The Selected Letters of Willa Cather

by Willa Cather

  Yes, “discovering” is the verb that expresses intercourse with Fremstad—the poor dear calls herself “Olluv”, or “Oluv”, but neither she nor I can help the fact that we grew up in the middle west. But be not misled by an “Oluv” or two—take my word for it that its an intelligence that batters you up as the Rhone would if you fell into it. And this not because her talk is so emotional but because under its vivid imagery it’s so complex and tightly packed and elliptical. Suddenly she stops “you know what I mean? Then say it.” If you can’t “say it” she throws you out the window without a qualm. I shall like to tell you about her when I see you. And may that be soon! I’m more grateful than I can tell you for this good letter on a blue day. And I’ve no reason to be blue: where I caught it, found it, or came by it, I am to learn. But that’s only one more reason to be thankful to you that you won’t demand that I “show sufficient cause why, etc”. Anyhow, if I could sit for an afternoon on the Villeneuve shore and watch the gold virgin on top of the Rocher des Doms, or if I could have a cup of tea with you in Place de la République and see a soldat lift the corner of his mustache ever so little at me, I should and would be cured!

  A great many thoughts to you, and I wish I could go with them.

  W.S.C

  If you get stranded, cable me for nine francs!

  In the opening paragraph of the following letter, Cather is trying to help her friend negotiate with Outlook magazine, which had published an article of Sergeant’s in October 1912.

  TO ELIZABETH SHEPLEY SERGEANT

  April 22 [1913]

  My Dear Elsie:

  The Outlook people simply say that they do not know when they can publish the second article. I told them that I wanted to know to arrange for book rights, but they replied coldly that they were sorry, but they could give me no date. You should certainly write to whoever said the articles would be published in successive numbers. If this was said in a letter from the Outlook, so much the better. I would not write in wrath, but I would speak firmly. They have not behaved well and they ought to explain their conduct. I know no one on the staff there, so my conversation with them was by telephone from our office. They would be more likely to tell the truth to another publishing house, and the interest of one publishing house always stimulates another. But these people are a dead lot.

  I cabled you to send the story along to Harrison because I thought he could get an idea of it even with one page gone, and since the book is to come out early in the fall there would be no chance of his running it except in the summer numbers. I shall write to him at once explaining this, and telling him that I will send a postal note for the postage. That will be simple. I’ll be forever grateful to you if you corrected the French. I tried to use the queer sort they speak out there, but I felt that I was unsuccessful, so it will be better to have it simply correct. I wrote it down by ear, so to speak, phrases I heard out there last summer. They are inconsistent—always spell the church “Sainte Anne”, the town “Saint Anne.” etc.

  I feel such a sense of relief that you do like it [O Pioneers!]. You put your finger exactly on the weak spot when you say that the skeleton does not stand out enough. The modelling is not bold. But the country itself has no skeleton—no rocks or ridges. It’s a fluid black soil that runs through your fingers, composed not by the decay of big vegetation but of the light ashes of grass. It’s all soft, and somehow that influences the mood in which one writes of it—and so the very structure of the story. Oh I would like to do one with nice sharp lines, like the mountains you now have behind you! That I would!

  Mr. Greenslet rose to the occasion like a gentleman. He was delightfully enthusiastic about the story, and they are rushing it into type without delay. He is very strong for Marie, like the other gentlemen. I believe Frank satisfies me more than any of the people in it. Just now I’m in the trough of the wave about it. Having got it through and arranged for, I can be honest with myself and admit that I really want to do a very different sort of thing. I went up to see Fremstad last week and ever since I’ve been choked by things unutterable. If one could write all that that battered Swede makes one know, that would be worth while. Lord, but she is like the women on the Divide! The suspicious, defiant, far-seeing pioneer eyes. Yesterday, after she sang Kundry in the Good Friday “Parsifal,” I ran into her as she was getting into her motor. I wanted to shout “Pretty good for you, Mrs. Ericson!” But instead I bowed to her charming secretary. Fremstad’s eyes were empty glass. She had spent her charge. Hurrah for Mrs. Ericson!

  And Oh, Elsie Sergeant, her apartment is just like Alexandra’s house! The mixture of “mission” and gold legs, and the chairs! The poor thing’s ideas of comfort have never had a chance to develop. I learned from her secretary that she had had some twenty “sets” of furniture sent up before she selected the agonizing objects I saw about me.

  Miss McClung has been with me for three weeks. She says please remember her in that land where you now are. I’ve been thinking of you there with a kind of mournful pleasure. It wont be very long until you come now, will it? That will be good indeed! Thank you for everything: for reading the story and for liking it and for wanting to like it—this last most of all. It gives me great pleasure to please you; but more pleasure to feel that you care about the whole thing,—aside from stories, aside from me or yourself or anybody else. As I’ve told you, I dont know as many as six people who know or care anything about writing. You’ve read Mérimee’s “Lettres a une Inconnue”? If not, do! I love that dry, proud old chap! I like his pride, and his contemptuousness. Thank you, and thank you.

