by Willa Cather
You see, I pay you the compliment of coming back at you with some spirit. I should like to have a chance to argue it out with you. I admire Nexö just as much as you do, but that is only one of the dozen fine ways of writing.
Cordially yours,
Willa Cather
TO MARY VIRGINIA BOAK CATHER
Sunday [probably November 1924]
My Dearest Mother;
I hope you will be charitable with me for not having written you for so long. The first few weeks in town after a long absence are terribly wearing. Edith came down two weeks ahead of me, and with the help of the faithful Mrs. Winn got the apartment beautifully clean. We have never been so clean before. This summer the landlord painted and papered the apartment throughout for us, and we sent all our window curtains to the cleaners, and had every rug we own dry-cleaned by a most reliable old carpet-cleaning house that dear Mr. Wiener first told me about years ago. They cleaned our rugs like new, and kept them in moth-proof storage for us all summer while we were away. So I came back to clean, bright, pleasant rooms. The first thing was to get a good maid, Montana having gone south.
We have now a pretty little Baltimore mulatto girl, named Mattie. Have had her one week and are greatly pleased with her. She is a splendid cook, is pretty, and has sweet manners. The only trouble about these nice little darkies is that they get tired of working and “go South.” This one is nice; I spent a good deal of last week working with her and showing her how we like things done, and I got to like her ever so much. On Friday she and I put up five quarts of quince preserves, and I think I never tasted such delicious preserves. They are the color of old amber, only redder, and I wish I could send you a jar of them. So I feel that I am fairly started at housekeeping once again.
I am troubled about you and father, for this winter. It is a hard loss to lose a faithful servant [Marjorie Anderson], even if she cannot cook much. Even if Elsie were to come home she ought to have a woman to help her, and they are hard to get. I wrote her about a delightful place in Winchester where friends of mine spent last winter. I almost wish you and Father felt like going there for the winter.
I am trying to work on my new book every day, but it is hard to get the house to running and to write at the same time. I have great hopes of Mattie. I will write you again soon, dear Mother, and I hope you are getting rested at Mrs. Wolfe’s. Mary Virginia’s school has invited me to spend Thanksgiving there with her, but I do not know if I can leave my desk.
Very lovingly to you both,
Willie
In an interview published by Rose Caroline Feld in the New York Times Book Review on December 21, 1924, Cather was quoted as having complained that immigrants from the “Old World” are “hound[ed]” and “pursue[d]” day and night by social workers or “missionaries” of Americanism for the purpose of “turning them into stupid replicas of smug American citizens.” She referred to this urge for “Americanizing everything and everybody” as a “deadly disease with us.”
TO MISS TELLER
January 21, 1925
My dear Miss Teller:
Whenever I get time to write it, I am going to make Miss Feld print an interview on her interview. She did not misquote me exactly, but she placed all the accents wrongly, and the words she attributes to me are, of course, hers, not mine. The only kind of social workers I object to are those who shamelessly say that they are “going into social work for a time, to get material for fiction”. This whole silly attitude of regarding immigrants, or any other of God’s creatures, as merely subject matter for “fiction” is so false,—it certainly never produces any good writing, and I do not think it can produce any social service worth the name.
As I say, when I have time, I hope I can get Miss Feld to revise her interview, and explain that my remarks applied to a very limited and feeble kind of social worker.
Very sincerely yours,
Willa Cather
In 1918, Tomáš Masaryk, a philosopher, sociologist, and activist, became president of the newly formed independent republic of Czechoslovakia. Reelected several times, he served as president until 1935.
TO “HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK REPUBLIC,” THOMAS MASARYK
February 2, 1925
New York City
Honored Sir;
Your letter, transmitted to me through your Legation at Washington, confers upon me great honor and gives me great pleasure. I am glad to have carried a message from the Bohemian neighbors, whom I loved as a child, to their home country.
I have just returned to New York from Red Cloud, Nebraska, where my father and mother still live. I spent the Christmas holidays with them, and while there I had the pleasure of taking the living “Antonia” and six of her many fine children to the first moving picture production of “A Lost Lady.” I have the good fortune to preserve friendly relations with most of my characters, even after I have put them in books. “Antonia” and her twelve splendid children are flesh and blood realities. Every time I go back to them I feel how much more interesting and lovable they are than my picture of them. I wish I could present them to you in person.
The life of our Middle West is so big and various, so ugly and so beautiful, that one cannot generalize about it. All one can do is to write of what came against one’s own door-step, so to speak.
I regret that I cannot satisfactorily comply with your kind request for biographical material. I avoid biographers, asking them to wait until I get my work further along. My first novel was published in 1912, and a period of twelve years is scarcely long enough for a writer to find the form best suited to what he has to say. I was not young when I began to write, and though living is a good preparation for writing, it takes some time to acquire a simple and unobtrusive manner of presentation, however well one may know what one wishes to present.
