The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1

by Sylvia Plath

  You would be very proud of me, I think, if you saw what I’ve been doing around the house! I have spent the whole last week doing nothing but working at it: spaded and weeded all the flower beds and around the trees; dyed the porch rug a less-spotty green; did mountains of laundry; bought two cans of enamel paint and painted porch tables and lamp and sundry little items black and the three kitchen chairs and table white. So much fun that I felt like painting the whole house with the left-over white enamel!

  Mother is improving rapidly, and we have runs of guests. One day, no one will call or come. The next, a waiting line forms to the rear: Do Cruikshank, Mrs. Pulling,* (complaining about over-critical Miss Hamm;* followed by Miss Hamm (complaining about the lax Mrs. Pulling), Mrs. Gaery,* Mrs. Lameyer, Mrs. Clower,* Madeline Sheets:* whew, can’t name them all! Anyway, mother receives them on the chaise lounge in the back yard and loves every minute of company.

  I also have cleaned the house completely from top to bottom: your bookcase, mother’s, medecine closets, all is washed, mopped, dusted, and ready to be kept up for the summer. Gordon was home for a week before heading off to Bainbridge, Maryland, and we had a most pleasant time swimming at Crane’s Beach and playing tennis at the Wellesley courts. No one my age seems to be about Wellesley, only thousands of little kids and wrinkled old ladies smelling of lavendar water. I’ll miss not having anyone to play tennis with, but really enjoy the peace and quiet. Cooked Gordon and mother a steak dinner which both ate merrily.

  Took me ages of red-tape to get my passport:* had to run around the plethora of courthouses in that nasty hilly part of Boston, all one-way streets, and wait hours in line, only to find I needed an engraved birth certificate and not a piddling abstract, which cost more money and time. Finally, this week, the valuable document came from Washington, with my picture stamped over with an ornate government seal, so I look like I’m peering suspiciously from behind a printed lifebuoy, enough to make any customs agent suspicious of my intentions.

  Mrs. Cantor took me into a wholesale place to buy some luggage, and I got along fine with the guy there, and ordered three pieces of beautiful gray airplane luggage (two in the shop, one to be got from nyc) at half price! Mrs. Cantor said even her husband, with all his business connections, wouldn’t have been able to talk them down more. So I wait while the 3rd piece comes with bated breath. It will be a great deal if it comes through. Also went to Neal’s of California,* that exclusive Boston shop, and ended up buying two fantastically great one-piece bathing suits, which I would feel proud to wear on the Riviera. All the salesgirls clustered around while I tried these on saying to each other: “Gee, that little girl in there is sure having a party.” Mrs. Cantor had taken Kathy to shop there, and she “found nothing she liked”, while I felt right at home, everything being most casually cut and magnificent in style and material. Oh, how horribly easy it is to spend money! Female logic: I figured I’d saved it from the suitcase markdown!

  Amazing thing: I invited Richard Sassoon to come here for the 4th of July weekend. Mother revised her former picture of him, and I think found him okay. Anyway, I cooked like mad: datenut bars, tollhouse cookies, lobster salad, broiled chicken, steak, and a monumental new effort: Peach angel pie, which requires six egg whites for the meringue base and 2 hours cooking (it swelled up almost to fill the oven) and a filling of iced peaches and whipped cream. It was a gorgeous thing, and Mrs. Pulling, Miss Hamm, and Mrs. Gray all had some on their visits, and mother loved it.

  George Gebauer is now my one summer contact, and very fortunately, we seem to get along quite well, and he seems to want to take me out (I made a fabulous picnic for last Saturday at Crane’s beach) and I will probably go to the Theater-on-the-Green* with him this Friday. He is an awfully nice guy, openly says he is “very conservative and conventional” and is apparently amazed that he likes seeing me because I am what he terms “different” from the girls he knows. That’s what happens when a staid scientist and a writer get together, I guess. He just can’t follow my enthusiasm about life, including going to the Star Super-market.* I don’t think I will ever in the world be “bored”, because I have so many projects a life-time isnt’ enough to carry them out, and there is always so much to learn. I really must have someone who has that joie de vivre which makes even a milkshake or a rowboat ride a keen delight. After all, that’s life.

