by Sylvia Plath
It is as if, by concentrating on the “inscape”, as Hopkins says,* of leaf and plant and animal, I can know the world a new and special way; and make up my own versions of it. I must do some in London and of Cambridge scenes, and perhaps the NY would take them for their British letters from damn-her-hide Mollie-Panter-Downes. O Panter Panter.
I hate Sundays – no mail. How I miss your written voice – read Sartre’s thin simple book on existentialism* – That’s what I am; damn good little book – please say I can come to London Friday to Sunday & be with you come Carne-Ross or no C-R.
my love & more love
sylvia
A Monday Morning P.S.
Dearest darling Teddy . . .
How proud I am How proud I am---the Carne-Ross acceptance seems the loveliest thing yet; I read your letter* over breakfast (I have gone into a strange decline over eating---just aren’t hungry; the food here doesn’t lure me to gorge much, either)---and fought and conquered a huge urge to rudely interrupt Miss Abbott & sweet numberous Co.’s discussion about gowns and bicycle numbers, leap up in the center of the table and shout: MY HUSBAND IS GOING TO READ OVER THE BBC! With appropriate whoopdedos. I AM SO PROUD. I think it will make applying for a teaching job infinitely easier; SO: don’t tell them definitely your going to Spain when, but WAIT, cast about for future readings even if you must stay here a month---this is more important to your career (and, probably, finances,) than Spain ever thought of being. Ask shyly about your own poems; whatever day you are giving the reading, write ahead and let me come. I refuse to sit here while you are recording Yeats. I have a week of extra nights at the beginning of this term, and I can thus come to London a bit while being able to leave for you wherever you are about Dec. 7. So try to get more readings. I must come every time; if it’s not soon, let me come this weekend. The Fulbright can pay for these things; I am---just---beginning to fill my days with proper work; it has taken me a whole stricken week to be able to even read; I don’t like this life; but I do it. Like a good girl.
What you wrote about writing stories to one’s own strict taste and joy really hit home. I’m doing, really, that; you would be proud, perhaps, a little; every morning I am breakfasted by 8:30, write letters till 9, write and write till noon or one. Then parcel out the day among my howling obligations; met my Director of Studies by accident yesterday and found, to my immense relief that my Chaucer supervisor* is obligingly having a baby this term in good Wife-of-Bath fashion, so I won’t have her till next, and thus can without panic, Read On. Dr. Krook and Philosophy (the reading here is beyond belief---must cover all British moralists, plus the literary ones, including Swift and about 15 others!). Such a wise one your little girl will be---it’ll give me a rich excuse to buy Books. Thus this term I can get our Big Mss. typed (your fable book, my NY stories, and whatever else you send), draw, and get the writing under a rigid powerful schedule which will take the added Chaucer and German next term without too much of a flinch.
Yesterday I drew a good umbrella and chianti bottle, better chestnuts, bad shoes and beaujolais bottle. Soon I will go about fanatically doing exact and painstaking landscapes of grass-blades---but I bet if I covered a page of grass-blades it would sell; I keep seeing Infinity in a grain of sand.*
Read in this terrific Modern Abnormal Psychology* book last night (mine) about Schizophrenia---marvelous case-histories, lucidly written; collection of essays by psychiatrists; about manic-depressive geniuses (Beethoven---what do you think of Romain Rolland’s “Beethoven the Creator”*---referred to; Dickens, Tolstoi & others; also one on hypnotism which I begin today---excellent bibliographies). Finished a rather good 8-page NY story about the dreamless woman* yesterday; strange how competent I get to feel with each new story, even if the story, as such, mightn’t sell – I begin “The Invisible Man” today* – write o write when I can come to London – for two days?? –
with love,
your admiring SYLVIA
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 8 October 1956
TLS (aerogramme),
Indiana University
Monday morn, Oct. 8
Dearest of mothers . . .
