Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
Some of these features are only visible when "plain text" is off.
| 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 |
Aug 4 /96
c/o Home Monthly3 East End Pittsburgh My Dear Mariel1;
Your letter dated July 10 has just reached me after almost a month's delay because
you forgot to put Ea the sacred words East
End on the envelope. This is the tony part of the town
and the people who are so happy as to dwell here have to be particularized.
Now I am just back from an excellent rendition of Fra
Diavolo4—went with a little Chicago5 chap—and I feel the spirit of battle. Tomorrow I will
write you a lot of pleasant things, but tonight I am going to scrap with you a bit.
Now Mariel, did you ever think I meditated a solid course of Bohemia6 in all its degrees? If you did you do me rather an
injustice. Of course one may think of it at times, but 2 I used to actually think about slapping
Tude Pound7, yet I certainly never would
have done it. Really, I never for a moment seriously contemplated becoming a citizen
of that "desert country by the sea."8 If I have'nt any regard for myself I have just a little for my family. I may go to
New York9 sometime, but not for the
express purpose of going to the bow-wows10, and certainly not until I get some money ahead. I can most
effectually surprise my friends and pain my enemies by
living a most conventional existence, and I intend to do it. As to T. Wing's11 words, Heavens how much or how little did
I tell you on that night of much morphine and little Morpheus12? The less I care about T. Wing and his "words" the better, thast
thats one reason I was so awfully glad to get away from Lincoln13. I am going to quit writing to that
gentleman pretty soon and then forget all about that conversation. 3 Only yesterday I wrote him that I had never forgiven it and
never could. He has one creed and I another. They are creeds that never meet in this
world. There is no gGod but
one God and Art is his revealer; thats my creed and I'll follow it to the end, to a hotter place than Pittsburgh
if need be. Its not an affectation, its my whole sle self, not that I think I can
do anything myself, but the worship of it. That is about all that life has given me:
it is enough. I dont ask anything more. I think I get as much good out of it as most people do
out of their religions. I love it well enough to be a failure in it myself, well
enough to be unhappy. It has been so
felt this way from the time I could like anything, and it
only grows stronger as I grow older.
Just now I find it very easy to be "conventional," I never worked half so hard
before. The only form of excitement I indulge in is raceing with the electric cars on my bicycle. I may get 3 killed at
that, but certainly nothing more. and
But as to writing, it is not likely that I will
treat more delicate subjects than "The Care of Children's t Teeth" for some years to come.
Then really I like the work, grind though it is. I really like it immensely. Its a great boon just to be of some absolute use somewhere, to be at the head
of something and have work that you must do. It does away with the tedium of life. Then the town and the river and the
hills would compensate for almost anything. And I meet so many different kinds of
people. I h I have met a lot of New York dramatic
critics, Amelia E. Barr14
a paid me a business call last week as she went
through Pittsburgh, and I have talked 46 minutes with Rudyard Kipling15, which alone was worth coming here for. Then my head
is so thumping full of 4 new ideas. I seem for some reason to
be able to do better work than ever before. I begin a little serial story "The Count of Crow's Nest"16 in the September Monthly17 which I showed to Harold Dundy18 one of the mss. readers f of the Cosmopolitan19, and he pronounced
it first class stuff, said he could use it and would give me a hundred dollars p[?]
for it. Of course I was'nt at liberty to sell it as it was needed here.
The artist20 to whom I sent it to be
illustrated also wrote me a charming note about it, though she did'nt know it was mine. Its so good to be in a country where there is a Caesar21 to appeal to in these things. Since my work is improving I dont feel that I am wasting time here. O if I can only make it some day and
triumph over T. Wing and the rest! I doubt 5 if I ever do
anything very good, though. I seem to lack the one thing.
I enjoy the manuscript reading and the proof reading dont bother me as I feared it would. They are very considerate of me at the
office, and let me off a day to write wh whenever I
want it. Indeed, I do pretty much as I please, I am rather at the head of things so
long as I follow their policy.
