather serious historical tome titled “From Beowulf to Virginia Woolf”* – and I quote: “Later, William established the Futile System, with its intricate relationships between lord, vessel, serf, and villain. His greatest contribution was The Guilt System . . . A medevil organization designed to encourage arts and graft . . . ”
Pox vobiscum.
-Muddle Latin Proverb*
Don’t say I never loved you –
XXX
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Sunday 5 October 1952*
TLS with envelope, written on
Smith College letterhead,
Indiana University
Sunday afternoon
Dear Mother . . . .
Wow! Speak of appropriate psychological moments for getting unexpected good news, this was one. I wandered lazily downstairs just before lunch today and glanced casually in my mailbox. Two letters from you. I opened the little one first,* looked at it puzzled for a few minutes before it suddenly dawned on me what the contents were. I never even cherished the smallest hope of getting one of the third prizes* this year . . . as you know, I figured out the relative deadline for their decision by my other story, and had long since given up thinking about it.
This news makes me feel that I am maybe not destined to deteriorate after all. I have been too busy getting used to the routine of the house and doing the pile of beginning work on press board to really plunge into my studies, and as a result I have been feeling very far behind and scared about my courses. Sort of a beginning paralysis. My first writing assignment I just handed in was three very poor and stiff descriptions that I felt extremely sterile and mentally blocked while doing. But I feel that after I get academically set this coming week I will again have my self-confidence back. I never realized how important doing well in studies was to me until I got behind this last busy week. So if my letters come not too often for the first while, forgive me, and think that I am getting a lot of work done.
The girls in the house are very friendly, and I only have to realize that getting to know sixty girls by more than their names is a pleasant occupation requiring a year or more . . . not to be mastered in one day. I know, even while numbed and scared inside by this mass of newness, that it is the best thing that ever happened to me, and I will be joyous and elated about it when I can view it in perspective. The first week I couldn’t, to be trite, see the forest for the trees.
Your last big morale building letter was most appreciated. You are the most wonderful mummy that a girl ever had, and I only hope I can continue to lay more laurels at your feet. Warren and I both love you and admire you more than anybody in the world for all you have done for us all our lives. For it is you who has given us the heredity and the incentive to be mentally ambitious. Thank you a million times!
Amusing notes: Bob Cochran called me up from Hanover the other night asking me to come up for a dance and football game October 18. Needless to say I told him a fond no . . . imagine me going to a prep school dance . . . the money lost didn’t appall me as much as the valuable study time! Also, Jim McNeely asked me to Yale again that weekend. I may decide to go unless I think up a really good excuse. He is fun, but I am finding myself amazingly sober as far as going away is concerned.
Last night I went to dinner at Marty’s again, and spent a lovely evening talking companionably with her and Mike . . . I love those two, and felt I really got to know Mike better for the first time. He is a wonderfully perceptive and delightful boy. Also went for a walk in the country with Ann Goodkind . . . a sophomore friend of mine in Haven House . . . it was unbearably beautiful out.
Dick comes up next weekend, so I will be slaving till then.
Lots of love . . . .
your adoring daughter
Sivvy
So your old favorite idea “Heather-birds Eyebrows” worked out after all! I am amazed, but strange are the ways of the world . . . especially publishing. I, too, had thought “Brief Encounter” was the best bet. Think of all the coincidence that combined to get me this . . . the sorority invitation and the sinus infection . . . how intriguing!
xxx
s.
P.S. I think it was the subject and unfortunately not the style which won me this. “Den of Lions” was the opposite – “style” – & not too much more than one incident.
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Friday 10 October 1952*
TLS with envelope,
Indiana University
Friday night
Dear mother . . .
Much thanks for your wonderful letter, and the comfortable check. I will cash it here because I have just about run out of ready money. Please, do deposit the beautiful $200 check at home in my bank . . . and save the precious stub for my scrapbook.* To answer a few of your questions: I’ve gotten all the packages, and am now wearing the new pajamas, which fit well and are warm, if not glamorous. Also, our room is just adorable now that we have fixed it . . . three great windows, yellow spreads and dark green furnishings, white curtains, and a harmonizing modern art picture that we’re renting from the college museum for the year. Mary is working out beautifully, and we get along really well . . . . most of our work is done away from the room, so we don’t see too much of each other during the day, but she is a very sweet girl, in her own way, even though I can’t share myself with her to the great depths I did with Marcia. We do have fun together, though, and I am constantly glad that I decided to have a roommate.
I have written a thank-you and sent a snapshot to Seventeen. That magazine has really been awfully good to me, and I am really aghast at this last fling of mine. I still can’t believe it is true, and I have completely forgotten the plot and detail of my story! I was most interested to hear your quotes . . . . it was as if someone else had written it.
