The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1
Page 81
On the other hand, a job in business (be it selling insurance or working on a magazine or for a publishing house) offers more money, probably, and a chance to meet real life situations with a maximum of creative tact and savoir faire . . . but from my experience last June, I discovered that my daily work took all my creativity out of me and replaced it with weariness and a desire to relax over a drink, a dance, a show, or just plain go to bed . . . when I tried to write, I kept thinking: If I want to Get Ahead, I’ll have to turn to my job reports . . . why am I sacrificing valuable time to trying to write . . . ?” I was either too tired or too guilty to write . . . and my job certainly was not the subject for a novel . . .
I find myself in much the same position you are in . . . even when I finally combine a home and children with this hypothetical writing (as Mrs. Moore has done so capably, without sacrificing to either) I will have a certain nucleus of conflict . . .
That is why I am so happy to have this extra year at Smith . . . why I have decided to apply for Harvard Graduate School after 1955, rather than start the 9 to 5 grind so soon, be it at the best publishing house in NYC! I want time, lots more time to mature . . . summer months to travel, to work, to read . . . . to meet like-minded people, to think, and I’m pragmatist enough that I’ll apply for scholarships (I’ve even thought of joining Waves so I’d get on the G.I. Bill!) and live off other benevolent millionaires till I feel ready to support myself by a “regular” job . . . and that won’t be for some time.
I won’t be abstracting myself in the Ivycovered Tower, either . . . I think I get more of the blood-and-guts substance of life in my 3 summer working months than many people get in a year of routine work . . . the advantage of summer jobs being that they are temporary, therefore not trapping and dulling, and the stimulus may provide writing material . . .
I want you to evolve into the best Gordon possible, because I am honestly fond of you . . . and as it impossible to predict in more than hypothetical fashion where we’ll both be individually happiest and most creative, we must hazard shrewdly and with the best of our hopings and doubtings . . .
I don’t see you a Willie Lowman,* but I think insurance demands a high amount of extroversion, pressure, and solicitude for “contacts” no matter how good you are, & perhaps more of these, the better you are . . .
But you know the pitfalls even better than I . . . and raise the utterly important question “What kind of a person will this make me, or what kind of a person will I make of myself if I go into this kind of work?” Here, I think, you have hit upon the ultimate point for consideration, the heart of the onion, or what you will . . .
Me, I want to grow in an upward (that’s where my optimism comes in) dialectic spiral that makes out of thesis and antithesis a kinetic synthesis which in turn becomes a thesis, to be blasted at by new antitheses . . . this is not a placid cowish monolithic way to live, I know, and it’s damn hard to keep whipping yourself out of some comfortable bourgeois complacency . . . but I want to do just that . . . to keep on learning and thinking and feeling intensely even if it hurts like hell . . .
And because I am a woman (or getting to be), I eventually want a guy who feels somewhat the same way, who will grow along beside me in approximately a parallel line, and I want kids to carry on my mortal flesh and some of my mortal philosophy as I go (and this is not to be taken sentimentally) down “rosecrowned into the darkness with unreluctant tread”* . . . the roses being the thorny variety . . .
This all begins to sounds most bellicose and belligerent . . . but I learn more about myself as I talk to you . . . and I have always rated becoming and the horizontal flux over being and the vertical stasis . . .
Hell, Gordon, I could go on forever . . . fortunately I am getting so sleepy I can hardly see . . . and I have to pack . . .
“The solar system tilts, and planets rain
Wild fire: the suitcases are packed again . . . ”*
sometimes, after a spiel like this, I think I could love you a good deal . . . but is it because I know you at all, or because I only think you will understand all this and therefore be a confidante . . . Oh, I don’t know at all at all . . .
a two-dimensional abstract kiss for you nevertheless . . .
Love from your
sylvia
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 8 April 1954*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Thursday 11 a.m.
Dear mother . . .
It seems strange to be unpacked & settled again in my favorite academic world, in my big sunny harvard-crimson, yale-blue room with my hundred lovable books & several best friends (Nan Hunter, Claiborne & Marty) – yesterday was delightful – spring weather & Norm* & Phil were dears! We quoted poetry (some of our own) all the way up – stopped at Amherst to see Ruthie (to make arrangements about our Sat. lunch together) and George Gebauer – the 2 boys carried all my luggage up to my room where we left it, & they treated me to a lobster dinner – we spent the afternoon at Amherst at the apartment of a Spanish professor Norm went to Mexico with last year, sipping cherry wine – then a hotdog supper, goodbye & home to unpack – letter & picture arrived from The Boy, and the feeling is now articulately mutual but local complications are enormous.
xx
S.
(p.s. Please send those postcards I left on my desk!)