I cant tell you how nice Mr. Gerwig22 has been to me. He is my devoted slave and I can call on
him for anything. I have met a lot of charming people and already bel belong to the "swell" Woman's Club23 of the town. That dont look very Bohemian, does it?
Well, I have written you a long tirade about my work. Pretty soon I will get time to tell you about the picnics and boat rides and excur- 6sions and things. I have a good deal of that sort of thing and enjoy it immensely.
Please
dont
foget to thank your mother24—or
yourself—for that those photographs.
P.S. I have a real live stenographer of my own, she is a dandy too. I dictate all my business letters.
W. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0028.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0028
- Contents
- Document is seven leaves, handwritten on recto and verso of first six leaves and recto only of seventh leaf.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Mariel C. Gere1
- Date letter was written
- August 4, 1896
- Place letter was written
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Collection (RG2639.AM), Nebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln, NE
Individual Annotations
Cather worked as the unofficial managing editor of the Home Monthly magazine, owned by Axtell, Orr, and Company, from July 1896 until June 1897. The Home Monthly office was on Shady Avenue on the east end of Pittsburgh.
Cather uses "Bohemia" here in reference to the concept of the unconventional artistic lifestyle, as depicted in French novels, such as George du Maurier's Trilby (1894), rather than as a reference to Czechoslovakia.
Possibly a reference to New York-based etiquette writer Mary Sherwood's declaration that society in New York City was "going to the Bow-wows," which received coverage in the New York Times in May 1895.
In the summer of 1896, Henrietta Taylor Gerwig took Cather to a Women's Club meeting in Allegheny, Pittsburgh's North Side. Some of the members made social calls at Cather's residence following this meeting.
Person Annotations
Gere, Mariel Clapham (1874-1960). Cather’s university friend; a teacher. Mariel Gere, eldest daughter of Charles H. and Mariel C. Gere, born in Lincoln, NE, entered the University of Nebraska's prep school in the same year Cather did. She and her sisters visited Cather several times in Red Cloud, NE. Both were members of the Union Literary Society until Gere joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority in 1892. Gere graduated in the science course and taught chemistry at Lincoln High until 1941. She also served on the Lincoln City Library board for many years. Cather and Gere remained friends and correspondents; Gere defended Cather from accusations that she had been arrogant and friendless during her university years.
Pound, Olivia (1874-1961) (“Tude”). Nebraska teacher; Cather’s
university classmate. Born in Lincoln, NE, the younger sister of
Roscoe and Louise Pound, Olivia Pound was educated at home before entering
the preparatory school of the University of Nebraska in 1890. She graduated
from the university with Cather in 1895 and taught at Lincoln High School
from 1897 until her retirement in 1943, serving as assistant principal from
1918 on. Active in community and educational affairs, Olivia wrote textbooks
and twice served as president of the American Association of University
Women. Cather was acquainted with Olivia Pound, but they were not close
friends.
Wing, Thomas Ellwood (1872-1951) (“Tom”). Willa Cather’s university friend, Edith Lewis’s cousin. Born in Davenport, IA, to George and Mary Gould Wing, both transplanted New England Quakers, Tom Wing moved with his family c. 1886 to Lincoln, NE, where his mother’s sister, Lillie Gould Lewis, and her family had settled. Lillie’s daughter Edith Lewis was thus his cousin. Tom Wing earned a BA from the University of Nebraska in 1893 and a law degree in 1896. The precise nature of Cather’s relationship with Wing when they were contemporaries at the university is not clear, but she evidently corresponded with him after she moved to Pittsburgh, PA, in 1896, the same year he moved to New York City to practice law on Wall Street. In 1902, Wing married Cather’s classmate and friend Katherine Weston, who died the next year. In 1909, Wing married Helen Stanton Bouve, and they had two children. Wing retired to Bennington County, VT, where Dorothy Canfield Fisher was a neighbor. He died in Shaftsbury, VT.
Barr, Amelia Edith Huddleston (1831-1919). Anglo-American novelist.
