The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1

by Sylvia Plath

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Sunday 29 January 1956

  TLS (aerogramme),

  Indiana University

  January 29th

  Deareast mother . . .

  It is a sodden, rainy Sunday afternoon, with a moist leaden gray air and wet mud squashing underfoot. I am taking a few moments from my solid weekend schedule of reading to talk with you before the tense, tightening up for the first three days of the week, which are my hardest. This afternoon I have to finish a critical book on Chekhov, write a paper on him;* tonight I have to translate three plays by Racine; tomorrow I have a tough discussion class in tragedy, a french supervision, and two lectures (one on the moralists, the other on Virginia Woolf by David Daiches, who is a total delight); Tuesday I have my modern tragedy supervision with my director of studies, Miss Burton (paper discussion, etc.), and I must read all 7 plays by Aeschylus; Wednesday: another tough class discussion (with a marvelous man named Redpath,* who was a lawyer before teaching, and whose mind is the cleanest, most incisive and logical I’ve ever seen), my classics supervision with a rather unfortunate nondescript woman* (the women dons are all victorian grotesques, most of them, terribly peculiar and shy socially); and three lectures: on the Jacobeans, Daiches again on the modern novel, and wonderful, dry brilliant F. R. Leavis on practical criticism. Thursday and Friday, the week blessedly slacks off, with one lecture each day.

  So you see, the pressure is constant, and I am surrounded with a pleasant torture: piles and piles of books, all of which I want so much to read; the pain is that I know no matter how solidly I work, I never will read enough, and am always fighting to keep up. I wonder if the day will ever come when I can write as much as I want? In a sense, a certain amount of pressure is necessary to me, but I do wish I had more time each day to write.

  I am taking full advantage of my sudden desire to hibernate, to read and write and think. I am seeing hardly anyone outside Whitstead (Jane Baltzell, the other American English lit. girl and writer is more and more of a pleasure), except Nat LaMar, who is a blessing. I had a good talk with him over tea and cake last Friday, and will go to a surrealistic Dali film* with him later this week. Saw the A.D.C. production of “Crime and Punishment” with Mallory last Thursday and enjoyed it thoroughly, even though, on stage, much of the psychological analysis degenerated into melodrama (which, of course, the novel is full of, but there the introspective writing sustains it better). I am now living on the perspective and rich experience I had during my vacation, and feel happy working (it is only the pressure that makes it seem like “work”; outside of that, I love it.) Unfortunately, there are no boys I’ve yet met here that I really like, and even Mallory, after my time away, seems terribly young, unformed, and prosaic and dependent. It was such a relief to meet Nat’s married friend, who has a job with Time, is supporting himself, studying at Cambridge, and learning Russian (already having “picked up” Greek, Hebrew, German, etc.) It is this rich, active kind of life I miss in the vague, abstract, immature boys surrounding me; I must always have my fingers in the world’s pie: and be doing as well as talking; creating as well as analyzing. It is so true, what you said about the relief of engaged girls. I am too weary of wasting time to run around to parties any more for “opportunity”; I have a greater faith that if I work and write now, I will have a rich, inner life which will make me worth fine, intelligent men, like Sassoon, and Nat and his friends, rather than only an empty hectic fear of being alone. I believe one has to be able to live alone creatively before being ready to live with anyone else. I do hope someday I meet a stimulating, intelligent man with whom I can create a good life, because I am definitely not meant for a single life.