Last Sunday night I went to Joe’s, a colorful local beer and pizza place with red-checked tablecloths and a gay atmosphere, with Marty, Mike, and Charlie Gardner,* a nice friend of theirs who spent a post-grad year in England with Mike and is an English major at Trinity. I spent a delightful few hours of conversation and the four of us had a most congenial evening
Press Board averages at least two hours of time six days a week, but I’d much rather have to work at something I love for money tthan at some of the dull routine library and babysitting and mail delivery jobs that the other girls in the house do. The Daily News is printing more news than last year, and it is very encouraging to see some of the feature stori
es I write get full picture spreads.* I should earn over fifty dollars from it this year.
The house is really lovely . . . very attractively decorated downstairs and closer to everything. The girls are all wonderful . . . they work, get good marks in general, and hold extracurricular offices. The is a delightful atmosphere of economy, and everyone understands the words, “I can’t, I’m broke.” We as a house, subscribe to excellent magazines like the Atlantic, SRL, (Newsweek and Life.) We work more, to be sure, but one quickly gets used to it. My lunch waitressing job takes from 12.30 to 2 each day, including lunch, which I eat before serving, so it’s not overwhelming, and our formal waitressing is good practice. I have an hour a week also to be on watch duty, and every two or three weeks, a few extra weekend hours added, as the jobs then rotate.
I am renewing old friends, the last leaves, so many fine girls being abroad, and have met a few new girls. I shall probably take my New York trip to visit Jan Salter during midyear exams, as my exam is the last day, and I can afford a few days away at the beginning of the period, which will be the end of January . . . a good time to get theater tickets, see Greenwich Village, and so on.
So far Honor Board hasn’t sent me a word, so I’ve been gratful for a respite in that regard. Smith Review is not at all demanding as we have all the material, but are desperately asking for subscriptions so we can finance it . . . it is in dire debt.
Tomorrow Dick will come in the afternoon, and my casual plans for the weekend include supper with Dee Neuberg,* a brillan soph in our house, and her date, at some informal spot . . . an liesurely evening of conversation or walking if it is nice . . . Sunday breakfast at Browns, and visiting other friends on campus, with dinner at Lawrence.
Our housemother this year is a strange, pathetic scatterbrained woman . . . a direct change from the Captain Queegish Miss Rae they had last year . . . who was completely illogical and ruled by fear and meanness. Her influence and indoctrination are amusingly obvious for us new members.
I may very well come home Saturday the 25th for a weekend . . . and it will be good to get away and be frivolous and gay again . . . I have felt like a virtuous stoic refusing three weekends, but am sure it was the wisest choice, both for my sanity and my health.
Perry and Charlotte Kennedy were my supper guests here wednesday, Mountain day. Perry is falling in love again, and this time I can predict it is for good. The two of them are perfectly matched . . . both very sweet and idealistic and basically shy and understanding. I am beginning to feel like Cupid incarnate.
It grows late . . . .
lots of love . . .
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Wednesday 15 October 1952*
ALS (postcard),* Indiana University
Wednesday
Dear Mother . . .
Your lovely letter today was most welcome – the enclosed note was from a girl in Canada, an aspiring writer, who wanted to correspond with an “author.” I recall a similar note from Hong Kong last year – but simply don’t have time to get chummy with all my readers. I am just beginning to realize the “position & stands” a “writer” must take – and the responsibility: today I got a letter with the return address: Blodgett, Lynn – and it started by saying they had read my story. Aghast, I had visions of law courts & suits for slander. Luckily I had strength to read on & discover that it was the Mlle not 17 story they meant! Whew! As you have heard, Dick’s weekend here was lovely, restful & very good for me – I hadn’t exercised outdoors since getting here. I must write Cantors – and hope to see them on Thanksgiving – they have been so good to me. This weekend I will spend working on papers and reading Chaucer: I really love Chaucer, now that I can read along more rapidly – his stories are as fascinating as poetic fairy tales & as spicy as Boccaccio* – but the reading required is phenomenal – at least 20 hours a week. Glad to hear Warren is having fun. I may go straight to Med school Sat. to save time – not sure now.