  Goodbye

  W.

  TO ELIZABETH SHEPLEY SERGEANT

  April 28 [1913]

  Dear Elsie:

  I am running off to Boston for a week with Mrs. Fields, and before I start for the train I must again remind you that I am counting on your stopping with me a few days—as long as you can—when you land. And I want to add that although I am counting on it a whole lot, more and more every week, I shant be snippy or “feminine” if, when I meet you at the boat, you tell me that you are going to chuck me and go right through to Boston. So you must not feel that you “ought” to stop in New York with W.S.C. etc., and that that is one thing more between you and getting settled. Don’t, please, let me be an ought. I am writing this now because, as I turn toward Boston, the number of people I’ve promised to visit, stare me in the face. And I’m not going to visit them. It’s outrageous in one to let people they like become a tax. So I write to beg you not to let me be a “tax”; to tell you that I am tremendously hoping that you can stay awhile with me, and that if you can’t you are not to fidget one second. You won’t have to “get past” me to the 42nd St. station. You know what I mean.

  Houghton Mifflin changed their plans five days ago and decided to bring “Pioneers” out in June. I read the whole lot of proofs in three days, and this time it seemed pretty good again. I must tell you about the Swede girl who posed for the frontispiece. And Fremstad, wonderful Fremstad! New countries are easy to reach; but to find a new kind of human creature, to get inside a new skin—that’s always [the] finest sport there is, isn’t it? [Geraldine] Farrar is good fun, too—Manon after Isolde. So, you see, I’ve much to tell you.

  A gay goodbye to you

  W.S.C.

  O Pioneers! was published in the summer of 1913, and though it did not have an enormous popular success, it was received warmly. Floyd Dell, in the Chicago Evening Post, called it “worthy of being recognized as the most vital, subtle and artistic piece of the year’s fiction.” The response reinforced Cather’s confidence about the subjects and style she called her “home pasture.”

  TO ELIZABETH SHEPLEY SERGEANT

  Sunday [late August 1913]

  Dear Elsie

  Damn this paper? Yes, but I got a lot by mistake and I have to use it up on people who know the worst of me. As soon as I really care about people, I begin to give ’em my worst—always. Please send the correspondence school novel
along when it’s ready. I’m glad to read, but I’m not up to writing much these days. Long ago I promised McClure’s an article on the Metropolitan ballet someday—not that I know anything about it—now they are in a rush and I have to stay over in this cursed heat another week and write it—or break my word, which I ought never to have given. However, I guess I can stand punishment for a week. Of course no dancers, no trainers in town whatever; result a shockingly shabby article. But it can’t be helped now. “Enough of that”, as Fremstad said when wrote that the moonlight was shimmering on the sea.

  Elsie, the notices are simply too good to be true. The Western ones all say its just like that. Did you see the Transcript one? May I send you some of the best? It’s not what they say about me that I want you to see, but what they say about the country.

  I do hope I can come to you in October, but do not refrain from asking anyone else because I hope, for a dozen things may turn up to keep me away. I go to Virginia with Isabelle for September, that is certain.

  I’m so happy that the West likes the book. I’d love to have you see the reviews. They’re so hearty, and have such a note of personal enthusiasm in them.

  Everything good to you!

  As always

  W.

  In September 1913 Cather made a two-week trip to Frederick County, Virginia, where she was born.

  TO ELIZABETH SHEPLEY SERGEANT

  September 12, 1913

  Ye Winchester Inn, Winchester, Virginia

  My Dear Elsie:

  Life has been rather a mess since I last wrote you; Pittsburgh, Lake Erie, Virginia. Winchester I find too, too dull. I can’t care anymore about the holy and sacred peculiarities of the people I knew when I was little. Isabelle is with me. Tomorrow we start on a driving trip through the North Mountains, and that will be better, except for food----I am sure that there is no remote province of Russia in which the food of commerce is so abominable. And I won’t visit, not I! All the people I really loved here are dead. I love the mountains still, but I have not the courage to bury myself in them for very long. If one had a house here, then everything would be simple.

  I wish I were going to Chocorua [New Hampshire], but I’m afraid I’m not. A few weeks in Pittsburgh after this jaunt is over, and then Bank Street again. I’m impatient to lead an industrious life once more. Vacations always tire one more than work, anyway. They have enslaved us. I believe we really dread them at heart. You will have a more satisfactory note from me when I’ve got away from the romantic “Southern” attitude, and all the oppressively budding and lonely “gills”—the male of the species is almost extinct hereabouts, and so cowed and house-broken that he can do nothing but carry wraps and dance and touch his hat. I hope you are enjoying work as much as I’m bored with loafing.

  By the way, why did you never send the correspondence novel? Do read it to me in Pittsburgh—I’ll be back there in ten days.