  You have no idea how exciting it is to live here on the brink of the continent: even when I am not thinking directly of my coming travels. I feel that latent joy of possibility: all lies over the channel, all the variety of the western world is so close: I can study italian in Italy; german in Germany: and find, at such close range, a rich variety of temperaments and settings; I actually feel smothered at the idea of going back to the States! Cambridge, wet, cold, abstract, formal as it is, is an excellent place to write, read and work; near the theater of London, and the vital, moving currents of people and art in Europe. I don’t know how I can bear to go back to the States, unless I am married: here, there is the chance to meet people living “on the edge” of the world’s politics and art: there is so much more choice. I really think I would do anything to stay here. If only I could get a few things published in this next year, I would like so much to apply for a Saxton fellowship (or even a Guggenheim) and go to live in Italy and write for a year, combining it with some kind of reporting job part time. Next year, I hope to study Italian. I have finished re-writing my Vence story and look forward to typing it and sending it off this coming weekend. This week, by the way, I am also going to tea with the editor of one of the small Cambridge poetry magazines, Chris Levenson,* who just dropped in, a very sweet boy who knows Stephen Spender and wants to study at Harvard for a year; should be fun. If you only knew how hard it is to know I’m not a career woman, or going to be more than a competent small-time writer (which will make me happy enough) and to have so much love and strength to give to someone, and not have yet met anyone I can honestly marry; it would be easier if I either wanted a career or had no great love for people; but waiting is so hard. Enough of this. I am looking terribly forward to seeing my favorite mother in June! Already I am planning what we shall do in London and Cambridge. I miss you all, and love you so dearly.

  Love from your own

  Sivvy

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Thursday 2 February 1956

  TLS (aerogramme),

  Indiana University

  Thursday morning

  February 2, 1956

  Dearest mother . . .

  Naturally I was very moved when I read your letter this morning about grammy. I only wish I could be there, to take the double load of work off your shoulders, to do driving and take care of dear grammy. I can’t believe anything could happen to her, so I mightn’t see her again: I love that dear woman so, I feel saddest that I, too, can’t be there to help her feel that she is loved and joyously cared for. Please, every day, let her know how much she has meant to me: her strength and simple faith and presence have always been so much a part of my life: always meeting me when I came home, driving me, feeding me, all those family things: I can’t imagine our home without her presence. I realized when I was first over here that the “matrix”, or atmosphere of home itself is so close and interwoven with the fabric of our days that it is only when we are torn away that we fully realize the air of love and warmth in which we have lived: it is sad that such a complete realization can never come fully until one is away, however much one may have flashes of intuition while at home. I remember especially freezing in my heart the anniversary celebration on the Cape last summer, thinking with love of our whole family, for it was really only then that I began to know them: Frank and Louise and Dot and Joe, particularly. Please, please, dear mummy, don’t tense up and strain yourself (as is so easy to do in crisis) because no matter what happens, I want you to remain strong and well. Tell me if I can write to grammy or do anything: I would love to send her frequent little cards and notes, if it would make her days brighter, for my love for her is daily, and I think of her with such tenderness. Do let me know whatever develops right away.

  At present, I myself am steeled for a hard, cold winter. I never thought I’d use a hot water bottle, but I couldn’t get in bed without it, for the sheets exhale the chill of polar regions; I wear ski socks and ski sweater over my flannel pajamas. Right now I am sitting on the floor typing facing the feeble gas fire (which eats up about $3 a week!) and even now my hands are so cold I can hardly bend the fingers to type, and my breath comes out in white puffs. I had to take a knife to hack ice from my window, to make a kind of porthole so I could see out. Even with the furlined gloves, I feel an inte
nse pain on my fingers and never have experienced such cold; it comes they say, directly from Siberia. In spite of all my precautions, I am nursing a wet sneezy cold, which I think has passed its peak now. I had a scare myself this week (which is all over now, and everything all right). Monday night I woke up with excruciating pains and was violently sick, and fainted. The doctor came and sent me off to the hospital* in an ambulance to be under observation for acute appendicitis. Well, after a miserable night in a ward of 30 snoring and groaning women, feeling deserted and precarious, (no medecine, not even water), I felt the pain go and came home, to come down with this cold. They said it was “colic” which means absolutely nothing to me, and I don’t see how it could be anything I ate, because none of the other girls were stricken. But it is all over, and, despite all the discouraging aspects of life (my two poems in the Cambridge magazine got lousy reviews:* there are 10 critics to each poem, and although I think they are bad critics, using clever devastating turns of phrase to show off their own brilliance, I still was sorry, but the deep parts of me are not affected, and I cheerfully go on writing), I feel actually happy, even in medias res of this wicked cold and a pile of papers to do this week. I do miss not having a family, though: there is nothing like that faithful love when one is sick: no matter how “kind” strangers are, one always feels one is imposing somehow.