Loved your letter this morning; love all your letters; so much to say. First good news: the erudite 3rd program of the BBC has accepted Ted’s program of Yeats reading and will make a recording! I am just exploding with pride; it was all I could do not to leap up at breakfast today and shout: MY HUSBAND IS A GENIUS AND WILL READ YEATS ON THE BBC! As soon as he finds the date they want him to make the recording, he’ll let me know and we’ll meet in London; we hope more readings may come out of this. It means Ted has a certified enunciation & should be a big help in getting a teaching job, don’t you think? I’m praying for Amherst, but will wait out this month or so before applying, to see what is published. Will also write to ME Chase for advice in applying procedures. Do tell Mrs. Prouty about my 6 poems accepted by Poetry (Chicago)---will let you know when they’re coming out, so you can buy me a few copies--- should really shoot up my poetic reputation; all written for my dear Ted. I can’t help but think it would be most discreet to dedicate my novel to Mrs. P. and my poems to Ted; they are mostly all violent love-and-praise poems and all for my darling Ted.
Have been back here exactly a week and am going through the most terrible state, but stoically, and will somehow manage---it is the longest I have ever been away from Ted and somehow, in the course of this working and vital summer, we have mystically become one; I can appreciate the legend of Eve coming from Adam’s rib as I never did before; the damn story’s true! That’s where I belong. Away from Ted, I feel as if I were living with one eyelash of myself only; it is really agony; we are different from most couples; for we share our selves perhaps more intensely at every moment (every thing I do with and for Ted has a celestial radiance, be it only ironing or cooking, and this increases with custom, instead of growing less) and, perhaps most important, our writing is founded in the inspiration of the other, and grows by the proper, inimitable criticism of the other, and publications are made with joy of the other; what wife shares her husband’s dearest career as I do? except maybe Marie Curie? Actually, I never could stand Ted to have a nine to five job because I love being with him and working in his presence so much; this summer has knit us in rock; our faith and love will astonish the vain fickle world yet. I hope you will forgive me for blasting off about this, but you must understand, as you have only Warren to talk to, that I have only you. I am living like a nun, sequestered completely in my study (it took me a whole week to be able to read: am reading Paul’s Epistles and Augustine for philosophy; also Chaucer; bless Chaucer). Writing every morning, all morning. Will type Ted’s children’s book MS. this month. It is a gift of God, or Fortuna, but Ted and I can write best and fullest in the joy and love of each other’s happiness; I need no sorrow to write; I have had and no doubt will have enough; my poems and stories I want to be the strongest female paean yet for the creative forces of nature, the joy of being a loved and loving woman; that is my song. I believe it is destructive to try to be an abstractionist man-imitator, or a bitter sarcastic Dorothy Parker or Teasdale. Ted and I are both recluses; we want to work and read and raise a big family (he admires the Aldrich clan as much as I do) and stay out of NY circles and ego-flattering fan parties; Ve Vant to be Alone.
Whew! Now about practicalia: am delighted that you haven’t told Bill Rice; I was worried about him---somehow I can never quite completely trust him, there’s a touch of almost garrulous sensationalism there; also, he’ll probably feel different himself about the ceremony if he thinks we’re not married; so we’ll willingly go through all extra inconveniences. We will deserve this wedding as few people have! Did you get the Atlantic check??? Have written Fulbright to beg for early sailing; must settle with Newnham too. will let you know the minute I hear. Have paid huge dentist bill for dear Ted (£22) with note thanking man for saving the most important mouth in the world; also paid the huge clothing bill at tailor’s (
£38) for Ted’s new suit (charcoal gray) and brown & black tweed sports jacket so he can go to London in style; he is so happy with these things; I love that dear boy so and would lay down my life for him. He hasn’t lived in anything except rags for so long.