  Yours always

  Willa

  TO ELIZABETH SHEPLEY SERGEANT

  September 22 [1913]

  Valley Home Inn, Gore, Virginia

  Dear Elsie:

  It’s been a great success after all; glorious from the moment we took our plunge into the mountains. Five days of steady rain and I walked not less than six miles on any one of them. These woods are particularly fine in the rain. We go back to Pittsburgh on Sept 25th, alas. There is really nowhere here to stay after that. I’m sure now that I can’t join you in the country, though perhaps I can get up to spend a few days with you. There are weddings and all sort of things to break up my schedule. The Opera Singer article was finished before I left Pittsburgh, but I’ve got to fall to work next week. Fremstad writes me from Munich that she arrives this week and goes up to her camp for several weeks and that she would like to have me stay with her there. Such a terrifying proposition I absolutely pass up! In the safe paths of civilization I’m not afraid of her, but I decline to risk her uncertain temper in the Wilds of Maine. I also decline to take the risk of boring her—for after all the only thing she really cares about is music. Her letter reached me here in the mountains and quite stumped me. She begins “I am sailing for home, (i.e. America) on the 17th” etc. I love that i.e.! How can anyone be so consistent?

  Thank you very much for writing me about what the Flexners said of “Alexandra”. I am greatly interested and pleased. What’s the matter with “globules”? I could not say drop because a drop may be flat, or pear-shaped, whereas a globule means to me something round and firm, and that’s the way the dew is on the short grass. The English notices are a perfect delight, every one of them.

  We have had nine wonderful days here, and there are still two more.

  Yours

  Willa S. C.

  While in Virginia, Cather saw many members of her extended family, and in the following she dutifully reports on them to her father.

  TO CHARLES F. CATHER

  September 25 [1913]

  On the train.

  My Dear Father

  I spent most of yesterday afternoon with Mary Smith, and then Isabelle and I called again in the evening and I took her some roses. She was terribly bruised and is still suffering a good deal, but was keen and chatty as ever. She has aged a good deal, but I would have known her anywhere. She was delighted to see me and sent you and mother many affectionate messages. I went to the Bank to see Walter Gore. He was polite but not very cordial. He lives only a block from the bank but he did not ask me to go to see his wife. You remember when Lillian Gore came back from Europe a few months after Walter’s marriage, she came up to Winchester with a lot of silver she had bought for them in Holland. She sent up her card to Mrs. Walter, who sent back word that she was not feeling well and could not see Lillian. After she left the house Lillian met Walter on the street. He said very cordially “Hello, Aunt Lillian, I didn’t know you were in town!” but he said no more. Lillian went back to Washington in a rage and has never been back since. Walter seems a nice lad, but he does not find his relatives interesting, and is sensible enough not to pretend.

  I had such a nice long visit with Miss Jennie Smith, now Mrs. Garvin, before I left Gore. She is almost as large as her mother and has only two teeth, but there is something fine and dignified about her face all the same. How many relatives she has nursed and buried! The last was the aunt Mary (or Liza) Trone who used to keep house for Captain Murl. I met the old Captain on horseback, still a fine upright figure of a man, I declare; with wonderful white beard and hair.

  One beautiful day we walked up to Anderson’s Cove. I had never been there before. It is one of the finest views I have ever seen in any country. We stopped and had a chat with Miss Ellen Anderson; such a dear little house as she has away up there, with lovely flowers and a grand “balm o’ Gilead” tree, and everything whitewashed like snow. She seemed so lonely and glad of company. “Yes ladies,” she said, “the view’s grand; but ladies, I prefer city life!” She was so earnest one could not even smile. It was a glorious walk up and down, and we saw only one small copperhead. That afternoon Miss Ellen rode down the mountain on her cavalry saddle in a flowing skirt to get another look at us.

  We saw Giles and Dorothy set out for the North River in their “jagger” that looked as if Noah had built it instead of Mr. Potts. They went up in summer clothes and came back in winter clothes, Giles in a fur cap and Dorothy veiled like an ancient priestess. They drove a mouse colored horse, as round as a barrel. I never saw such a fat, sleepy horse. They are dear people, and I love them dearly. They brought back watermelons for us to eat, but our stay was over and we could not go over to their house again, we left the morning after they got back. Giles will be delighted to get the seeds and your letter. They were in the post office when I left Gore, but he checks for his mail only twice a week.

  Tell mother I will write to her soon, and that I send much love to you both.

  Willie

  TO ELSIE CATHER

  [October 1913]

  Dear Bobbie

  This is from
the “Nation”, which seldom reviews and about never praises a novel. I am very proud of it. I used to meet [David Graham] Phillips about the Waldorf and talk to him and I used to think “you big stuffed-shirt-and-checked-pants, I know more about the real west than you do, but I could never make anybody believe it, because I wear skirts and don’t shave.” But you see people do believe it, after all, and I call that very jolly. Please show this notice to Roscoe and send it back to me.

  Willie

  The Nation review of O Pioneers!, published on September 4, 1913, was very strong. It begins “Few American novels of recent years have impressed us so strongly as this,” and favorably compares Cather’s novel to the work of Frank Norris and David Graham Phillips.

  In the following, Cather’s remarks about telephone directories are a coy way of referring to her efforts to find the perfect name for her heroine in her new novel, The Song of the Lark.