by Willa Cather
Scribners’ wanted to serialize it, but their bid was only about half that of the Crowell people. They never pay much, as they have a very small circulation. There is nothing in serial publication now-a-days but money, so get all you can. Once there was “class” about appearing in good magazines, but now there are no good ones, so why bother?
Lovingly to you all
Willie
TO ELSIE CATHER
July 14 [1934]
Dearest Sister;
I am writing in bed after packing all day. Thank you for your letter from Hastings. I am so glad Bess [Seymour] is there and that she has no cancer. Oh that heat! Every morning for weeks I open the Tribune before breakfast and look at the temperatures reported from Omaha, Kansas City, and Denver, always hoping it will say “rain & cooler” and it never does. Minnesota and Wisconsin are just as bad. My heart is heavy for you all, and especially for the old people. If I were a Catholic I’d be sure this world is being punished for its new ways of thinking and behaving.
The heat was 100 to 110 here right along for the two weeks when I was finishing my book, but I did not mind it much. This apartment was usually cool in the mornings, and Josephine was always so jolly and resourceful. My poor typist could not keep my manuscript clean—the purple ink ran and smeared on the pages, and for the first time I sent in dirty manuscripts to both the magazine and to Alfred Knopf.
Both Alfred and the W. H. Companion are very much excited about the story. Three weeks ago I sent a rough draft to Jan Hambourg for musical corrections. Yesterday I got a cable which reads:
“Lucy unquestionably your finest work. Beautiful, rich, inevitable complete. Like Brahms B major trio
Isabelle Jan”
It’s by no means my finest book; but the design is good, I think. The first part is written for the last. It would all be much better if I had not had to drop it entirely for nearly four months, just when I was going strong. I never got back the same enthusiasm.
Now I am sending you another check, for it takes days to get to Grand Manan, and some days to get settled after we arrive. You might need something for Doctor or hospital before I can write you again.
Virginia cried bitterly when I told her Bess was so ill. She said some of the best memories she had were connected with her Aunt Bessie.
I see by the paper that Charles [Auld] is at home! Pleasant, I should think. What do the townspeople think of Will Auld? Do you ever see any of them, of the Aulds, I mean? So it turns out that Bess has helped to pay for [Will and Jessica Cather Auld’s son] Tom’s schooling! I can never have much respect for that young man, I’m afraid.
Elsie, I wish you would use some of this check to get one of those new oscillating electric fans for your bedroom—they are almost noiseless and they saved my life in the hot stuffy rooms of the Grosvenor hotel. Changing the air does refresh the body.
I feel guilty to be going off to a cool place, dear Bobbie, but after two weeks I’ll have my proofs to read, and I could never do that in Red Cloud in the heat. I expect you think I’m pretty selfish, but if you could read the hundreds of letters that come in to me all the time (to the office, too) you would have to believe that my books do give pleasure to the intelligent and the sick and the unfortunate, as well as giving fools and tonguey women something to talk about. They do more for more people than I could personally do if I were as strong as iron and devoted my whole life to good works. I don’t write ’em with that purpose, but they have that result. Any kind of integrity helps in this world, and I have my own kind.
With love, dear sister, and thinking of you and what you are up against, every hour in the day,
Willie
TO ALFRED A. KNOPF
July 27 [1934]
My Dear Alfred:
I must seem very inconsistent to you—wanting big plain type for the “Archbishop,” and not wanting it for “Lucy”. But you see I wanted the “Archbishop” to look as if it were printed on a country press, for old people to read. I don’t, of course, want “Lucy” to look like that. I do wish you could repeat the “Lost Lady” type, with it’s sharp “W”s and “M”s. Perhaps a smaller size of this Caslon would do, but I honestly think this page you send me looks like a child’s First Reading Book—It stares at me with open eyes and open mouth until it’s actually hard to read. I can’t see any text, I see only letters that look unnaturally large and commonplace on a page of this size.
If you will repeat the page of “A Lost Lady” exactly for me, I’ll write you another romantic story, and a better one than Lucy! Now that’s a fair offer, isn’t it?