About Mrs. Cantor---by all means, with this situation come up, DON’T use her house for reception; say it wouldn’t be big enough as I want everybody at the wedding to come to the reception. Why not invite Joan over for dinner during Thanksgiving vacation---for a homey evening; doesn’t Warren usually bring friends home then? my heart bleeds for them; if only you could tell her how unpopular I was, etc. And Look At Me Now. But don’t take any of their hospitality you think isn’t just given in itself; I must say, I do not think they, or anyone, has the right to other people’s lives, just because they choose to lavish hospitality, money, or food on them; That should be done out of love with no thought of return . . . there, your little moralizing daughter will close for now – do investigate the Wellesley College place for reception –
love & more love to you & dear Warrie –
your own sivvy
P.S. Got Terrific lovely letter from Peter Davison in his new influential position as Associate Editor of the Atlantic Press: he is very interested in Ted & me; wants me to send Ted’s children’s fables to their small but receptive children’s dept; wants me to enter their novel contest – probably in 1958; will read all manuscripts gladly; what a wonderful help & friend he can be; he looked up Ted’s poems still at the Monthly offices; says no decision has yet been made, but they are definitely interested & Ed. Weeks will see them soon – cross your fingers –
xx
s.
TO Ted Hughes
Tuesday 9 October 1956
TLS, family owned
Tuesday morning
O my darling Teddy . . .
How I live for your letters; such queer things are happening to me; I feel that in myself I am observing the progress of a deadly disease never before recorded: when I listen to the other girls casually talking about their fiancés, going out in a platonic way with lots of boys anyhow, etc., I wonder if I am of such a different species. I can’t stand anyone; especially men; I walk out in town when I have to for fruit and cheese with a glowering scowl; I talk only to cows and swans; yesterday in a lovely wet mist I walked to market and passed several nasty fellows from the ADC and Varsity; they stared, with various grimaces of recognition; I snubbed, feeling very much like vomiting on them all; I do not think I will go out for Varsity at all this year, somehow. I have got this queer untouchable pride; I think if anything ever happened to you, I would really kill myself; I count on fingers: it is eight months till the 9th of June which I hold in front of me like some shining grail: I shall never leave your side a day in my life after exams.
Yesterday, in my fond delusion, I thought was going better; yes, I was wicked and wrote all day instead of studying, but felt happy that I could work on anything at all. I finished the 8-page story about the dreamless woman (“The Wishing-Box”), a kind of story on the same subject as my Shrike-poem; I must say that I have a growing feeling, perhaps also delusive, of a new prowess in knowing what I want to say and, miraculously, getting closer to saying it than ever I have before.
But, alas, away from you my own judgments are all out of kilter, or to cock, and I can’t tell if I’ve been typing over and over on the same line immortal folderol or what; these new stories have got a kind of humorous objectivity I’ve never gotten before, I think, though; I do have hopes, such hopes, for the New Yorker’s liking them: when I finished the new one I also began yesterday---the one about the invisible man, I shall send “Remember The Stick Man” (20pp.)* “The Wishing-Box”(8p.), “All the Dead Dears”(10pp.) and the “Invisible Man”(?pp. but short) off in a batch; about 50 pages of prose to knock their eyes in. I feel incredulous when I read the previous 50 pages I wrote---the three stories now at Mlle. They seem to me now incredibly dull. I am excited about these new short packed ones; you must have a look (I’ll bring them and my little drawings to London Friday---god, can I live that long!) and be wise. Your words* on my poems are so right, as ever; you know.
In the dreamless woman story, her husband is a complete escapist who accepts his vivid dreams as reality; she reviews her own private sordid and sparse dream-life, gets worried about her powers of imagination (also its like the Dryad poem) and goes from bad to worse, trying to fill her mind by reading (finally can’t make out words), then by movies, then TV combined with sherry, finally (being totally sleepless) commits suicide by an overdose of sleeping pills; her day-dreaming husband comes home (having lulled himself with a particularly elaborate dream on the train) and finds her dressed for a fancy ball, dead, with a beatific smile on her face. All in 8 pages. I shamelessly plagiarized some of your magnificent dreams---notably the fox and pike and American poets? Are you angry? It’s actually a very humorous terrible little story.