Love to all –
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 20 October 1952*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Monday –
Dear Mother –
Well, the week is underway, and it is a case of living till Saturday – the ride back yesterday was fine & I got here just in time for supper – Perry & Charlotte came over in the evening (ironically two hours after Dick left) & talked a while. Then I stayed up till 12:30 on late watch. Today I wrote my Chaucer paper – tomorrow it will be my Creative Writing, and Wed. my science, in which I am behind as yet. In spite of my work, I have decided to go to Amherst for the Community Chest Rehersal tomorrow night – the performance is Nov. 7 & 8,* but if I don’t like the deal I can back out early – I am also thinking of being frivolous & going to Princeton on Nov. 1 with Rodger Decker* – a friend of Phil Brawner’s whom I met this summer. (Phil is taking Mary Ann Hemry,* by the way.) I think it would do me good to go somewhere new again & have to pull my self together to make a good impression – so if I decide to go, I’ll go shopping this Saturday for a few of those items I need. My first inclination is to hibernate completely, so lest I become like our little grind we met at Filene’s* 2 years ago, I will force myself out of my numb little hole and see if I surprise myself by having some fun
Love you muchly
XXX
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Friday 24 October 1952*
ALS with envelope written on
Smith College letterhead,
Indiana University
Friday 8:15 pm
Dear Mother –
Your lovely long letter came today with the very generous enclosure merci beaucoup! I am sitting comfortably ensconced in my armchair drying my hair, eating the last of the lovely apples I brought up with me, and treating myself to the illusion that, at least for half an hour, I have nothing to do but unwind the tension I’ve built up all week. Monday I wrote my Chaucer paper, Tuesday, my English paper, Wednesday and Thursday I rushed around to classes, slaved on Press Board & tried to cram in studying for my Science written this morning – to top it off we had a house meeting from 10:15 to 12:30 last night, so I was pretty beat this a.m., not having spent much time sleeping – I will refrain from commenting on the written till I get it back. At least I feel the 1st written has exorcised the rebellious mental block I had about taking science this year.
This afternoon I spent wandering through all the stores downtown trying on everything from shoes to black fitted coats. I didn’t like any of the coats quite well enough to get one (I am very particular) but I think I can eventually get quite a nice one for not more than $80. The only difficulty will be trying to get one a suit will fit under! I did buy my first pair of high heels for $10 – a lovely black-suede that had done wonders for my sense of chic. They are the lowest type of French heel – very nice –
I have decided to give up the Amherst show – as the rehearsal schedule was much too rough – but plan to leave for Princeton next Friday for heaven knows what sort of a time. The train trip takes 5 hours and costs $15 (I’ll use your money for it –) but I feel I should try it anyway. Phil evidently recommended me highly to Roger Decker (my date) as a lot of fun – and they say the college is beautiful so even if Roger is the type one just banters with, I should get rejuvenated somehow.
Tomorrow I wanted to go hear Stevenson in Springfield, but I have so much to do in Chaucer – plus a huge feature to write* for Press Board – plus writing a Hallowe’en skit for the house, that I just don’t think I’ll be able to make it. Really, I can’t see why you don’t vote for him. Do you think the change of administration, which of course is partially desirable if only to make the opposition party m
ore responsible – is worth the power it will give to the red-witch hunts of MacCarthy, the southern snobbery of Jenner,* the reactionary foreign policy of Taft???* No, it is not. A “clean sweep” is a good slogan, but I fear the present administration is the lesser of two enigmatic dangers. Stevenson will be a “change”, himself – and his approach to the tidelands oil, Civil Rights and so on are so sound & intelligent – while Eisenhower* would seem to be open to influence and power of his unfortunate colleagues. Oh, I wish I were old enough to vote for Stevenson!
Tomorrow night I plan to go see “Rashomon”* at Sage Hall with some of the girls from Haven House. Monday night Marcia has asked me over for supper – those are the bright notes in the immediate future. My x-ray is scheduled for monday also, by the way.
Thanks again for the check & stamps.
XXXX
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Sunday 26 October 1952*
ALS (postcard),* Indiana University
Sunday a.m.
Dear Mummy . . .
What a lovely mummy you are! The beautiful cake arrived yesterday afternoon, and I had a little party of the 10 girls who were in the house from 9:30-11 p.m. – who had a lot of fun & everybody praised the cake highly – how did you ever make it heart shaped! And the colors perfectly matched our room – so pretty! I saw “Rashomon” last night with Charlotte Kennedy. Also, to my surprise, a beautiful pen-and-ink sketch arrived from Ilo – haven’t heard from him in a year! I was so touched that he remembered my birthday – he signed it “Your sentimental old friend.” Such a dear! I was most pleased to get Aunt Hazel’s gift & have written her already. This week is crammed to the gills with work – I still plan to go to Princeton, though. It is a sort of test case – have also heard twice from Dick.* Love to you all & thanks for remembering my Day so generously.
XXX
Sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 27 October 1952
ALS (postcard), Indiana University