by Willa Cather
TO HARRIET FOX WHICHER
January 24, 1944
Dear Mrs. Whicher:
I am so glad to hear from you again. I know I don’t deserve it. But when one drops out of everything for nearly two years, one gets so behind that it seems impossible to catch up with life again.
Isn’t this an amazing and unsatisfactory world, to us even though we are in the least tormented corner of it? Nobody belongs anywhere any more, and nobody, either old or young, is living the kind of life they intended to live and are prepared to live. I don’t wonder that you and Mr. Whicher fled away from Amherst for your Christmas.
All the young people in my family are in the war in one way or another. Mary Virginia is with her husband, Dr. [Richard] Mellen, at the Station Hospital, Camp Carson, Colorado. They have been there for more than a year now. Virginia was in New York for six weeks this winter, and it seemed lovely to have her back again. I parked her at the Hotel New Weston, which isn’t far away, and we did a good many pleasant things together. Her brother Tom [Auld] and his wife are in a hospital camp at Goldfield, Arizona. I love the Southwest, but Goldfield is certainly one of the dreariest spots in it. My brother Roscoe’s oldest daughter (the one who graduated from Smith when I had my last visits with you) [Virginia Cather Brockway] is staying with my brother in California, as her husband [John Hadley Brockway] is commander of a plane carrier somewhere in the Pacific. When all family relations are broken up, and so many friends of mine don’t even know where their husbands or sons are, the result seems to be that nothing in our life is very real at any time. There is a scramble for food, and one reads the war news: that’s about all.
Your lovely Christmas card of Beacon Street in winter, I am pasting in Mrs. Fields’ book, “Memories of a Hostess”. I used to love Boston. But now that they are trying to make the region around Trinity Church look like the ugliest part of New York, Boston, to me, seems like a jig saw puzzle all broken up—it hasn’t any character now.
Miss Lewis and I spent last summer at Northeast Harbor, Maine. We stayed at the Asticou Inn and lived in great comfort, though the food was poor, as it was everywhere: was and is! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could drop back and live as we did fifteen years ago? This sort of suspense really isn’t life at all.
It is good to hear from one’s friends, and I do thank you for writing me a letter which I did not deserve. And I wish a Happy New Year to you and Mr. Whicher.
Affectionately
Willa Cather
I hate to send you a dictated letter, but in doing up so many packages at Christmas time (for boys in the army and for friends no longer very young or very well) I sprained my right hand—the one Dr. Ober kept in a brace for six months several years ago. So I am back in the brace again. Very difficult to guide a pen with a steel brace attached to one!
TO VIOLA ROSEBORO’
February 12, 1944
Very dear Miss Roseboro’:
I expect you will wonder why I have not written to you when I tell you that scarcely a day has gone by this winter that I haven’t thought of you. No, not because of dear Miss Tarbell’s death. I have been thinking of you in connection with the death of the world—the death of the world you loved so well, and roamed about it so much. Oh, I am so glad you did roam about—roamed as far as Constantinople and saw the Saint Sophia—which I shall never see. What a grand old sailor you were!—just drinking your fill of that beautiful old world which we thought would last forever. Why should the beautiful cities that were a thousand years a-making tumble down on our heads now, in our short lifetime? What is the sense of it? We saw one war, and there was sorrow a-plenty. But why do we have to see our world destroyed? See countries sponged off the map, as we used to erase them from the blackboard—after we had drawn them at school?
Sir James Jeans said in a lecture I heard him give: “Next to man’s longing for personal immortality, he longs to feel that his world is immortal and will go on indefinitely as he has known it.” This has been the feeling of human beings in all ages. Why on earth do we, in all the countless stretch of years, just in our little moment, have to witness everything laid waste? I write to you in this strain because you were one of the few people I knew who cared intensely and personally about—well, about Saint Sophia for instance.
The reason that I haven’t written to you before is that two of my younger brothers, all my nieces and nephews, and the children of my friends in the many States I have lived in—these young people are all uprooted and some of them quite lost. None of the young people are doing what they wanted to do, or prepared themselves to do, or were already accomplishing with great happiness. Two young professors of Amherst, such nice boys, write me from the mud of Guadalcanal. My dearest young niece only knows of her husband that he is commanding an airplane carrier “somewhere in the Pacific”. I feel bitterly because so many of the boys from my own little town in Nebraska have been shunted out to those terrible Pacific Islands, where the hardships are so much greater than they can be anywhere in Europe. To be killed may be uncomfortable, but to lie in slime and be eaten up by bugs is a punishment no boy deserves. I somehow am sure that you feel these things more than most people, and that maybe you would like an expression from an old friend who also feels the outrageousness of fate. Of course, we have brought it all on ourselves—or, rather, our smart scientists have brought it on us.
Good-by, my friend, and I hope you are more successful than I in keeping calm. It is bad enough to have all our splendid young men die. But even they, plucky fellows, do not want the world to die! I think of you often, dear friend. I would come to see you if I could. I haven’t been very well since that miserable gall bladder operation was put over on me.
