by Willa Cather
Yes, I think the book on the Southwest will come along right after the novel—out of the leavings. But the novel first.
Please, when you next write to England, order eight copies of the English edition of The Lark for me. I hope I can get them before Christmas.
Thank you for your good cheerful letter. I’m keen to fall to.
Faithfully
W.S.C.
TO DOROTHY CANFIELD FISHER
September 2 [1916]
Red Cloud
My Dear Dorothy:
I have just dropped down in Red Cloud after three glorious months in New Mexico and Wyoming. My brother Roscoe lives up in the Wind River mountains in Wyoming, and he has an interesting German wife and a little girl of five and cunning girl twins with whom I had the most fun. Here is a picture of them playing with me in their lovely back yard which has a mountain river rushing through it. We rode home—back from over the wildest mountain trails, and I was “requested to speak” on [Canfield Fisher’s novel] “The Bent Twig” to a bridge club! If I could remember my remarks, I’d write them to you. I think it’s funny that we both hit on rather the same method of treatment for such very different characters. And I think in both books the early part, and the American small town, came out the best, though you do it rather from the standpoint of the law-maker and I from that of the law-breaker, or at least of the rebel who bootlessly kicks against the pricks. I feel rather like poor Molly, who bolted out of the moral law in her car. That’s the best use for a car I’ve ever discovered. If the Army of Unalterable Law closes in on me too hard, I’d escape like Molly, so I would. I do like the naughty ones, Molly and Aunt Victoria, better than the 90 and 9 obedient—except the mother; on the whole I think she is the dominating figure of the book. I don’t feel that she particularly enjoyed her own scheme of life, Dorothy, only that her intelligence was too good to deceive herself. Here’s a recast: There was just such a Maine woman who used to come to spend the afternoon with Fremstad once when I was visiting O.F. in Maine. What a beautiful, noble, sad—and humorous—face she had. She knew all about O. F. (how she was made) God knows how, but she did. Two of her sons had just had their eyes blown out dynamiting orchards, and her dignity and graciousness under such a misfortune was beyond anything. It was so interesting to see the two women together—so much wisdom in one and so much force in the other. I used to go about thanking God that Fremstad didn’t know as much as the farm woman, for if she had she would not have been any good,—See? If she had seen what the other woman saw she positively couldn’t have lifted a leg to sing a part, ever. Great wisdom is like Nirvana—it takes the “pep” out of people. You know I always liked the Romans because they were so non-wise and so full of “pep”. It’s blooming, full-blooded ignorance that makes the bright show, after all. And, my dear, whether it’s a wheat-thrashing or an opera, it’s the Bright Show that I love. I can’t help it. It’s like hearing the band play when you are little; my feet begin to move, and nothing else makes them move, alas!
Do you know that in Lincoln my readers and your readers—please don’t be insulted if I tell you that yours outnumber mine 20 to 1—always fight whenever our names come up? Yours say insulting things about me, and mine say drastic things about you. Yours say they can’t read me because it’s all rot and most immoral, and mine (only about six) say they can’t read you because you are dull. You have the Geres, and the Westermanns, alas for me, and the university people, and Will Owen Jones—you’re welcome to him, madame—and I have five German brewers and Sarah Harris, who still cries out to a deaf world that Bessie Tuttle and I are Geniuses. But they never do discuss us like ladies, their eyes begin to snap and they begin to buzz like hornets. Mariel [Gere] is especially bitter agin poor me; she says that just because my bad morals are not very vulgar they are the more insidious and that there is a flavor about me she simply can’t stand. I like the Geres and dearly love the Westermanns, and I was a good deal hurt at first, but there’s nothing to do but get what fun I can out of their loyalty to you. Old father Westermann you never got away from me, for he was really a brewer at heart, and old Dr. [Julius] Tyndale’s life is one long warfare agin your admirers. I wish you could go to Lincoln. My Public tactfully tell me all that your Public say about me, and cry imploringly “She didn’t live with him in Mexico anyhow, did she?”