  You have no idea how happy your letters make mummy! She reads them aloud to all her visitors and gloats over them like they were solid gold. It is fun hearing about the details of your work, and I think it will be a great experience for you. The money sounds good too! Hope you meet some nice girls who aren’t married . . . funny how customs vary in different parts of the country; here, they all go to college. Anyway, Mother is getting the address of a young couple Mrs. Lameyer’s friend Sibyl Doherty* knows, who she thinks might introduce you around.

  Until later, keep writing, have fun, and know we’re thinking of you . . .

  much love,

  Sivvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Tuesday 12 July 1955

  LS with envelope,

  Indiana University

  Tuesday night, July 12

  Dearest mother . . .

  You would really laugh if you could see me typing now with my one arm, the other folded to my side like a sprained chicken wing. Reason being that Fran gave me the first pair in a series of three shots. The tetanus didn’t bother my right arm, but the typhoid sure immobilized my left! Luckily I caught her before her vacation, because this series has to be spaced, and I’ll get the other two double threat jabs spaced in the middle and end of August.

  I had a lovely drive home last night; made it in exactly three hours and headed into a stinging pink sunset that matched my sunburn in light, if not in heat. I sang on the top of my lungs all the way, with the freedom one feels only in the shower where the acoustics are excellent and no one will wince. I was so happy and felt so well after my lovely weekend with you and the relatives that I had to let out a few Indian yips of pure pleasure as I swung up the speedway past blue lakes and green swooping slopes of trees.

  First thing getting here, I ran about opening all the windows to let in cool night air. Then I got ready for bed and read all my mail. Received a lovely fat letter from my dear Sue Weller, now in Washington, which relieved me greatly. If only I sold a story, I would fly down to visit her before I go! I do hope to manage it somehow. She is a great source of strength to me, as I am to her, and I think we’d profit by seeing each other once before God knows when. Also heard from Lynne Lawner, that lovely Wellesley college sophomore I met at the poetry reading in Holyoke. I have encouraged her to send things out and shall write her over the summer to give her as much of my mere technical pragmatic know-how as possible to save her learning the tedious way.

  Haven’t heard from Harper’s yet . . . it’s over a month now, which is definitely a good sign that they are “debating”. Harper’s Bazaar remedied their faux pas, evidently an accident, by sending all my poems back today with an impressively large letter-headed rejection and a personal note from the fiction editor. The New Orleans Poetry Journal, a new quarterly, send a nice post-card acknowledging the receipt of my poems and saying the editors will confer next weekend. They wanted to explain the “delay” in verdict (they only got the poems this weekend!) and the co-editor said he rarely sent his poems to the better quarterlies because they were so intolerably slow when they were considering something. So this blessed magazine is fanatic about their two week verdicts. Hope they give me a tumble.

  Also got an amusing letter from the editor* of an evidently venerable poetry magazine named “Lyric”, saying Gertrude Claytor* (my fairy-godmother on the Borestone awards whom I met at Holyoke) had recommended me very highly, and did I have poems to send them. They don’t pay, but have several cash prizes awarded at the year’s end. Here, I can see it now, is a perfect market for my more conventional and dainty sonnets, for they are very traditional. So I’m going to se
nd all that will never get published as intellectual wit or modern blood-and-thunder.

  Today was a domestic and odd-and-ends day, so I have postponed my working till tomorrow, when I hope my arm will let me type without wincing. I did the laundry, shopped for groceries, went to the bank. Went to Fran’s, dropped over to Aldriches and had cocktails with Betty and Ginny (will go over some evening when the kids are in bed for a talk). George is taking me out Friday night,* and I may go visit Elly Friedman. Mrs. Lameyer called, and wants me to go to the Theater-on-the-Green* next week, so you can see that I have to fight them off. Dr. Beuscher delivered a 9 lb. baby boy named Christopher Grey B. July 6, and sent me an announcement. I called today, and hope to see her a few times before I go. All quiet on Eastern front.