Affectionately
Willa Cather
The 1943–44 production of Othello starring Paul Robeson, José Ferrer, and Uta Hagen was a popular and critical success. Robeson’s performance as Othello is also notable because he was the first black actor to play the part with an otherwise white cast in a modern production. He made his debut in the role in London in 1930.
TO HELEN LOUISE CATHER
February 12, 1944
Dear Helen Louise:
I have made three unsuccessful efforts to telephone you—two of these on successive Sundays. I think you must have disappeared altogether in the Murk. I forget for what date you got your tickets to Othello. In the meantime Yehudi made a second desperate effort and succeeded. He played a concert in Washington, got the midnight train, found that his stateroom had been commandeered for an ambassador, sat up all night, and got in here at about 10 o’clock in the morning. He had a nap, and marshalled Edith and me to the theater that evening. He had already seen the play twice, but he was determined that we should see it.
You see, it was at his mother’s apartment that I first met Paul Robeson. Yehudi was a boy of fourteen then and the family spent every winter in a big apartment in the Ansonia Hotel. Marutha (Yehudi’s mother) invited Robeson and [New York Times music critic] Olin Downes and me for dinner one evening. She had just come back from Switzerland, where Mrs. Robeson was living (because Paul’s son was in school there). She wanted to give him tidings of his wife. On my way across the park I was wondering whether I might feel a bit “Southern” in such mixed company. But the moment one meets Robeson, one loses everything except the flash that always comes when one first meets a truly great personality. His manners are perfect, because he is so natural—he never thinks about himself or what effect he will make. In “domestic” conversation he has the most beautiful speaking voice I can remember. In Othello he has very little opportunity to use this intimate voice, but you do get it when he lands in Cyprus and greets Desdemona—a very short scene but one of the most beautiful in the play.
Of course, I knew Robeson’s impersonation was a very fine one. Before this war it made a great sensation all over Europe. His reading of the part was about what I felt sure it would be. But for me, the real surprise and thrill of the evening was Uta Hägen. Altho
ugh so young, she is a celebrated Scandinavian actress [actually German American], and I expected a little of that thick accent. But she speaks the most beautiful English, and her interpretation was a revelation. I had never seen the stage play before, though I have heard Verdi’s opera many times and I have heard good vocalists sing Desdemona. They were always distinctly mature, if not matronly. And when this lovely young thing came in, terrified before the Doge, my heart took a double beat. The fact is she is not lovely at all—a rather plain, peaked, starved little thing, like [ballerina Alicia] Markova. But her beautiful conception of the part is so strong that it shines through her, like a candle through a horn globe. And she grows lovelier with every act, until the last terrible one. When, after the arrival of the deputation from Venice, Othello strikes her, she does the most beautiful fall I have ever seen on the stage. And it isn’t a trick fall, either. I am sure that she must have taken lessons from some of the Russian ballet people, because she acts with her whole body. It is no mixture of “gestures” and “elocution”. I would have gone to the theater again to see her before this, if I didn’t have my right hand in its little aluminum brace once more. It has been strapped up ever since New Year’s. It is a hard punishment to bear, and inhibits me in almost everything. I haven’t done anything wicked, except that I was having a good fling at work about Christmas time.
Good night, and my love to you.
Your Aunt Willie
TO BISHOP GEORGE ALLEN BEECHER
March 28, 1944
My dear Bishop:
What a beautiful Christmas present you sent me! A letter which told me of your wonderful two-weeks trip through western Nebraska, holding services day and night in the scattered missions, with all the members of your so-widespreading flock gathering to bring children and grandchildren to their beloved Bishop.
Your letter has lain for all these weeks on a little table beside my bed where I always keep about half a dozen letters which I like to read over and over. Not many of them have such a triumphant lift as yours. It is a letter I shall always keep, because it is such strong testimony that good things triumph and fine effort is recognized even in a world which is now so darkened. Your Christmas letter awakens joy in my heart, and will always be treasured by me. I am glad you remembered the little church in Red Cloud where you confirmed me with my father and my mother. I think of that service and that church very often. I haven’t many friends left in Red Cloud now, and I hear the little town is very much changed. Perhaps it is better to remember it as it was in those days of happy family reunions, when everything breathed love and confidence.
Just after the New Year came in, my right hand collapsed again, just when I had been working so happily on my new book. I am allowed to take off the brace for one hour a day to sign letters and business papers. Please ask your doctor to explain to you the results—and causes—of inflammation of the sheath of the big tendon of the right thumb. Then you will understand the true condition of my annoying disability, and you will not be deceived by the rumors which float about Red Cloud, to the effect that I have been paralyzed in the right arm. I’ll tell you something, my Bishop; when no man rejoices in his neighbour’s misfortune, then there will be no more wars.
Lovingly to you both
Willa Cather
“Col. Harvey’s party,” referred to in the following letter, was a celebration orchestrated by Col. George Harvey, editor of the North American Review, at Delmonico’s in New York City on December 23, 1905, for the seventieth birthday of Mark Twain. The “rose bower” is what Cather sometimes called her small attic bedroom in her childhood home, which was papered with a pattern of red and brown roses. “Grandmither” is one of her early poems, “Grandmither, Think Not I Forget.”