  I got a nice letter from Gordon this morning: it seems he is coming over to Germany around the first of April to look for a university at which to study, and I hope to see him, and maybe travel about a bit in Germany with him then. Anyone from home will look quite angelic to me. I shall perhaps spend the last of March in Italy, and then maybe go up to see him in Germany. He would be lots of fun to travel with, I think, and is as much like Warren as anyone I know. I do wish I could take some kind of short trip with Warren next summer; let me know whatever happens about his Experiment applications.

  I had a nice tea yesterday with Chris Levenson, editor of one of the Cambridge little magazines and “Cambridge poet”, although his poems get scathing reviews, too; it seems this is an age of clever critics who keep bewailing the fact that there are no works worthy of criticism: they abhor polished wit and neat forms, which of course is exactly what I purpose to write, and when they criticize something for being “quaintly artful” or “merely amusing”, it is all I can do not to shout: “that’s all I meant it to be!” Well, we had a good tea, with two other people, and Chris is very sweet. Also enjoy my lectures by David Daiches on the modern novel (Virginia Woolf and James Joyce) which are sheer pleasure (he wrote a very bad article for the latest New yorker called “The Queen in Cambridge”* which infuriated me, because I could have done better: it was all 2ndary reporting, from posters & newspapers, and I had so much first hand. Well, I’ll learn better next time. England can be exploited for merely being England, and I want to do a few humorous skits about college characters, especially the grotesque victorian dons). Well, dear mummy, keep well and strong, and remember I think of you always with much much love and only hope dear grammy recovers and that you will come over here this June: I am already eagerly looking forward to it.

  Love to all, your own,

  Sivvy

  TO Aurelia Greenwood Schober

  Thursday 2 February 1956*

  ALS* with envelope, Indiana

  University

  Dearest grammy . . .

  It is Thursday night, and I am sitting in flannel pajamas and ski sweater by the minute circle of warmth next to the gas fire, drinking my bedtime cup of hot milk and thinking of you before I go to sleep, with much love.

  Mother’s letter came today about your operation, and I only wish I could be spirited home to take care of you, while you convalesce, to bring you light meals and read or chat with you – I remember the many times you have taken care of me, and made tempting broths and run up and downstairs for me during sinus colds –! If only you know how much I miss you and how very much I love you! If I were home, I would want to bring you color & cheerfulness every day, to help you to get all well, and so I shall be sending you little cards & notes now to show you that for every line I write, I wish you health and quick recovery a hundred times. If you hold this card open to the light, you will see all the bright, jewel-like colors on one of the stained glass windows of my favorite chapel in Paris – I wanted to share the beauty of it with you – imagine a whole gothic vault made completely of these windows, shimmering in the sun!

  I am working hard now, both writing & studying, to get through this Siberian winter – Please know that every day I think specially of you, and every night I say a little prayer for you to grow strong and well soon again it will be slow, I know – but spring is coming, and you will feel a little better each day. My dearest love to you & my wonderful grampy!

  your own loving

  Sylvia

 

  TO Aurelia Schober Plath

  Monday 6 February 1956*

  TLS (aerogramme),

  Indiana University

  Monday afternoon

  January 6th

  Dearest of mothers . . . .