I am able to send you a very good photograph, taken recently. I enclose a short biographical account which my publisher uses for publicity purposes, and some casual reviews. Biographies usually begin to come along just about the time a writer has no more to say, and I do not feel that that time has yet come to me.
I beg you, President Masaryk, to believe in my grateful appreciation of your letter.
Respectfully yours
Willa Cather
TO IRENE MINER WEISZ
Tuesday [February 17, 1925]
My Darling Irene:
If you knew how much joy those glorious roses gave me! They came like a climax to a debauch of work and music—red enough, and big enough. On Sunday I sent Edith and Mattie both away for the day, and I stayed alone with my ever-becoming-more-beautiful roses and drank koumiss and rested my mind and my heart. I don’t know anyone who is quite as hard hit by flowers as I am. Even the most every-day young rose gives me pleasure, but superb ones like these delight me like splendid personalities. I say “these” because at least half of them are still red and full, in a big Spanish pitcher on the mantle, and they have already given the place three days of splendour. Edith has loved them too and begs me to tell you so. Mattie admired them so much that I gave her one to wear to a colored ball Saturday night!
It was such a satisfaction to me to have you read the story [The Professor’s House], dear Irene, and to see that you got at once the really fierce feeling that lies behind the rather dry and impersonal manner of the telling. You shall see more of it before a great while.
With a heartful of love to you
Willie
The mention of the “publicity about Margie” in the following letter refers to rumors in the local Red Cloud newspaper in the fall of 1924 that the Cathers were hiding Marjorie Anderson. The rumors emerged from Marjorie’s unwillingness to venture outside their home for fear of the return of her former husband, a man named O’Leary who had deserted her soon after their marriage.
TO MARY VIRGINIA BOAK CATHER
March 2 [1925?]
My Dearest Mother;
Now what can I possibly have done to upset you so? I have not
written to Bess or Auntie since I came back to New York, nor sent them anything, but a book,—and a very poor one it was. I told you when I was at home that I had sent Auntie my old wadded dressing gown, it was in rags and I thought they could patch it up for her. Oh, yes, I sent Auntie some paper flowers for a valentine,—you always told me to send her such little things, and I haven’t sent her anything for years. Why, Elsie scolded me, and sent her something at Thanksgiving for me and paid for it, she was so ashamed of me.
I haven’t written you since I got back because I knew Douglass was with you and you would not be lonely, and I have been so terribly busy. I wrote Elsie once and thought she would send you the letter.
As for making trouble between you and father, I’ve certainly not tried to do that. Really, it’s very unjust to accuse me of it. You must know, Mother, without my telling you, that all that newspaper publicity about Margie was harder on me than on any of the rest of you, and it was needless. If you hadn’t been so foolish about never letting anyone see her, there would have been no “mystery.” But that is past and gone. I wasn’t angry about it. I thought you had been unwise, and the result of your mistaken judgement made a good deal of ugly talk about me. But I never felt in the least angry toward you, and I took my medicine and kept quiet about it. I wouldn’t speak of it now, if you didn’t come at me so. How foolish, Mother, for us to quarrel! I can’t quarrel, because I have not a particle of hard feeling. I couldn’t be angry with you now if I tried. I think one of the consolations of growing older is that one comes to understand one’s parents better. I am too much like you in many ways to criticise you; I sometimes get impatient, just as I lose patience with myself, but I have never felt cross toward you, even for a moment, for years and years. I think the last time was about poor Mrs. Garber; and you see now, don’t you, that I understood her better than you thought I did, and that though I admired certain things, I was never taken in by her.
Now you and I have been growing closer together for many years, don’t let us spoil it. If I have done anything amiss, I am eager to make it right. But if I have done anything, it was through stupidity. I certainly did not go home to make trouble, but because I love you very tenderly and am happy in your company. Surely, you can’t be seriously annoyed at my sending a few old things to the Andrews’. Elsie is always telling me that I am not very nice to Auntie.
I had meant to write you today to ask you if you want me to send you a small check for your birthday so that you can send it on to Jack, as Roscoe did. It is my hope that father will let me buy the house as I proposed, and use the money to pay Elsie a salary and let her come home to make the place a bright and happy home for both of you. I believe she would put her whole heart into it, and that you would take more comfort in being there than you ever have before. I know that Retta [Ayres Miner] has been kind, but you can hardly go on living that way.
With my dearest love to you, dear mother
Willa
Collier’s serialized Cather’s seventh novel, The Professor’s House, beginning June 6, 1925, and featured the book—“A NEW NOVEL by WILLA CATHER”—on the cover.