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Sunday 11 April 1954
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
April 11, 1954
Dear mother . . .
just a note in the midst of 1000 pages of Melville reading before my exam on Wed a.m. – only got a B on my history exam, but an A- on my Russian paper, so looks like my final grades at this juncture will be a mixture of A’s & B’s – well, just as long as there aren’t any C’s! Heard world-famous guitarist Andres Seg0via here Sat. night* with George after lovely afternoon at Amherst, lunch with Ruthie (who came to George’s with me & stayed for bridge & music all afternoon) – great letter from Gordon in Istanbul* – still have to keep quiet about the Man in house as M. B. plans to ask him up for float night (May 15) not knowing he considers her “dull” & asserts (in writing!) that he “loves me very much!” So I sit & wait till he makes a definite move to see me again – meanwhile enjoying friends – George, Phil, et al. “We also serve.” I’ll be so glad to bike, play tennis & get TAN – am sick of sitting studiously on rear – it’s great to have a balance – more news later – hope you, Warren, Clem & Margo can come up May 15
x
S.
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Wednesday 14 April 1954*
ALS (postcard), Indiana University
Wednesday 10:30 am.
Dear mum . . .
Miraculously enough my wallet was returned today with ALL THE MONEY IN IT!! I am going to send a rose to Mr. Anthony Sabarito immediately, as I am now solvent for the rest of the year! Just got through my Melville exam this a.m. – really enjoyed it – I got quite inspired with my own spontaneous eloquence! glad Warren & Clem were such fun – I love them both. Only one History written to go before finals! Hope you, Clem, Warren & Margo can come up the weekend of May 15-16. Claiborne wants me to be at her wedding here June 7th, so I’ll be home over a week, then drive back – could my next year’s roommate, Nancy Hunter, live with us for that time? Next to Clai & Marty I love her most. By the way, could you send me a tin of Tollhouse or oatmeal cookies to nibble on while studying? I get ravenous reading about the delectable things you concoct with such glee for Warren! Am going out with George again Saturday – most likely we’ll see Leslie Howard in the movie of “Pygmaleon”*
xxx
Sivvy
TO Philip E. McCurdy
Wednesday 14 April 1954*
ALS with envelope, Smith College
Wednesday night – 9 p.m.
Dear Phil . . .
Ah, the blandishing blatant delights of p
ure physical well-being! I sit luxuriously ensconced in my Harvard Crimson* armchair, surrounded by literal stacks of new books, – (still smelling faintly and enticingly of printer’s ink and sawdust – whatever that ineffable new-book-smell is made up of!) Dressed in casual lounging pajamas, freshly warm and 99 44/100% reborn through the benevolent baptism of a hot shower, with a roast-beef dinner digesting benignly somewhere in my lower gut – I sit reveling in leisure. For a change. In a short while I will go to bed – at the unprecedented hour of 10 p.m.!
The reason for this personal pampering is the rigorous week I have just lived through; also, a preparation for the even more rigorous ones to come. Late last night, as I was finishing reading Melville’s “Billy Budd”* and frantically digesting notes for my Big exam at 9 a.m. today, I by chance plucked from my library of largely unread-but-about-to-be-read-this-summer books a paperbound copy of D. H. Lawrence’s dry-titled “Studies in Classical American Literature”* to read the chapters on Melville. Little did I know what bright blustering, cataclysmic confidences I was plunging into – result; I read the little pamphlet from cover-to-cover, underlining & turning down corners in most enthusiastic abandon . . . and staying up injudiciously late.
Hans Kohn,* visiting, I believe, from Columbia, lectured on Henrik Ibsen in my Intellectual History course today, and I’ll never be the same again – it was absolutely explosive – vital – soul-shattering! I was so entranced with the drama and intellectual brilliance of his presentation that I could hardly take my eyes off his face long enough to scribble down notes. In the midst of his vivid description of a young (“how-you-say-it?”) “roué,” he caught me smiling in devilish amusement and leveled an impish finger at me: “Ach, that girl, she knows, she’s had experience!” he chuckled, as I blushed furiously – thinking of your proposed sketch of Ilo!
Anyhow, after the lecture I was so transfigured that I went across the street to buy the collected plays of Ibsen* and read them immediately! Phil, I’m worried – what I’ve got is worse than epilepsy or syphilis! I went to that damn store* and came back having bought TWELVE (12!) books! I got the collected plays of Ibsen, Shaw,* O’Neill,* the Greeks; Fry’s Venus Observed,* Delmore Schwartz’s Vaudeville for a Princess,* Whitman’s Leaves of Grass,* Sterne’s Tristram Shandy* – and simply stacks of others! My bookcases are overflowing – shelves of novels, poetry, plays, with clots of philosophy, sociology & psych. I am a bibliomaniac (with a slight touch of nympho thrown in!)
Last weekend I went to a Religious Center* lecture – you will be surprised at this till I tell you it was on sex; or, more decorously: male-female encounter and subsequent reception (or conception, or contra – as the case may be) – Yale joined us, the main purpose being my meeting Dick Wertz,* a psychic Yale “brother” of my alter ego, Nancy Hunter. The three of us adjourned our discussion to Rahar’s, substituting beer & potato chips for coffee & ice cream, and holding forth passionately on sex, war, and capital punishment. Most stimulating.