  Love to everybody – your one-armed girl,

  Sylvia XXX

 

  p.s. Harper’s thought, but said no. Am on my way for dinner with Mrs. Prouty tonight.

  XX.

  S.

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Tuesday 19 July 1955

  TLS with envelope,

  Indiana University

  tuesday night, july 19

  dearest mother . . .

  Occasionally I get the impulse to call the cape and chat with you, I do so like to share little bits of news. seems to me I wrote you only yesterday, and here I am again. It will be so nice to have you back home for nightly ice-cream and inbetween chats. (I bought some new ice-cream in preparation for your return: orange sherbet!)

  Today has been packed full of phone calls. I spent a long time shopping for food this morning, stocking up on meat, only to find out I’m going out for dinner three times in the next four days! What a nice way to save food.

  Mrs. Cantor called, and wants us to call or visit as soon as we come back next week, so do remind me. Tomorrow is dinner and theater with Mrs. Lameyer. Thursday I’m having dinner over Dot’s. Friday I’m going out with George.* And Saturday, best of all, I’m going out to dinner and a play in Cambridge* with Peter Davison, who is in town for good and called tonight at last!

  I’d really forgotten how nice and Britishy and tweedy his voice sounded. When I said I had hundreds of questions to ask him, he promised to be a Mr. Anthony and answer them all. What a relief! I’m putting off calling Rhoda Dorsey* till next week, as I have absolutely no time to see her this one. I am working in the daytime now, at my typewriter. Today I finished the Prouty article,* about seven pages, and will send it off. Tomorrow I begin my story: “Platinum Summer”(I changed it from “Peroxide”, and think the tone is better) and hope to have it done by the time I see you next Tuesday. Once I get rid of my inhibitions with the typewriter, I’m golden.

  Signing off for now with much love to you all,

  sivvy

  ps: what news from Warren?

 

  TO Gordon Lameyer

  Thursday 28 July 1955

  TLS, Indiana University

  thursday evening, july 28

  dear gordon . . .

  a note out of my chill (at last) gray room where, after bringing mother home from the cape yesterday and chauffering her to doctor appointments today, I am at last sitting down and facing the grim keys of my smug typewriter which, everytime I procrastinate and start a letter, gives a small malicious laugh. I’ve spent a hell of a lot of postage the last month sending out batch after batch of poems. my favorite villanelle “lament” (“the sting of bees”) finally got accepted by a relatively new mag of good rep, new orleans poetry journal,* for a 40¢ per line rate, and Lyric accepted two* which I knew I’d never get paid for elsewhere: they give “prizes” yearly, no pay. I still have at least 10 top poems I know should get accepted, but unfortunately the new yorker et al. don’t seem to be as aware of such matters as I. I keep reading about this damn adrienne cecile rich,* only two years older than I, who is a yale younger poet and regularly in all the top mags; and about 23-year old blondes from radcliffe who are already selling stories plus climbing alps. occasionally, I retch quietly in the wastebasket. wrote the reader’s digest article about mrs. prouty which I expect to get back in the mail rejected any day now and am working on a flip story called “platinum summer”, you guessed it, about a girl who dyes her hair. I can think up tremendous titles and whoopdedo funny conversation, but the plots throw me every time. the nicest thing about writing is not the writing which is hell, but having written something reasonably good. o fie.

  your mother, by the way, treated me to a lovely dinner and theater-on-the-green (henry 4, pt. 1) last wednesday. had much fun with her. have been to a few good movies (guiness in “last holiday”) and bad (“svengali”: god: don’t see it) lots of swimming at crane’s and cape but not one solitary swat at tennis. your large green room* sounds most conducive to writing. I grow old, I grow old. already my pre-departure homesickness has set in and I am growing ineffably nostalgic. two years, so crucial, and will I know what to do with them? the horror, to be jamesian, is to find there are plenty of beasts in the jungle but somehow to have missed all the potshots at them. I am always afraid of letting “life” slip by unobtrusively and waking up some “fine morning” to wail windgrieved around my tombstone. how do the brilliant men find time to live, love,

  read and write? you tell me. I need too much sleep to be godlike. chosing is such hell because each choice cuts off a leg or an arm to make the head grow bigger. remember to bring back my 11 letters, huh? I shall not, by the way, be able to make jaffrey the weekend of the 6th or whatever, but hope to see you anyhow, either before or after your trip. I have developed a morbid attachment to my house and workroom. do, by the way, look up my dear sue weller for me: address: 1514 26th St. N. W. Washington, D.C.!