Born in Lancashire, England, Amelia Huddleston was the daughter of a
Methodist minister. She attended the Normal School in Glasgow, Scotland,
before in 1850 she married Robert Barr, with whom she had twelve children,
many of whom died young. In 1853 the family emigrated to the U.S., living in
Chicago, IL, and then in Austin, TX. Widowed, Amelia Barr moved to New
Jersey in 1868, where she began writing for religious papers. By 1891 she
had achieved greater success with historical novels and stories. On a visit
to Pittsburgh in 1896, Barr met Cather, then the new editor of the Home Monthly.
Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936). English fiction writer and poet.
Born in Bombay, India, to English parents, Kipling was sent to
England for his education but returned to India to work as a journalist. His
poems and short stories about India won him an audience in England, and he
settled in London in 1889. When he married Caroline Balestier in 1892, the
couple moved to her home state of Vermont. In 1896 Willa Cather claimed to
have met Kipling and she described the “46 minutes” of conversation with him
as “alone worth” her move to Pittsburgh to work for the Home Monthly (#0028). In 1899, Cather wrote a column about his
career for the Lincoln Courier, in which she noted
the irony of Kipling trying to “live a respectable Puritan life in Vermont
and be a full-fledged family man,” urging him to “Go back east.” In 1899, he
did leave the U.S., but for London, not India, where he remained the rest of
his life. McClure’s Magazine published Kipling’s poem
“The White Man’s Burden” (1899) and the novel Kim
(1900-1901), paying him $25,000 for serialization of the latter. When Cather
traveled to London on McClure’s business in 1909, she
carried a letter of introduction to him, but it is not clear whether she met
him again there. Throughout her life Cather expressed enthusiasm for
Kipling’s works, which she associated with a spirit of adventure, and her
letters make clear that she followed his life and career closely.
Dundy, Harold. Editor for Cosmopolitan Magazine c. 1896. No further information is available about this person.
Nosworthy, Florence Pearl England (1872-1936). American artist, illustrator. Florence England was born in Milwaukee, WI, and studied art at the Boston (MA) Museum School of Fine Art and at the Art Students League in New York City. She illustrated books and magazines for both adults and children and drew many covers for popular magazines. Cather corresponded with her about her illustrations for “The Count of Crow’s Nest,” Cather’s story published in the Home Monthly in September and October 1896. England married William A. Nosworthy in 1897.
Julius Caesar (c. 102 BCE-44 BCE). Roman statesman and general. In the 58-49 Gallic Wars (58 BCE-49 BCE) Caesar brought all of Gaul under Roman control, establishing his reputation as a military leader. At the time of his assassination by C. Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, he was dictator for life of Rome. In a number of Willa Cather’s works, most notably The Song of the Lark (1915) and The Professor’s House (1925), characters read Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War.
Gerwig, George (1867-1950). American educator. Born in Ohio and reared near Pittsburgh, PA, Gerwig received a bachelor’s (1889) and master’s (1891) from the University of Nebraska. He was the drama critic for the Lasso, a short-lived student paper for which Cather also wrote. Returning to Pittsburgh, he served many years as secretary of the board of education and earned a PhD at the University of Western Pennsylvania in 1904. He married Margaret McGrew of Pittsburgh in 1896; they had a son and a daughter. When Cather moved to Pittsburgh in 1896, Gerwig befriended her, taking her and a large convivial party on a memorable boat trip up the river to Economy, PA.
Gere, Mariel E. Clapham (1838-1912). Cather’s friend; mother of her
friends, the Gere sisters. Mariel Elizabeth Clapham was born in
Washington, D.C., the daughter of Captain John Clapham and Mariel Goodwin
Clapham. She corresponded with Charles Gere for several years before their
marriage in 1871, when she came to Lincoln, NE. When Cather became friends
with their daughters Mariel, Ellen, and Frances, she welcomed her to their
home at 8th and D streets. Mrs. Gere, according to Cather, persuaded her to
grow out her close-cropped hair.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Fra Diavolo: An Opera in Three Acts (1880) by Daniel Auber
Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare
The Metamorphoses (8 AD) by Ovid
"The Count of Crow's Nest," Home Monthly (September and October 1896) by Willa Cather
Home Monthly
Cosmopolitan
