American Isis by Carl Rollyson

New Hampshire in early February for a brief visit.
    Eddie Cohen suddenly appeared at Smith in early April, exhausted from his cross-country drive from Chicago and ill-prepared for Sylvia’s frigid reception. He drove her home in near silence. Their awkward meeting shook his confidence. He wondered if perhaps he had misled her and was not the good-looking guy in the photograph he had sent her. At any rate, he took the blame for their misadventure and told her he was going to therapy. He suspected that somewhere in him a piece was missing, and he was “ rather anxious to find what and where it is.”
    Eddie had been replaced by Dick Norton, a med student at Yale, tall and handsome, and the older brother of Perry Norton, whom Sylvia had dated in high school. The older neighbor boy noticed she had grown up, and he invited her for a weekend at his school—always a special kind of invitation, requiring arrangements for travel by train and a place to stay, insuring all was in order for a Smith girl intent on preserving her chastity. Dick was a master of the routine, and at first he impressed Sylvia. He was friendly but not too familiar, writing correct letters that inquired about her studies, discussed their families, and expressed interest in what she was writing. He also described events on his campus, including the visit of Reinhold Neibuhr, a theologian then popular owing to his talent for addressing a broad range of readers concerned about America’s place in history. Like Plath, Niebuhr feared the country was going the way of the Roman Empire.
    If Dick was promising, he also needed work, Sylvia confided to Ann. He acted like an “indulgent older cousin,” memorizing poetry and reciting it to her, even though he had discounted “emotional expression” unless it had a scientific basis “or something,” Sylvia trailed off. Whereas go-for-broke Eddie saw a glorious future for Sylvia as a writer, the practical Dick observed, “You won’t be badly off, Syl, if she [Aurelia] can teach you shorthand and if I can impart some enthusiasm for natural science. One or both may come in time.” Sylvia had to set aside such small-minded advice in hopes that there was more to Dick. Right then, it was Dick—or more of those dreadful blind dates.
    Their first weekend was a great success. Dick made headway, it seems, because he was gentlemanly and sure of himself, traits Sylvia admired. Unlike her blind dates, he was not cowed by her intelligence; indeed, he found it lacking in some respects. The very idea that she might have shortcomings sent Sylvia to the moon over Dick, as she revealed in a 5 March letter to Ann: “I never felt so shallow in my life.” And he knew how to show a girl a good time, attending an exciting swim meet, biking, and dining at a Chinese restaurant. Reporting to her mother about the weekend with Dick, Sylvia summed it up this way: “He knows everything.”
    In her journal, Sylvia gave Dick a portentous fanfare. She might as well have written a Harlequin romance, for the scene is set at night, with the wind whipping up a froth of expectation, as she strides forward on “silver feet,” holding hands with her beloved under the starkly shining street lights, “Two of us, strong and together.” Overhead she observes a cathedral of constellations, and Dick says it is like “being in church.” They kiss, again and again. Sylvia salivated over that “glorious specimen of Dick-hood,” who addressed one letter to her, “Dear Incomparable One” and signed another “Your willing slave.”
    To her mother, Sylvia spoke in conventional terms of catching a man. In her journal she chided herself, “so proud and disdainful of custom,” for thinking of marriage as a viable option, one that required her to subordinate herself to a husband and to channel her creativity through his career. Even so, Sylvia hoped her man