TO IRENE MINER WEISZ
[March 16, 1925]
Dearest Irene;
I think I ought to send this letter to you before I send it to Isabelle, because you saw my Professor in his early stages and took such a tender interest in him. Now you will know where and when to look for it. I could not sell it to a monthly, as they could not use it fast enough to eat it all up before the book date, Sept. 1st. The first editor my agent sent it to bought it within a few hours after it was sent to him, as you see. He paid ten thousand dollars for the serial rights, of which one thousand goes to my agent as commission, and nine to me. The price is confidential between you and Mr. Wise [Weisz] and me. If ones family knows about one’s prices, they expect one to do such absurd things. You know how it is,—they think it’s such “easy money”! But I want you to know, because I know you like to hear of any good luck I have.
Dear Irene, do you think you could send me some of those tablets to wash ecru curtains by next Monday? I’m cleaning house for Virginia’s coming for Easter vacation.
A world of love to you, dear.
Willie
TO CARRIE MINER SHERWOOD
[April 22, 1925]
New York City
Dear Carrie;
[Thomas Masaryk] sent me a lot of lovely views of Bohemia. I am sending you some for you and Irene, and a bunch fastened together for Annie Pavelka. Will you please have the ones marked for Annie framed in narrow, inexpensive black frames, allowing about as much margin as I have indicated with lead pencil, and sent out to her? Please send the bill to me, as I don’t want her to have the expense of framing them.
And, dear Carrie, will you also please give this check to Mrs. Diedrich and ask her to send Mother some tulips? It will save me one letter, and this time of year my mail box is like a task-master.
We had such a gay time for the two weeks Virginia was here! My friends were so nice to her, and I cut work altogether. I don’t regret that one bit, though I’m having to make up for it now.
With love to you and yours
Willie
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote Cather in the spring of 1925 expressing both his admiration for her work and a fear that in his new novel, The Great Gatsby, it might appear that he had borrowed too closely from Cather’s description of Marian Forrester (in lines near the end of her novel) in a description early in his. To demonstrate that he had not plagiarized from her, he sent her the pertinent pages of his first draft of the novel, which he had written before A Lost Lady was published. He also sent her a copy of the newly published novel.
TO F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
April 28, 1925
My dear Mr. Fitzgerald:
I had read and hugely enjoyed your book before I got your letter, and I honestly had not thought of “A Lost Lady” when I read that passage to which you now call my attention. So many people have tried to say that same thing before either you or I tried it, and nobody has said it yet. I suppose everybody who has ever been swept away by personal charm tries in some way to express his wonder that the effect is so much greater than the cause,—and in the end we all fall back upon an old device and write about the effect and not the lovely creature who produced it. After all, the only thing one can tell about beauty, is just how hard one was hit by it. Isn’t that so?
Very cordially yours,
Willa Cather
In the summer of 1925, Cather and Lewis made another trip to New Mexico. According to Edith Lewis, Cather had finished the short novel My Mortal Enemy (published in 1926) before they left on the trip.
TO ELIZABETH SHEPLEY SERGEANT
June 23 [1925]
Hotel La Fonda, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Dear Elsie:
I want to tell you again that I think you got through a hard job mighty well. I’d hate to attack such a chore myself. You surely gave me all I deserve—maybe more, but I suppose we always think ourselves deserving!
I’ve been loafing here in this comfortable hotel, and have met a really nice Mrs. Barker (she knows you) and a nice Mrs. Hughey. Mrs. [Mary] Austin is here, and settles all questions of human conduct and natural history with a word.
Miss Lewis an[d] I go down to San Gabriel tomorrow. It’s been awfully hot down there lately.
Thank you for a painless operation!
Yours
W. S. C.
TO ROBERT JOSEPHY, ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
June 26 [1925]
Alcalde, New Mexico
I am sending you the first half of the page proofs [of The Professor’s House] today, the rest will follow in a few days.
Please send me the proof of the dedication page as soon as possible. You remember this text is:
For Jan, because he likes narrative.
I’ve never seen a proof of it yet.
I like this jacket design fairly well, but I agree with you that it’s too fussy—too much li
ke an illustration. I had hoped for something simple in design and brilliant in color. The blue behind the lettering seems to me rather dark and heavy for a jacket. I enclose a little sketch which might give a suggestion—I have no crayons here to indicate the colors.
If you’ve no time to experiment further, I will be satisfied with this sketch of Mr. Fall’s, however. Don’t hold anything up in order to send me proofs of the jacket. If you are satisfied I think I will be.
Faithfully
Willa Cather
After many invitations, Cather and Lewis went to Taos to stay with Mabel Dodge Luhan in the Pink House at her large estate, Los Gallos. Luhan, married to Taos Pueblo Indian Tony Luhan, loved to surround herself with artists and intellectuals, and her large estate could offer creative people the space and comfort they needed to complete their work. After leaving Luhan’s and returning to Santa Fe, Cather found and read The Life of the Right Reverend Joseph P. Machebeuf, by William Howlett. As Edith Lewis wrote later, “There, in a single evening, as [Cather] often said, the idea of Death Comes for the Archbishop came to her, essentially as she afterwards wrote it.”