It is amazing how the “Invisible Man” story has my love now I am in the midst of it; I see that I best like doing completely realistic detailed descriptions of psychological states, giving them symbolic form; kind of “psychological fables for our time”: this guy, Oswald McQuail, is invisible to himself, but to no one else---his shadows and reflections appear properly, etc. He goes invisible (to his shock) at the peak of a very successful all-round college career; is liked by everyone---in short, is the versatile American dream-guy, with no rough edges, just beautifully all-round. Now his own identity, obviously, must depend on the verdicts of those around him; hence his sudden invisibility to himself---it is as if he must seek his own true image, the proof of his corporeal existence, in the eyes and reflections about him, which give himself back to himself with varying degrees of distortion. How to get out of this is the problem---he is a happy family man, successful in the law office---I think I will have his most promising eldest son (following in father’s footsteps) become invisible at college, but, of a more artistic nature, commit suicide by drowning. That Narcississtic leap. It must be funny, but terribly serious. Now Teddy, I want you to help me: think how it would be if you were invisible yourself---you could see your clothes, of course, but wouldn’t have the sense of looking down your nose or up at your hair, and your hands would be missing; bathing would be a struggle, because of only the suit being present; undressing before your wife always a risk (until the lights were out); you feel exactly the same; you appear in mirrors, so can shave, dress, etc., just as before; you can see yourself in others eyes; what I want is for you to check this thing when I’m done to see if I’ve made the most of reflecting mediums etc.--go around looking for your shadow or reflection in everything at home and help me add to my list, describing distortions in each: I can’t help but think the story has great possibilities; it won’t be over 10 pages---my new length. After I get this story done, and the 150 odd pages I have to type typed (between us, we have written colossal amounts!), I shall start on your terrific plots am terrifically drawn to this new recluse-woman & murderer one – !* (for women’s magazines and Money) and my novel; the Idea Of Novel scares me. I must pick up several, see how simply they begin. I will have no idea of what tone I want until I get the whole first draft done. I’ll try to put everything in, and then sleek it to a silvery greyhound of a thing. Don’t let it scare me: it’s really only 25 stories of 10 pages each, I keep telling myself; or 10 stories of 25 pages each; with the same daft girl doing different daft things.
I love you I love you I love you. At breakfast I wrap myself up in your letters; Jane and Isabel are back and I am glad; someone to be ancient with; the responsibility of those baby-dolls is at last forever gone; I shall get the reputation among them for a queer unsociable recluse who does nothing but type from morning to night; I am, at least, and this should shut you up about clever knaves, utterly incapable and undesirous of seeking to assuage my hideous loneliness in other people: other people only serve to sicken me further of the general
impotence and meanness and laziness of the human race. I work; you work; we work. I have no desire, above my typewriter and my cows, to do anything except work for you, slave for you, make myself an always richening woman for you; and that is that. Queer, but loneliness serves only to shut me up more, this wrenched horror of being from you; I am more miserable among people than alone.
Last night was the worst; I was so pleased, as I said, that I had finished one little story and begun another & then my misery hit me and dashed all this sense of industry: I read till midnight and then, with that wide-eyed wakeful tiredness, went to bed; owls hooed and hooted in some witchy congregation outside my window; I tossed, tossed, dry-eyed, aching, with a terrible feeling that I needed to hit myself on the head with a hammer to knock myself out; my body seemed incredibly thistledowny and light, as if I needed weight after weight to hold it down from flying up; at two a.m. I had a sudden wild craving for ten buttered crackers with cheese and a glass of sherry; I leapt up, buttered myself ten crackers, with cheese, and poured a glass of sherry; I drink a glass a day now; it is my one luxury; it will stay one glass; unlike my dreamless woman; but she, poor thing, is certainly an aspect of one of my selves now, god rest her soul. I have a terror that I will not sleep until you lay me to sleep again. Please, please tell me the time I should arrive in London Friday???
I shall get an exeat for Friday and Saturday even if you only told me Friday; please stay; two nights. Tell me, roughly, what time you can meet me at the station, and I’ll look up a train and say which station; my god, I have never spent such an intolerable numbed two weeks. Two---it is still only one; my god, I hope Carne-Ross will make you come to London every weekend to read; how well I could live if I could look forward to each weekend. Dreamer I am. Loved your Willie Crib poem;* you must explain the fairy & nut one to me. Think Willie should be in your book, like Auden’s ballads on virgin-cancer,* etc. Write me about what time Friday – I love you more than the whole gibbering world which owes its existence & worth – if it has any – to your being in it –