Father and Mother are both well, all the nieces and nephews handsome and happy, and grown brothers and sisters coming and going, checking baggage in and checking out like a hotel. It’s very jolly to be here.
Lovingly
Willa
TO FERRIS GREENSLET
December 16 [1916]
New York City
Dear Mr. Greenslet;
Miss [Hanna Astrup] Larsen, one of the editors of the Scandinavian Review, and Ann Erika Fries, a Swedish writer and a lecturer on Scandinavian literature, have both suggested to me that there is a strong probability that we can have a Swedish and perhaps a Norwegian translation of “The Song of the Lark” and “O Pioneers!” if we bring them to the attention of the proper persons. Nielsen, the Danish poet made the same suggestion about the earlier book when he was here two years ago. He advised me, however, not to take it up through any American-Swedes, like [Edwin] Bjorkman, who all have irons of their own in the fire. Lacking addresses of the right people abroad, I thought no more about it then. Miss Larsen and Mrs. Fries, however, have given me the names and addresses of several publishers and critics to whom they think review copies should be sent. They feel quite confident that I would get good results from approaching these gentlemen, and perhaps get a fine translation which would have a considerable career in the Scandinavian countries.
It seems to me that you could take this matter up with the foreign publishers and the critics who read for them, more gracefully than I could. If you wrote each gentleman a letter, enclosing a copy of Edward Garnett’s article in the Atlantic of last February (?) and sent to each copies of the two books, it would be much better than anything I could do. This, I know, would be a good deal of trouble, and I don’t know that there would be any direct return to the house from a Scandinavian translation, but there would be a great deal of satisfaction and stimulus in it for me. I have been wanting to ask you whether you could attend to it for me, for six weeks or more now, but I’ve hesitated to come to the point. If you hate to write letters as much as I do, it is asking a good deal of you, especially as you will probably have to write letters long enough to give reasonable pretext for asking these gentlemen to examine the books. I think the Garnett article will help. They will all know him, in any case.
I enclose a list of the men most approachable and influential. If, in your letter to [Carl Joachim] Hambro, you mention the fact that the reviews in the Musical Courier and in Musical America said that the character of Kronborg was drawn after Olive Fremstad, it would engage his attention. He himself translated my McClure article on Fremstad and published it in the Morgenbladet with fine illustrations.
Now, another request. If you have any of those booklets you wrote about me to advertise the “Lark”, will you send me three dozen! I have sent every one of those you gave me to women’s clubs and people who write to me asking for “a short biography.” Those books have saved me time and misery, and I want a lot of them. I am saving three requests for biographical matter until I can get some of those booklets from you, and I hope you have a supply still on hand.
Just now I am finishing up some short stories for [literary agent] Paul Reynolds. By the first of the year he will have made me so rich that I can afford to bone down on my long story, which will probably come rather slowly at first. I have promised to do an article for the American, but I think I can wriggle out of that. When are you coming to New York? I would have liked to talk this attack on the Scandinavian publishers over with you. I have it very much on my mind and want to go at it in the proper way. I think it ought to be done through my American publisher, and your exposition of the two books in the booklet for which I am now b
egging, makes me think that you could write to this group of highbrows more effectively than anyone else, if you are willing to undertake such a chore. As soon as my telephone is in, I will send you my number. I wish you were going to be in town on Thursday night and could dine here at seven with Isabelle and her husband. Let me know if by any chance you are to be here. S. S. Mc.[Clure] will be here, and will tell you all about the war. He is really very interesting about it. Harry Dwight will be here. Do you know him?
Faithfully
Willa S.C.
TO ELSIE CATHER
December 30 [1916]
Dear Bobbie:
How clever you were to go to Chicago and have your party just as you planned! I am so glad you did. Those things do one a lot of good. Jack could not come. We had a quiet Xmas for Edith’s eye was bad again. Xmas Eve I went to the Hambourgs for dinner, and Xmas night we had Joe Charter, our young widower and [Pitts] Sanborn the musical critic of the Globe here for dinner and sent them away at 9 oclock because of the game eye (Edith’s).
