by Willa Cather
With love to you
W.S.C.
In 1946 E. K. Brown published “Homage to Willa Cather” in the Yale Review. This work, combined with his previous essay “Willa Cather and the West,” so impressed Cather and Edith Lewis that, after Cather’s death, Lewis and Alfred Knopf chose Brown to be her first biographer.
TO E. K. BROWN
October 7, 1946
My dear Mr. Brown:
I have been delayed in writing to you by a whirlwind of repairs in this apartment house—repairs not requested by me and over which I had no control. Moreover, this is a difficult letter to write. It is hard for me to tell you in temperate language how deeply I appreciate your careful and sympathetic reading of my books.
The fact that I have not been writing much lately is largely due to the fact that I rather lost enthusiasm. Four years ago my brother Douglass, who loved the Southwest and with whom I used to knock about in that part of this country, died very suddenly of a heart seizure in California. Just one year ago this past September my brother Roscoe, who was in the sheep business in western Wyoming for many years, and with whom I used to spend long vacations in the summer time, died in his sleep at Colusa, California, where he had retired to escape the severe winter climate of Wyoming.
As for my books, I think I agree with your estimate in almost every instance. Of course, I know that “Death Comes for the Archbishop” is my best book. I was seven years in getting the material for it, but I never made notes because I did not expect to write a book about the Southwest. It was too big and too various. But it gave me more pleasure than any other part of this continent, and I made many trips down there simply as a matter of self-indulgence. You see, the story of the Southwest involved too many individuals—little related to each other. Strange: how long and pleasantly one can reach after a design, and how quietly and simply it comes to one at last. I shall always remember the late afternoon when I was sitting in a very gravelly, uncomfortable spot up by the Martyr’s Cross, east of Santa Fé, watching the Sangre de Cristo Mountains color with the sunset. I suddenly, without any questioning, said to myself:
“The real story of the early Southwest is the story of the missionary priests. They all came from France, and came here with a background: cultivated minds and a large vision—and a noble purpose.”
From that evening on I began to find out what I could about those missionary priests—and everything I found out about them made me admire them the more. Even then I made very few notes, because the material stayed with me. Poor Mary Austin always claimed that the “Archbishop” was written in her house, in Santa Fé. Now I hear that a mad woman, called [Mary Cabot] Wheelwright, claims that it was written in her house. In truth, the book was written in the course of one year, most of it was written in a house near Jaffrey, New Hampshire. (Jaffrey lies at the foot of Mount Monadnock)—It was finished in my own apartment on Bank Street, in New York. I read the book through last spring (when I was recuperating from an illness)—the first time I have read it through since it was published. And I was pleased with it because it reflected some of the pleasure I used to feel when I wandered about that country by railroad and spring wagon and on horseback. I never used the automobile very much because I got more pleasure out of closeness than speed.
Now let me tell you a story, because I think I can always write better in narrative. I was very much disappointed in “O Pioneers”, not disappointed in the reviews but in my own review of it. My credentials were honest, but I had made a mistake. I loved the Norwegian colony in Nebraska. They were rather stiff and severe—and very exclusive. And I loved the French colony up North, because they were gay and spirited and had such an attractive religion. But the Norwegian and the French people never liked each other. They didn’t fight—but they didn’t mix. Now, in “O Pioneers”, I tried to blend what God himself had put asunder,—and I saw that I had been an idiot. I had then an excellent opportunity to make my residence in London, getting interesting matter for American publishing houses. Mr. McClure had sent me over twice for that purpose and I brought him back good material. I had two good friends in London who would always help me to get such material—William Heinemann and William Archer.
In the early spring of 1913 (it must have been), the spring after “O Pioneers” was published, I was taking a walk on Riverside Drive of a Sunday morning when I saw someone waving to me from across the street. It was Louis Brandeis. His wife was a Miss [Alice] Goldmark, and the Goldmarks then lived on Riverside Drive. He came across the street, shook hands with me and said:
“Miss Cather, I have read your book.”
I was delighted to see him, but I answered rather grumpily: “I’m sorry.”
He gave me one of those searching looks of his and said:
“Now, that’s not quite sincere. But the book is.”
Then we had a long talk, walking up and down. What he had to say was that whatever faults the book had, there was real feeling in it for some places and some people, and the thing that he, personally, did not find in contemporary writers was just that thing. He named three, I remember. Mrs. Wharton was one of them. (She being no longer living, I can use her name.) I know now that this talk was in the middle of Brandeis’ terrible struggle about the railroads. You would have thought that he would be worn to a thread, but he was as handsome and gay as when I used to go to his house in Boston, in 1910 and 1911. The very scholarly and thorough book by Professor [Alpheus Thomas] Mason of Princeton, explaining all of Brandeis’ great work, never lets the living man, so witty and gay, once walk across the page!