So far, glorious weather on the island, and I’ve never before enjoyed getting back to it so much. Today is the first rain and heavy fog. I love being on this mere pin-point in the North Atlantic, drowned in oceans of fog with the rain beating down, and no sound but the water and the bell-buoy. The Brittish Government sends out buoys with a lovely tone; this one is the G below middle C, I think, and the fog makes it deep and full and very soft—it seems to call from a great distance.
With love to you both,
W. S. C.
TO MARY MINER CREIGHTON
[Around August 15, 1934]
Grand Manan Island
My Darling Mary:
A week ago today I and my family lost the kindest of friends [Dr. E. A. Creighton], and you lost what very few people ever have at all, a life-long companion who cherished you and admired you and found complete happiness in his life with you.
You will tell me that this makes it only the harder to bear now. It will make your loneliness greater, I know. But you and I have lived long enough to know that it is possible for human beings to have only a very limited amount of real happiness in this world, and so many people miss it altogether. You had more than most of the people I know. I have known very few marriages as happy as yours. Your devoted care prolonged the Doctor’s life for many years, and you made his home so pleasant for him that, as he often told me, he could be happier there than anywhere else in the world. I always loved to meet Doctor on the street because he always looked so happy. His kind, intelligent face glowed with an inner content. I liked to listen to his nice voice when he came to look mother over. When I was far away I always felt easy in mind about father and mother because Dr. Creighton was there. I knew if anything went wrong he would get there, and get there quick. You remember I kept his telephone number plastered in both bedrooms on sticky labels, so that they could see it without glasses. I wish you and he could have been in New York another winter; but I shall always feel grateful to fate that you were both there that one winter.
Sometime, Mary, I want to tell you about a kind thing he did for a young woman of this town. I promised him never to mention it, and I never did. He came to our home one morning and said he wanted to see me alone. A patient of his was going to have her second baby just after she had lost her first, and would I please be nice to her! He asked it just like that! Said she was nervous and felt every little thing, and when I met her would I please be cordial and jolly her up a little. He said he knew I didn’t mean it, but that sometimes I was rather brusque with people. I promised, and I certainly never admired the Doctor so much as when I walked out to his car with him after that interview. Think of the delicacy of the man, to realize the importance of such little things, and to come directly to me and ask me to be a little more agreeable! I was complimented that he felt he could frankly ask me to “mend my manners”! Almost any doctor will try to help a hurt foot or hand, but how many will try to help hurt feelings? Not many.
I expect you can guess who the young woman was, but since he asked me not to mention his unusual professional call that morning, I never shall to anyone but you, and I had rather only you and Carrie and Irene knew about it. Of all my memories of the Doctor, that is the one I like most. It took so many qualities in a man to make him do that simple thing! Very few women have as much delicacy as that.
My heart bleeds for you, dear Mary, but how many proud and happy memories you
have to comfort you. If I could have tried to plan a happy life for you when we were little girls, I could not have planned anything better than you have had. I never saw a dis-contented look on the Doctor’s face. You made him perfectly happy. Only think, he might never have gone to Red Cloud at all! His going there meant so much good for my own family and countless others, as well as for you and for him. I shall just try to be thankful to God that he did go there.
So lovingly, dear,
Willie
TO LOUISE GUERBER BURROUGHS
August 29 [1934]
Grand Manan Island
Dear Louise;
I’ve thought of you often since I arrived here July 20th. My conscience was uneasy because I had never told you how much I enjoyed reading the diary of your ancestress about her terrible crossing of the Atlantic. The last weeks in town were hectic; I was arranging the serial publication of “Lucy” and doing what I could to help old friends in Nebraska who were actually in want.
Even here the summer has been unusually dry. Most of the time this island has been a shining gold spot in a blue sea. I have just finished reading the galley proofs of “Lucy” and I think better of it than I did when it was a messy corrected manuscript. The lines of a thing come out in type.
Last night came your letter with distressing news. However did Mr. [Bryson] Burroughs pick up that bug? I suspect it was by loafing too little and painting too much. But if you have your own bungalow, and he is writing, then he is living and not merely being sick. And he’s doing the Pre-Raphaelites! They always seemed so beautiful and legendary to me when I knew their works in re-production only. But when I went to England first and saw their works! Such awful color, I’ve never got over the shock of it. I mean [Edward] Burne-Jones and [Dante Gabriel] Rossetti—seems as if they mixed a little mud in their paint. I remember awful greens, and ladies,—pure Virgins with mouldy complexions. These painters should be engraved, always, and their canvases kept in a locked gallery for students only.