Yesterday we were in health and had a very gay Friday afternoon, about 30 people came, many of them friends from Pittsburgh here for the holidays, among them Alfred McClung. After tea I had to dash up to the Biltmore to dine with some friends from Boston. Today I’m quite tired, but I had to go to a concert with the Hambourgs this afternoon. On Wednesday I lunched at their home with Harold Bauer, the pianist, and his wife, and [Fritz] Kreisler the violinist. Isabelle makes a charming hostess for artists and celebrities.
Isabelle and Jan gave me two beautiful Russian candelabra for Christmas, beautiful design and each one holds five candles. They make a lovely light for tea. We have also a new tea table, but our grandest possessions are three wonderful new paintings—scenes along the Mediterranean and the Ionian sea by her artist friend, Earl Brewster, who lives in Italy. They are so large and handsome that it will positively impoverish us to frame them. His pictures bring from $200 to $500 each now, and these are very fine ones. They are not a gift outright, but he says he wants us to keep them for years and years.
I have a trifling little story [“A Gold Slipper”] in Harper’s Monthly this month. It might amuse you if you happen on it. It is so bad that I got $450 for it. I quite needed the money. The ‘high cost of living’ makes our expenses here about a third more than they were last year. It takes 25¢ worth of apples to make one pie, and chickens are 42¢ a pound. A five pound chicken costs $2.10! Beef is 36¢, nearly as bad.
Well, we’ll probably manage to keep the wolf off Bank street somehow, and meanwhile I positively rejoice in your Chicago adventures, my dear Bobbie.
With much love
Willie
TO MARY VIRGINIA BOAK CATHER
Saturday [early 1917?]
My Dearest Mother;
The napkins are simply lovely—much the nicest ones I have, and I thank you so much for remembering Isabelle. She was so pleased. She is going to use hers as table-doylies, as she always has her little table set with doylies and without a table-cloth. It is less work for her and better suited to studio dinners. Isn’t it funny; Isabelle, who always lived in such a substantial, well-ordered house with such solidity and regularity about it, really likes this studio sort of life. And I, who had to knock about for so long, love to run my apartment as methodically and regularly as a well kept-house. It really means “success in life” to me to be able to do that. If I had to live in a studio apartment and eat in my parlor, it would just mean failure and wretchedness to me. Isabelle is poor this winter—Jan has lost his grand job tutoring the millionaire’s children, for the children have been put in schools—so perhaps Isabelle pretends to like living in three rooms better than she does. Of course they are lovely rooms, with lovely things in them, and beautifully kept.
I took her napkins up to her on Xmas eve, as I was dining there. She had me and my friend Pitts Sanborn the musical critic, and Mr. Goehghan [Harold Geoghegan] of Pittsburgh, Jack’s favorite teacher, you remember. She had cooked all the dinner herself right there in the tiny closet-kitchen opening off the parlor, and it was delicious; real terrapin soup, a leg of mutton beautifully cooked, plain boiled potatoes in their skins, grapefruit salad, good wine, and for dessert a chocolate cake bought at an excellent bakery. Very little, everything the best of its kind. After dinner she looked so tired that my heart ached for her.
She and Jan were here at the dinner we gave for Fremstad, also Mr. Sanborn. There was a blizzard that night, all the guests were late, and I had to carry coal all day and stoke the fires to get the house warm. I almost never had such a nice party. I got the flowers for the table fixed just right—one can’t always get them just right—pale yellow roses and white narcissus in a white Japanese bowl. Your long tablecloth did service again. We had oysters on the half shell, soup, roast turkey and cranberries and canned peas, salad, and caramel ice-cream with freshly-made maringues. Everybody was so gay and jolly. Fremstad insisted on singing a little although I have no piano. If I had a piano here, what wonderful music I could have sometimes!
