Disappointed to have missed her. Josephine ill, so she was out doing chores. Won't give any lectures until after her trip to France. Has hired a secretary who says she has declined almost a hundred lectures. Willa [Stout #673]
Had influenza and spent several days in a hospital; came home yesterday and is still in bed. Josephine very ill. Hopes to sail March 24. Wishes One of Ours could have been published anonymously. Willa [Stout #675]
Glad he is interested in her work, but already has an agent. Willa Cather [Stout #710]
Between a friend's illness and Josephine's, is driven to distraction, but has started the introduction and will send it to Miss Jewett to see if she accepts. Burton Rascoe caused a lot of mischief. Wants to place "The Queen's Twin" between "A Dunnet Shepherdess" and "William's Wedding." Enclosing a list of stories for second volume. List: (1) "A White Heron" (2) "The Flight of Betsey Lane" (3) "The Dunham Ladies" (4) "Going to Shrewsbury" (5) "The Only Rose" (6) "Miss Tempy's Watchers" (7) "Martha's Lady" (8) "The Guests of Mrs. Timms" (9) "The Town Poor" (10) "The Hiltons' Holiday" (or "Decoration Day"?) (11) "Aunt Cynthia Dallet" Willa Cather [Stout #729]
Glad he is using My Ántonia in his course on contemporary fiction. First book in which she discarded conventional elements of a novel. Story of a man and woman who are friends, never lovers. Story not made up of the things that usually make up novels. Like the back side of the carpet. Willa Cather [Stout #765]
Cather has gone to the country to get away from distractions and work on her new novel. Would surely answer her questions if she were there. Ellen Burns, Sec'y [Stout #775]
Laundry tablets arrived Saturday, and curtains have been washed and are back up. Enclosing an article by Professor [E. K.] Brown of Bowdoin College. Please share with Carrie. Some time please return the letter from Collier's sent earlier; would like to keep it. Willie [Stout #779]
Most English teachers have never actually written a thing and think being scholarly means avoiding any taint of common sense. One critic makes a big point of broad a sounds in female names in her books. Could quote others equally foolish. One says title Death Comes for the Archbishop shows she is now willing to acknowledge death. What it shows is that [Hans] Holbein used the title in his woodcut and she saw Latour's death as a victorious one, a kind of riding away with death. [Stout #933]
May quote from the essay she referred to. Believes sketch of Nat Wheeler in One of Ours better than the one of Godfrey St. Peter in The Professor's House. The right readers understand her books instinctually. The wrong ones never understand, but that's all right. Willa Cather [Stout #943]
Can't remember if she ever wrote about Elizabeth's mother's surgery. Life has been very disordered. Has been at Grand Manan, off the coast of New Brunswick, at the house she and Miss Lewis have there. Expects to go to Quebec in a few weeks. It has been a hard year. Likes the essay on herself in Whipple's book Spokesmen [R. K. Whipple, Spokesmen: Modern Writers and American Life, 1928], which has a fine essay on Henry Adams. Greetings to her mother. P.S.: Likes Thornton Wilder's new book [probably The Bridge of San Luis Rey, 1927]. Willa Cather [Stout #944]
