Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
I am very much pleased that you should wish to
recommend me3 to your Board of Trustees for an honorary degree, but I will
take advantage of our old acquaintance and privately ask you not to do so. It would
be impossible for me to go to Rockford4 this
year. Some time in January I accepted a similar invitation from a university near at hand5, and the Commencement date
falls within a week of the date which you mention as the date of the Rockford
College Commencement. The first weeks of June will be very busy ones for me, as I
willshall be preparing to go abroad6 and will have a good many business matters to
arrange here, so I dare not take on any more engagements.
I am glad to hear from you again, and I think I may whisper to you confidentially that honorary degrees become a rather embarrassing problem for a writer. It is difficult to say ‘no’ to kind invitations, but commencements always come at the busiest time of the year, when the heat is great and travelling is tiring.
Once again let me thank you for your friendly interest which has extended over so many years, and believe me, I am always glad to hear from you.
Very sincerely yours, Willa CatherInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let1314.xml
- Letter identifier
- 1314
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, typewritten on recto only.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Norman Foerster1
- Date letter was written
- April 16, 1936
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collected Materials (MS008), University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
Norman Foerster, along with Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Robert Frost, received honorary degrees from Rockford College in 1934.
Cather turned down an invitation from Brown University in the winter of 1935, but the Lincoln Star reported on 11 May 1936 that Cather accepted an invitation from Pembroke college, the women's college connected to Brown University, to be the "guest of honor" at a reception on the college's commencement day, 15 June 1936.
Cather and Edith Lewis spent the summer of 1936 at Grand Manan. Cather's twin nieces Elizabeth and Margaret visited them there.
Person Annotations
Foerster, Norman (1887-1972). American literary scholar.
Norman Foerster was born in Pittsburgh, PA; he was one of Cather’s
students when she taught English at Central High School in Pittsburgh. He
went on to receive his A.B. from Harvard in 1910 and his MA from the
University of Wisconsin in 1912. He taught English at the universities of
Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Iowa, as well as at Duke University. Foerster
was a part of the neohumanist movement, along with Irving Babbitt and Paul
Elmer More. He wrote often about the role of higher education as well as
about American literature. His book, Toward Standards
(1930) was dedicated to Cather and to Robert Frost. Cather corresponded with
him occasionally about his work.
Place Annotations