TO ROSCOE CATHER
May 13 [1944]
My dear Brother
What a precious letter came from you last night! I am so glad that this “publicity” amuses and pleases you. It was all news to me—(I take no periodicals, never turn on the radio except for Churchill.) So Life has dug up some of the pictures of Col. Harvey’s party! I was teaching in the Pittsburgh High School then! “Paul’s Case” had been published in “McClures”, and somebody told Col. Harvey I had a future. A kind Pittsburgh woman took my classes at the High School for four days to enable me to come to New York for the party, and she loaned me fifty dollars to have a good dress-maker make the dress in which I appear. (I had money in bank, but wouldn’t use it for anything so frivolous.)
Yes, I was young then. I hit the road pretty early and worked terribly hard. I was never conceited, thank God, and never very hopeful. I expected to teach hard all my life in order to get time to write just a little. I did not complain, because everything interested me, even teaching. Now I have to avoid being much interested—it simply uses me up. That is the natural result.
Well, father and mother both got something out of it, and you have always seen that there was something in it, ever since that hot afternoon in the “rose bower” when I first read “Grandmither” to you.
I have three suit cases of letters from the wise and the great, from J. M Barrie, Thomas Hardy among them, but none are so precious as this one from father. I have never shown it to anyone before.
Lovingly
Willie
On May 19, 1944, Cather was awarded the prestigious Gold Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for her lifetime’s work. Theodore Dreiser, Paul Robeson, and her old boss S. S. McClure were given awards at the same ceremony. When McClure was presented with the Order of Merit for his contributions to journalism, Cather spontaneously walked across the stage and embraced him.
TO S. S. MCCLURE
May 26, 1944
Dear Mr. McClure:
I cannot tell you how happy it made me to see you again on last Friday afternoon. The sight of you awakened such a torrent of happy memories and stirred in me such a flood of gratitude, that I kept asking myself, “Why have I let such a long time go by without seeing my Chief?” I want to see you again, before I go away for the summer, to tell you all the whys. For the last ten years I have been in New York City so little—so many unexpected things have happened in my family, sad things and pleasant things. I want to tell you all about it.
Where, I wonder, can I meet you? Miss Lewis and I still keep our apartment at 570 Park Avenue, southwest corner of 63rd Street and Park Avenue. Like many of my friends, I have no maid—when I am out there is no one even to answer the telephone. I suppose women are not permitted to call on you at your club, but if you can drop me a line telling me where I could call on you, I would be glad to come. Or, if you can come to see me here at our apartment, I will always be here to receive you if you can let me know beforehand the day and the hour. I shall not be happy until I have a talk with you and try to clear myself of negligence.
Affectionately and, in heart, always faithfully yours,
Willa Cather
TO ROSCOE CATHER
June 30 [1944]
Asticou Inn, Northeast Harbor, Maine
[Note at the top:] Written in the yard of our cottage here.
Dear Roscoe;
I do want you to read both these articles. They are very truthful and exactly like Mr. McClure! After all he was the best friend I ever had, and I’ve neglected him shamefully for ten years. He has no home, but lives quietly at the Union League Club. The week before I left town I spent such a happy afternoon with him there. He is 86 years and has grown so gentle. Courteous and kind he always was. He is no longer a whirlwind, but a summer breeze. He took me into the Library of his Club, sat down beside me and held my hand and began: “Miss Cather, do you happen to remember the economic reforms of Edward the First when he got home from Palestine?”
Just like him! He always expected me to “remember” whatever was on his mind.
Ten years ago we nearly quarrelled when he came to dinner. He was just back from Italy and insisted that Moussolini had developed “a perfect government.” He now generously recalled th
at I had called it a “perfect abscess” and said “why, Mr. McClure, you couldn’t run an office that way, much [less] a Government!” Nice of him, wasn’t it? I mean to see him from time to time this winter. I have had to cut out so many people since I have not been well, but I ought not to cut out the man who gave me my first chance.
Willie
TO JAMES CATHER
Monday, October 30 [1944]
Dear Jim;
I thought you might like to see this account of the Army’s first game, and probably Charles [Jim’s son, who was at West Point] will not think to send it to you—youngsters seldom do think to send things–––they have jobs of their own to look after. Charles came to my apartment as soon as the game was over. I took him to Sherry’s for dinner—it is the last really attractive restaurant left in this city. I had reserved a table a week ago. After dinner we came back to this apartment and chatted about the world until midnight. Charles’ boat with 2500 cadets aboard sailed at 12:30. I thought best not to turn a fine looking lad out on the streets of New York on a Saturday night until he had just time to catch his boat—too many vamps about. He seems very happy in his work, and he won’t think of much else for awhile.
November 18th the Army plays Notre Dame and Charles will again be my guest. My secretary, Miss Bloom, says that is the one game she never misses, and that when the cadets stand at attention during the National Anthem she always weeps! I would like to see that game, but if I taxi-ed out six miles to the Polo grounds, fought my way through struggling crowds, and wept, I fear I would be a pretty flat hostess to your son at six oclock.