The truth is that after that talk with him, I changed my plans. I blundered on and didn’t do much better, but I kept myself free from editorial work and was learning by failures. I never saw Louis Brandeis again. He probably took a glance at my two subsequent books and sighed and gave up the quest. It takes people (some people) a long while to learn what they really love, and what they love best.
I think you underestimate, a little, Mr. Brown, the pioneers among the early railroad builders in the West. Some of them were men of imagination–––imagination of a high order. When I was very young—a child, indeed—I saw Jim Hill, and stood respectfully listening to him as he talked to a group of Burlington operatives. I think he was a great dreamer and a great man.
If one is any judge of one’s own processes, I never conscientiously paid much attention to language. If the language tells more in the “Archbishop” than in other books it isn’t due to any painstakingness on my part, any more than there is a design when the lid of a saucepan begins to hop because the water underneath it is boiling. When one cares enough, the language for that feeling comes. Good Heavens, we have language enough behind us! No other people has such a glorious heritage of language. We have the King James translation of the Bible and Shakespeare, and Chaucer—(not below either of them in his humor and his strange kind of tenderness). If a writer cares enough and is too self-respecting to be willing to make a fool of himself, the language comes as naturally as people laugh or cry.
This is a long, wandering letter, Mr. Brown, and maybe it isn’t at all to the point. But it tells you the why of some things, at least. May I say that I am glad you had a good word for “My Mortal Enemy”. It was lucky that by that time I had got into the hands of a broad-minded publisher. Houghton Mifflin would surely have sent that story back to me for extensive revisions.
I don’t think much of “Lucy Gayheart” either. But, strangely enough, I think it picks up after all the Gayhearts are safe in the family burial lot. I think the last chapters, which deal entirely with the effect of Lucy on the hard-boiled business man, are rather interesting.
It has been a great satisfaction to me to find in your article how the various books struck a thoughtful and scholarly man. It takes a long while to learn to do anything passably well. And when the material was so exciting (and exhausting to one), maybe it took longer than it would have done if one had only had a cooler head and a better sense of form.
> With deep appreciation,
Yours
Willa Cather
TO E. K. BROWN
January 24, 1947
Dear Professor Brown:
I have been tardy in answering your letter because I have as yet no definite plans for the spring or summer. I must be in California for a part of the spring and probably all of the summer. I have two brothers living there and a number of nieces and nephews scattered between San Diego and San Francisco. If I am in the city when you come on for your lectures in the Graduate School of New York University, I will certainly arrange a meeting. There are a great many things I would like to talk to you about—things more important than would directly concern you or me. What about the new edition of Shakespeare, arranged by that terrible teacher at Middlebury, Vermont, who retains what he considers the important scenes and cuts out what he considers superfluous or dull? I never feel apprehensive about Dos Passos and his kind, and I don’t believe it is wise for the law to interfere with them, but I wish there were some way by which the law could interfere with an expurgated Shakespeare!
No, it will be a long time before we have another Brandeis on the Supreme Court bench. During the three years I spent in Boston, I was often at Mr. Brandeis’ house in the evening. He was then working on one of his most difficult cases (one of his secretaries told me that his morning’s mail would usually fill a peck measure); but during all this time I never heard him talk about anything that related to his professional life. Those were the days of the opera in Boston, and I used often to see Mr. and Mrs. Brandeis in the audience. It was Mrs. [Alice Goldmark] Brandeis who first took me to see Mrs. James T. Fields, the widow of the great Boston publisher. The Brandeises lived on Otis Place and Mrs. Fields’ house, 148 Charles Street, was just around the corner. I haven’t happened to know another great man who was so fortunate in his wife as Mr. Brandeis. She was very handsome, very intelligent, and ‘worldly’ in a good sense—she had an instinctive knowledge of people, and she loved people and life—found everything interesting, even the absurd. She did not survive the Justice long.
Life stretches out as being rather long when one stops to remember all the fine people one has known and admired in this country and abroad. I used to spend a good deal of time in London. I remember how William Archer and I sat in Lady Gregory’s box on the night that the Abbey players made their debut in London. They played The Rising of the Moon [by Lady Gregory] for the curtain raiser—and then The Playboy [of the Western World, by John Millington Synge]. It was a puzzled audience,—and I was puzzled. When we went afterward for some supper, Archer asked me what I thought of the performance. I said I thought it was interesting but not very dramatic. Mr. Archer said very gently, “To me, anything that is interesting in the theater belongs there —and is dramatic.”–––We learn a great deal from great people. The mere information doesn’t matter much–––but they somehow strike out the foolish platitudes that we have been taught to respect devoutly, and give us courage to be honest and free. Free to rely on what we really feel and really love–––and that only.
I shall look forward, then, to some discussion of our values when you come to New York in the spring.
Faithfully yours
Willa Cather
TO BISHOP GEORGE ALLEN BEECHER
March 12, 1947
Dear Bishop Beecher:
I just want to tell you how often I have thought of you since I had your son’s telegram which told me such sad news. There is nothing in this world that can comfort one for the loss of a lifetime companionship. I saw all that after the death of my father. My mother was simply never again the same person, although she always had great courage.
