Has a new mink coat purchased by Professor St. Peter [of The Professor's House]. Please ask someone from Mr. Weisz's insurance company to come by and write a policy on it on Friday or Saturday at noon. Is working hard and loving her bishop. Willa [Stout #819]
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]
Gives permission to quote from anything in Not Under Forty and conditional permission to quote from letter to Pat Knopf explaining reasons for structure of The Professor's House. Prefers the distinct separations of that form to the mixture of unexpressed feelings typical of modern fiction, though it could have been done that way. Outland's life had become as real to the professor as his own; he became part of the old house. Glad Pat is studying with him. Willa Cather [Stout #1433]
Elsie is leaving on Friday and is now packing, or trying to. Cather is relaxing on the upper porch and going through the newly-purchased "Rocky Mountain Flowers" book. Virginia has the remarkable ability to recognize familiar shapes and instantly identified flowers she knows from Lander. She can perceive forms so soundly that she sees, in an instant, the difference between snapdragons and peas. Challenged her to distinguish among the pine trees in the yard, and she did it quickly and confidently. Mary Virginia and Tom cannot manage nearly as well. When the others went to the Bladen Fair, she and Virginia shared tea in the upper porch, which they imagined was Wendy's tree house [from J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan]. The summer days are devoted to the porch, where they each have a hammock. Wishes the twins were there. [Note in top margin:]In our botanical craze, we should call the baby Virginia occidentalis. Happy to receive the photographs of Margaret and Elizabeth. Willa.