I’m doing nothing, and thinking about nothing but the weather. I’ve been reading a lot of Anatole France over because I happen to have a lot of his books up here. Speaking of cycles of taste, he’s despised in France now, you know. They shrug and say, “Oh yes, a virtuoso.”
Oh you, I’ve only a few Shakespeares up here—not the “Merchant”. A lost line torments me; what is the second line of Morocco’s speech which begins,
Mislike me not for my complexion,
The – – livery of the – – sun
To whom I am a neighbour and (near bred (?)
I try supplying various adjectives, but with him it’s dangerous to substitute.
With love and good wishes to you both, and recommending toddy for the invalid,
Yours
W.S.C.
The line from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, spoken by the Prince of Morocco, is:
Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shadow’d livery of the burnish’d sun,
To whom I am a neighbour and near bred.
TO EDWARD WAGENKNECHT
November 22, 1934
My unknown Friend:
Your first name I can read, but your last name begins with a swastika and ends with a king, so the Postmaster must use his discretion. I got back to New York some weeks ago, and working through an enormous accumulation of letters, I finally came upon yours and stopped for a breathing space, partly because of your difficult handwriting and partly because you began your letter with the name of someone I loved. What an inadequate book [Sarah Orne Jewett] that young man [Francis O. Matthiessen] did write about Miss Jewett! He misinterprets so many of the facts that he dug up, and she herself never for a moment graces his pages. It seems to me that even if I had never known her, I could have reconstructed her from her letters to Mrs. Fields and her published works. This young man is modern and abrupt. Before he wrote his book he sent me a letter which said simply: “At what date can I call upon you for information regarding Sarah Orne Jewett?” I think I told him January 1, 1990.
Thank you for the incident you tell me about Mary Jewett after she was paralyzed. I grew to know her very well after Sarah Jewett’s death, and often visited her in the beautiful old house at South Berwick. It is a lasting regret to me that I was unable to go to see her during her long illness. My mother had a stroke in Pasadena, California, shortly before Miss Jewett’s illness came upon her, and from that time on I had to be on the West coast. Her nephew, Dr. [Theodore] Eastman, kept me posted as to her condition. He, you know, was snuffed out only a few months after Mary Jewett’s death, and now that whole family, and all the beautiful things which graced their lives, have vanished as if they had never been. (The one good thing about that young man’s book is that it contains some very charming drawings and photographs of that beautiful New England interior.) It is a disgrace to New England that any of Miss Jewett’s books should be out of print. It will be a long while before New England produces such another writer.
My friendliest greetings to your mother and yourself. It is a pleasure to hear from any true lover of Sarah Orne Jewett.
Very cordially yours,
Willa Cather
TO EGBERT SAMUEL OLIVER
December 13, 1934
My dear Mr. Oliver:
Twenty-eight professors are writing books on “Creative Writing in College Courses.” I know that, because I have written answers to twenty-eight men, and with the twenty-eighth, I made a resolution that I would answer no more letters on that subject. You are twenty-nine, and you come too late.
I think it is sheer nonsense to attempt to teach “Creative Writing” in colleges. If the college students were taught to write good, sound English sentences (sentences with unmistakable articulation) and to avoid hackneyed platitudinous, woman’s-club expressions, such as: “colorful”, “the desire to create”, “worth while books”, “a writer universally acclaimed”—all those smug expressions which really mean nothing at all—then creative writing would take care of itself. Nothing whatever should be done to stimulate literary activity in America! [I]ts quality will never be improved by stimulation. I do wish the colleges taught people to write passably clear and correct English, however. More than half of the twenty-eight professors who have written to me within the last few months were quite unable to use “which” and “that” and “would” and “should” correctly—at least, they did not honor me by using them correctly in their letters of request. They made many other errors of the same sort, which a well-trained high school student avoids.