I have delayed writing to you because I like to write very personal letters by hand and I have lately had a severe sprain to my right hand, which makes the use of the pen impossible for the present. I am glad that not very many weeks before Christmas, I did snatch the time to write you and Mrs. Beecher a Christmas letter (with pen and ink), while my hand was normal. I had a feeling that I wanted to write you both by hand–––It was a kind of homesickness for you and all your work, and the visits I used to pay Mrs. Beecher when you were out on your diocese. I don’t have many correspondents in Red Cloud now, but Carrie Sherwood and Mrs. Creighton have always been true friends, and so have Sidney Florance and his wife [Trixie]. I have been trying to help the hospital board make a pleasant hospital of the dear old house where my father and mother were so happy for many years, and where they made the house dear to their children by beautiful memories. The house was sold without my knowledge and had for some years a rather degraded existence. But now kind and truly friendly people, like Mr. and Mrs. D. B. Burden, are doing all they can to make it a homelike hospital. Even some of the poor little sewing societies out in the western part of the county are selling hand-pieced quilts and raising little contributions for the hospital. Some of the country people have written me how kindly and hospitably they were always entertained by my mother when they went to town to do their shopping or to have their teeth fixed. Those memories outlast the short term of human life.
I pray for you that you may have strength to bear the loneliness which faces you, and I am always devotedly and gratefully yours.
Willa Cather
TO E. K. BROWN
March 23, 1947
Dear Mr. Brown:
I am happy to have your letter telling me more or less of your plans, and I shall write my plans to you as soon as I have a clear head and plain sailing.
Yesterday this apartment was stormed by impetuous and loving friends, who were to sail on the Queen Elizabeth at one o’clock. Hepzibah, her Scotch husband, Lindsay, and her two little boys arrived first. Soon after, Yehudi’s two children arrived. Later Yehudi himself—always a quieting influence, even where there is a crowd of excited children. Here we all were (the children only were new), the rest of us were sitting in these rooms just as we used to meet here every week ten and twelve years ago. Concert-trained people have perfect relaxation. They never think about what they are going to do in the next hour until the present hour is entirely spent. At eleven-thirty my guests quietly rose, got the children into their wraps, without any flurry, dropped down in the elevator to the street floor, where cabs were waiting, and drove to the North River docks at 56th Street to have lunch before the boat sailed at one. All their luggage had been placed on board, in the proper stateroom, the day before.
Yehudi and Hepzibah are going over to give a series of concerts together, not only in London but in other large cities throughout England as well—admission prices so little that even poor people can hear good music again. For sixteen years ever since they first came to me with letters of introduction from old friends in France and England, the Menuhin children have been one of the chief interests and joys of my life. There is just an inherent beauty in their natures that goes far beyond any “giftedness”–––and yet natural beauty of mind and heart is a very great part of the “giftedness”. I would rather have almost any other chapter of my life left out than the Menuhin chapter which has gone on so happily over so many years. That is why I find that I cannot write any proper answer to your letter—cannot write anything today except about the wonderful yesterday with those dear children (as they still are to me) and their children. Today these rooms seem actually full of their presence and their faithful, loving friendship.
Willa Cather
by Sarah J. Bloom
TO SIGRID UNDSET
April 8, 1947
Dear Sigrid Undset:
If you knew how many times I have read over your letter and enjoyed it, I think you would be glad you took the pains to write me. The latter part of the winter has been very bad for me. I overstrained a tendon in my right hand—the same tendon which I injured eight years ago. I had thought it completely cured but it had a relapse in January, and since then I have been carrying it in a steel and leather brace to keep it absolutely still. The brace was made by an expert surgeon, is very
light and comfortable, and my thumb lies in a neat little trough, apart from the rest of my hand. I sleep with it on, without any discomfort.
Isn’t the world behaving very strangely, after all? Miss Lewis lunched this week with half a dozen very advanced Hindus, introduced to her by old friends (artists) who live out in the East. Their talk was really absurd, and very boastful and exultant about India’s release from English rule. “Out from under the heel of the despot at last”! Wait until a few thousands are dieing of famine in the streets of their cities, when there is no [Archibald] Wavell to go down to Calcutta and supervise the rescue squads in the streets.
England has certainly been hard hit. Aside from the shortage of coal and food, the regimentation has been very severe—I suppose necessary. An aged friend of mine, who petitioned for a permit to buy enough lumber to mend his veranda floor, fell and broke his hip before he could get permission to buy the necessary lumber. At his age, he will scarcely survive such an accident.
Yes, Madame Undset, the winter has been mild here with us, drearily and demoralizingly mild—soft and damp. You probably know the Irish proverb, “A green Christmas makes a full graveyard.” We had a three-day blizzard which roused false hopes; after that, sloppy, pale spring weather.