Also saw George: brought Ruthie over from the U of Mass & visited with her all afternoon while G. was taking shower. Then we heard Andres Segovia, world-famous guitarist, give a spectacular rendering of classical pieces at Smith – G. had a raging fever & was being beastly, so I sent him home to bed. Also decided I can’t marry a man who is so unreasonable and irritable about women, especially when he is sick (although everybody is privileged to blow off vitriol periodically, one doesn’t have to try to drown innocent bystanders with it!)
This weekend I hope to see a revival of Shaw’s movie “Pygmalion” with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller – if G. has recovered sufficiently to be civil and broad-minded about women’s rights.
I keep thinking what a lovely time we had that most beauteous Wednesday. I only hope Norm wasn’t too weary or bored – I like him very much, you know! The two of you were such fun, and so damn considerate (tsk, Sylvia, your swearing quota is over following – no profanity, dear, even for emphasis!) Anyhow I love you both for being so dear to me – or rather Norm for being d. to m. and you for it, but also just anyway, on general principles.
I have thought longingly about beach party weekend, & feel I must, because of the large amt. (at least 8 hours) of bus traveling time involved, decline – I’ve got another exam in history the following Monday and literally 5 1000 page novels to read these next few weeks – so I’ve decided not to leave Smith at all till after my last exam May 27th – this wounds me, but is, as so many wounding decisions are, I fear, wise – in view of how I still get tired leaping about in transit as I did of late in NYC – that little jaunt will last me another month or two yet! So this will get to you in ample time to ask another unsweet unSmith damsel – already I envy her – I loved every minute of being with you vacation – dance, dinner, cocktails, art exhibit, drive, et. al. Please be good and write some time soon – meanwhile, accept my love & a two-dimensional kiss!
XXX
your sylvan smith girl
P.S. – your voluptuous nude lies in slumbering aphrodisiacal bliss on the wall over the head of my bed – under her aegis I sleep warmly and well and am delighted by the most indecent of indecorous dreams –
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Friday 16 April 1954
TLS, Indiana University
TO
dear mummy
FROM
me
SUBJECT
odds and ends
DATE
april 16
seems scarcely imagineable that there are only six weeks left of school! I am very tired at the end of this hard week, but am taking a very hot bath tonight and going to bed early. I cut classes these last two days (the ones I’m auditing) to lie in the sun on the porch roof yesterday and get my first burn of the year while beginning the 1200 page tome War and Peace.* Today I cut because I wrote my first poem, a sonnet, that I have written since last May! To be sure, I astringently revised several of my poems this past month (the second one I’m including has six new lines, and six old revised and rearranged ones: I think it’s my best so far for both thought content and sound . . . a union of both, not just a hyperdevelopment of one. Tell me what you think of them.) But “Doom of Exiles” is All New.
Two important Requests: I know I left my white net stole at home, but don’t know where . . . in a box, or the closet, or down in a drawer (it takes very little space). PLEASE try to find it and send it immediately as I have two formal Phi Bete dinners coming up, one next Thursday night . . . for which I can’t come bare shouldered. Also could you send my white hat? And cookies?
Thank you!
While I have not got a paying Press Board job next year (all the present correspondents are keeping their positions, so there are no vacancies), I am the correspondent to the NY Tribune, which should be good experience, even if it doesn’t pay money.
I am so happy about the prospect of my thesis on Dostoevsky, and also of my rooming with Nancy Hunter, who is now my dearest friend, taking Claiborne’s place, even though I love Clai just as much . . . and will visit her and Avrahm in NYC next year and during this summer. Nancy is writing a thesis in History on Ethical Culture, and I am so elated that with Marty and Clai gone that I have found such a beautiful brilliant girl to be my confidante and belle amie!
Tomorrow I’m going over to Amherst for the usual steak dinner at Valentine Hall, then back to Smith with George to see “Pygmalion”, then back to a French party at Chi Psi, to which I am wearing my slinky black silk sheath with my little black lace hat, long white silk gloves and a white ermine muff: the general idea to be a highclass French call girl. Should be fun.
Decided definitely not to go to Harvard with all this reading I have to do . . . travelling by so bourgeois a method as bus takes too much energy.
My love to all.
xxx
sivvy
Sylvia Plath
New Poem
Apr
il 16, 1954
Sonnet
Doom of Exiles
Now we, returning from the vaulted domes
Of our colossal sleep, come home to find
A tall metropolis of catacombs
Erected down the gangways of our mind.
Green alleys where we reveled have become
The infernal haunt of demon dangers;
Both seraph song and violins are dumb;
Each clock tick consecrates the death of strangers.
Backward we traveled to reclaim the day
Before we fell, like Icarus, undone;
All we find are altars in decay
And profane words scrawled black across the sun.
Still, stubbornly we try to crack the nut
In which the riddle of our race is shut.
Sylvia Plath
Revised version
April 16, 1954
Sonnet
The Dead
Revolving in oval loops of solar speed,
Couched in cauls of clay as in holy robes,
Dead men render love and war no heed,
Lulled in the ample womb of the full-tilt globe.
No spiritual Caesars are these dead:
They want no proud paternal kingdom come;
And when at last they blunder into bed
World-wrecked, they seek only oblivion.
Rolled round with goodly loam and cradled deep,