Both last Friday and yesterday we had lots of people for tea—all we could make comfortable. So many old Pittsburgh friends are in town for the holidays I have had a rushing week of it—have really neglected my work in a way that I don’t often do. The Hambourgs and Jack’s professor and Sanborn are to dine here New Year’s eve. The first of this week Edith had a dinner for some of her friends, and she was feeling so badly I had to manage it and help Josephine [Bourda] with the table, and do the marketing. I always do the marketing and all the housekeeping when I am here. I like it, but it does take time, and now I’ve got behind with my book and am getting nervous. I’m going to cut out parties for the first two months of the New year.
Now, mother dear I must stop. But don’t discourage Father in his Red Cross and Home Guards, mother. Such work is very good for him and wakens him up. He won’t be rash with contributions. If he is more interested than his sons it is to his credit, not to theirs, I am sure. But Jack is not interested in anything but the war, and I think Ross [Roscoe] would be full of it if he was not kept pegging away pretty hard by his little family. But it is a splendid time for father, and I’d be awfully ashamed if he did not help all he can.
Goodbye now, dear mother. The struggle to get coal and sugar here now is awful. I spend whole afternoons trying to get a few bushels of coal. I hope you are warm and comfy down there, and that you get some comfort out of all your children for they all love you very dearly, and I know we grow closer together as we grow older, and will understand each other better every year. I send you a heartful of love, dear mother, and I am so pleased with the napkins.
Willie
This is a piece of the new dinner dress I am having made.
TO MARY VIRGINIA BOAK CATHER
February 2, 1917
Dearest Mother:
I am so worried to hear that you have a cold. Please go to Yuma if it does not get better. Surely it will improve before long when you are out of doors so much every day. I am glad you have found congenial people at your boarding house, as I know that one cannot get on without people. I think that sometimes pleasant, friendly strangers are more of a rest to one than one’s own family or than one’s old friends. One makes more of an effort for them, and the effort does one good. I am writing in bed, as I am taking a few days off with my “friend”. I think the specialist, Dr. Van Etten, whom Dr. Wilner sent me to is doing me good, and I hope he will gradually regulate that trouble until I wont lose so much strength every month. He says my nerves and general health will be ever so much better if he can reduce that waste to normal.
We are all terribly upset here by the turn the war has taken. I have written father about how it affects us in many ways, and have asked him to send you the letter.
I have got such a nice black silk bag, with gay beads on it, to send Auntie Sister for Easter. I got it for one dollar at Wanamaker’s sale as I was hurrying through the store to buy sash-curtains. I am so pleased, for I believe she will
like it very much. It is very “genteel” for an old lady.
It is costing us fifty dollars a month more to live than it did last winter, and we have cut out the opera altogether, and most concerts. We get free tickets to a good many theaters. Mrs. Deland wrote me for ten dollars for the Belgians last week. As I had been ill in her house for three weeks after that operation in Boston, I could not well refuse.
Jack is back in Pittsburgh again doing some temporary work, but I am afraid his job can’t last long now that all trade with England will have to stop. His letters have been rather braggy lately, and I wrote him a long lecture about it yesterday. I don’t want him to be boastful with our friends in Pittsburgh. It would make him look too ridiculous. He has always been nice and modest and I hope he is not going to lose it. I expect this is only a passing moment of large-heartedness.
I will send you the February magazines, dear mother, as soon as they are all in, and I want to send West Virginia a valentine if I get out in time. I will also send Mrs. Letson a book I think she will like.
This is Friday, and I still have to get up for awhile this afternoon to see the people who come in for tea. I hope not many will come. I use the lunch cloth you gave me every Friday for tea. I have some of Isabelle’s silver here while she is away, and it makes the tea table look very pretty.
With much love, dear Mother
Willie
Though Cather had been talking about “The Blue Mesa” as her next novel throughout 1916, the next letter makes it clear that she has now put that manuscript aside and moved on to My Ántonia. The “set of six stories” she mentions below is Office Wives, a never-published collection to be made up of stories about women in the world of office work.
