Thanks for telling her about Miss Bishop [Ferris Greenslet's secretary]. Will expect her on Friday [the 18th]. Willa S. Cather [Stout #405]
Introduction will be nearly the last to be written. Will send back the dummy Miss Bishop left with her tomorrow. Looks good. Please remove the middle initial from her name on the title page. P.S.: Would be glad to have Miss Bishop again soon. W. S. C. [Stout #407]
Please see that the middle initial is cut out of name on title page. Please set illustrations a little lower on the page to give an effect of spaciousness overhead. Willa Cather [Stout #408]
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]
Not writing a love story, but a story of the Southwest at the time New Mexico was seized from Mexico, centering on two Catholic missionaries. Hero is Father Latour, modeled on Bishop Lamy of N.M., who became archbishop and died in Santa Fe in 1886. Lamy saw the transition of N.M. from a wild country to a civilized one. Has been working from a large collection of letters written by Lamy and his vicar to their families. Some incidents invented, some given almost exactly as they occurred. All of part I now written, though not all typed. Part II will not be as long but more solemn in tone. Willa Cather [Stout #826]
Thought she said legend, not folklore. A very different thing. The two priests' lives were like works of art. Hopes to go out to Arizona soon. Glad to autograph copy. A very gracious review. Willa Cather [Stout #896]
Thanks for his note about the book. Got a sense of the two priests from Howlett's book on Machebeuf. May be in Denver later in the winter. Appreciates the clergy's general willingness to overlook errors in details. Willa Cather [Stout #920]
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]
Hoped to see him, but understands he is away. Leaving for Canada in a few days. He understood what she was doing in the new book quite precisely. Interesting that he liked Bishop Laval best, as she does also, for his loyalty to French ways. Left it up to Knopf to decide about Book-of-the-Month Club, but he would not have allowed it if she had opposed. Wants to know when Mrs. Canby's book of verse is published. Since in California so much with her mother, loses touch with things in New York. Willa Cather [Stout #1060]
Sorry her letter seemed curt. Has learned to be suspicious of approaches by strangers. Glad to see he shares her appreciation for that period of Canadian history. Does he know the Jesuit Relations and Abbé Scott's Life of Bishop Laval? Willa Cather [Stout #1085]