  Love,

  Sylvia

  P.S. Do write.

  TO Warren Plath

  Thursday 28 July 1955

  TLS (photocopy),

  Indiana University

  thursday night, july 28

  dear warren . . .

  I write from my desk in the chill gray woolen-sweater-weather which set in today, apparently to prepare me for the climate in england. this month has been a patchwork quilt in which a lot of odd and ends, but no long projects, have been accomplished. just got back last night from four days at the cape with the grandparents (both tan as walnuts) and mother, whom I chauffeured to two doctors’ appointments today. her strength is picking up, although her weight is still low, and we’ve been having a congenial time together. we all miss you, and it has been wonderful to get your cards and letters which I’ve shared with mother.

  you know how I am: always get homesick before I go anywhere. well, evidently before a two-years’ siege, my attacks set in early, and I have been wandering around with a blue streak of incredible nostalgia for je ne sais quoi. paradoxically, I feel the desire to be intensely close to my friends: marty and mike, mrs. prouty, betty aldrich, patsy, not to mention aunt dot and george gebauer and peter davison (my publishing friend who is now delightfully at the harvard press as assistant to the director); however, the closer I get, the sadder I feel to go away and leave them. once I get on the ship, I will be fine, as I’ll have something tangible to work with, but already I feel sort of rootless and floating, with nothing actual to bite my teeth into. intellectually, I know the fulbright is the best and only thing for me; staying in new england or even new york would suffocate me completely at this point. my wings need to be tried. o icarus.

  I’ve been reading a lot of magazines (nothing intellectual, a reaction, I guess, from the academic life of two solid years which I’ve just finished leading); the hardest part of writing is writing. I invent any excuses to procrastinate, and whenever I put off story plots to write a letter, your smug typewriter gives a low, malicious chuckle.

  I have, however, written a couple of rather good poems and an article on mrs. prouty which I sent off in my usual gambling streak, to the
reader’s digest. expect the rejection any day now. amid my poetry rejections (the postage and re-typing and charting of them takes a good deal of time) I’ve had my favorite villanelle, “Lament”, accepted by a relatively new mag: New Orleans Poetry Journal for the grandiose sum of $7.60 (ie: 40¢ per line). what price artistic integrity. I am fast trying to lose said integrity by writing a story called “Platinum Summer”, you guessed it, about a girl who dyes her hair. once I get that first professional story accepted, the gravy train will be in. unfortunately, to publish, one must write.

  also, two poems I know very well I’d not get paid for anywhere were accepted by The Lyric, a traditional “poesy” mag that gives yearly prizes, no pay. oh, well. it’s print. by the way, pick up the August Atlantic. unusually good poetry issue. funny, but one of the critters stands out like a green thumb. also the August Mlle has massacred one of my best poems by printing two lines on one page and the rest sandwiched between some later fashion ads. but they do have a good little paragraph and small minute snapshot under and article titled: poet on college time.

  about the peregrinating one, namely dotty: obviously her job will have what I hope to have on shipboard: intriguing, poised, often intelligent, continental people. time goes fast when you have a varied job, and seems proportionately slow when you are working at the same kind of thing (IE: railroading) and have a good deal of time to ponder, probably, also, she is not the garrulous writing type, like me. she may just be the kind who doesn’t feel letters are worth writing frequently. anyhow, I don’t know her as well by a very long shot, but these are just suggestions to partially explain the big silence. perhaps. maybe she’s written by now, maybe not. I know none of this will Mean anything inside your guts when you’re writing five letters to her one, but in your head it may help to reason out possible explanations, and check them off later, either when she writes to explain or when you see her next fall. if it is Other Men, it is no doubt a good and necessary step in her growing up; yours, too. it happens to the best of us.