  It was so wonderful to get your optimistic letter on this wet, rainy morning! I am so happy that dear grammy is improving (do give my best love to her and to my favorite grampy) and that the monster machines are getting under control: isn’t it providential that you learned how to drive in time to meet this new crisis of grammy’s! In the last two years we have certainly had our number of great tests (first my breakdown, then your operation, then grammy’s) and we have yet been extraordinarily lucky that they were timed in such a way that we could meet them. I am most grateful and glad that I banged up all at once (although I am naturally sorry for all the trouble I caused everyone else), for I can’t tell you how my whole attitude to life has changed! I would have run into trouble sooner or later with my very rigid, brittle, almost hysterical tensions which split me down the middle, between inclination and inhibition, ideal and reality. My whole session with Dr. Beuscher is responsible for making me a rich, well-balanced, humorous, easy-going person, with a joy in the daily life, including all its imperfections: sinus, weariness, frustration, and all those other niggling things that we all have to bear. I am occasionally depressed now, or discouraged, especially when I wonder about the future, but instead of fearing these low spots as the beginning of a bottomless whirlpool, I know I have already faced The Worst (total negation of self) and that, having lived through that blackness, like Peer Gynt lived through his fight with the Boyg, I can enjoy life simply for what it is: a continuous job, but most worth it. My existence now rests on solid ground; I may be depressed now and then, but never desperate. I know how to wait.

  Actually, in spite of the cold, rainy time of year with an unbroken pile of work ahead, and tag-end of sinus cold, I am very very happy. I feel I am working, digging myself in at last (I just finished a 20-page Chekhov paper, put off from my sickness last week) and must write one one the position of Zeus in Aeschylus’ plays to be read aloud in my class Wednesday. I look forward to it, in spite of the pressure, and often pause to tell myself how happy I am at reading things I like so much. The main problem is an “embaras de richesse”, getting it all in, which of course is the hardest, for no matter how much I read, I’d never do more than open up vast new horizons. It is the process of thinking and writing that is most important, not the “rewards” whatever they may be. I sent off my Vence story to the New Yorker this week,* and when it comes back, I’ll send it to Mlle. Meanwhile, I hope to begin a new story this weekend when the bulk of present papers is off my shoulders.

  I must say that I do not lack for friends. Dear Nat LaMar is such a pleasure; I see him for coffee about once a week. Also, I have begun to get to know this Chris Levenson, editor of one of the Cambridge little magazines, and a fine poet in his own right; he came over for coffee yesterday, and we got along very wel
l; he is half French, half English, tall, nicely built, healthy and quite strong, and all of which seems to be rather pleasant instead of these weak, pale, nervous artistic homosexuals which abound in university circles in England (partly due to segregation of the sexes throughout school, I’m sure). Anyway, Chris is a dear, too, and has published in magazines in England similar to the ones I’ve been in at home; his intuitive, warm temperament is a delightful change from the more pedantic, objective, inarticulateness of Mallory and John Lythgoe, both scientists. I’m going to a Greek play* (“Philoctetes” by Sophocles and Lorca’s “Shoemaker’s Wife”) this week with John. Also to a party Saturday with a Fulbright historian who went to Amherst,* just for old times’ sake.

  Also I really enjoy Jane Baltzell, Isabel Murray, and Margaret Roberts, the three most vital, intelligent, attractive girls in Whitstead. All of us are very busy with our deep studies and own social lives, but we have lovely humorous times at meals and teas, which is a great pleasure to share. I am really very fond of all three girls, especially Jane. Speaking of Janes, Jane Anderson just wrote and said she is coming over to Europe this summer and hopes to see me; her letter sounded very careful, and a little wistful; evidently her interviews for med school have been gruelling, quizzing her on her breakdown (how well I remember that awful interview at Harvard last year!) So if Elly Friedman comes over (how I’d love to travel a bit with her!) and Gordon, this spring I shall feel that I have a little america right at hand. Actually, I have no desire to go back to America at all! The nearness of the continent, with its stimulating variety of people and customs and country in such a small, available space, is a constant delight. Hope I somehow earn money so I can travel this summer. I look so forward to your coming! I hope we can enjoy London, Cambridge, and the British Isles together, because I would like to spend 10 days at least with you, and perhaps, if I got money, see you again on the continent with Warren. Do let me know as soon as you hear about his experiment applications. Chris worked in Germany for the Friends Service committee, and found the north Germans, in particular, very spontaneous and gay (!)