Very sincerely yours,
Willa Cather
(Dictated)
TO IDA KLEBER TODD
December 28 [1934]
Dear Mrs. Todd;
Happy New Year! People are always writing me (people I don’t know) that I have “influenced” their lives. I wonder if you know that you have influenced mine? Once, long ago, in some discussion, you said, half under your breath, “Oh yes, of course, art simplifies.” I had never thought of that before; I have been trying to live that remark ever since. It was the way you spoke, carelessly and yet as if there could be no doubt about the matter; and because I felt a kind of authority in you—didn’t try to explain it, just felt it.
I have read thousands of pages that did not say as much to me as that sentence rather lightly dropped by a living voice—a very individual voice with a tempo and timbre distinctly its own. The sentence went home like an arrow—because of something in you and something in me. As I said, I’ve been trying to live it ever since.
With all my heart, Happy New Year!
Affectionately,
Willa Cather
TO THOMAS MASARYK
February 14 [1935]
New York City
My Dear President Masaryk;
As the date of your birthday approaches please allow me to send my heart-felt good wishes, and my congratulations on the quality of the years you have left behind you. And may I take this occasion to tell you that
your friendly interest has been and is one of the most cherished rewards of my professional life? We live in a strange world, at a strange time. Public opinion just now means less than ever before, because it is re-actionary, without roots or background. It represents the spasm of a multitude of minds, not their natural judgement. We could almost say with Macbeth that “nothing is but what is not.” We behave as though we could create a new scale of values by the mere act of besmirching the old. In such a time, the only satisfaction any reflective person can have is in the sympathetic consideration of a few individuals in the world; those whom one respects and admires. Your friendly interest in my books has grown the more precious to me as the times have grown stranger. Of the half-dozen so called “public men” from whom I used to hear by letter occasionally, you are the only one who is not now living in exile. They were not sentenced by any court, I believe; they simply are not allowed to live at home. Switzerland and America are rich in scholars just now, because they have nowhere else to go.
Greetings and salutations to you from my heart.
Willa Cather
TO ROSCOE CATHER
April 23 [1935]
My Dear Roscoe;
Don’t think that I did not appreciate your long, understanding, letter about the English reviews. I hope I can sometime have a long talk with you about the peculiar satisfaction I get out of working occasionally in legendary themes. Rotation of crops is a good thing for gardens and writers.
Things have been pretty thick for me. When I was up in Montreal trying to get some work done in a quiet place I had an appendix attack and had to come home. Here I have had a second attack, and will have to go up for an operation before long. Isabelle McClung Hambourg, who has been very ill in Paris all winter, landed on March 26th with her husband who came over to tour Canada with his two brothers [Mark and Boris Hambourg]. They form the Hambourg Trio, playing chamber music. I called my doctor for Isabelle, who found her condition very serious; both kidneys much enlarged and incysted. Nothing malignant, but a condition which keeps them from performing more than half of their proper function, necessitates the strictest possible diet and an invalid life from now on. Three surgeons agree that the kidneys were mal-formed at her birth and, for the last eight years, have been growing rapidly worse with the natural changes of body tissue. I am not writing this to any other member of my family, as there are, alas, so many people who rather rejoice in the overthrow of the strong and the generous. Jan was with her for three weeks, while I got some work done in Montreal. Then he had to go off on his tour. I removed her to the Lennox Hill Hospital, about half a mile from me, and will have the whole responsibility until his return, June 1st. She is just as sweet and dignified and uncomplaining as an invalid as she was as a girl, but of course you will understand how sad all this makes me and how much it takes out of me. The doctors are devoted to her. With the strictest care she may live for some years. I have given up my trip to Italy this summer and am not trying to work now. I shut up my portefolio in Montreal. After Jan’s return I shall have my appendix taken out. Worst of all my perplexities, my dear French woman [Josephine Bourda], who has been my prop and stay ever since I moved into this apartment (she used to be with me all during the war years, from 1914 to 1918) is going back to her native Pyrenees with her husband and daughter to stay for good. I’m glad she is to be again among her native mountains which she loves, but it will wreck my life, rather. No one else will ever so respect me and my calling. She sails on May 25th.