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 so sorry I missed you this afternoon. I spent the afternoon having all parts of my head x-rayed in a laboratory up-town2. I have a temperature every afternoon and wild pains in my head, and these fool doctors can't find what the infection is4. My Antrium[?] under x-ray is all right; teeth blameless; tonsils reply "perfect, thank you!" to every test, and my inner ear is innocent of any disorder. In spite of all this my head feels like the devil and I have fever. So I go taxi-cabbing around to laboratories.
I telephoned you at noon and at three oclock on Thursday to ask if I could come out to tea with me somewhere, but you were out. So I went up town and had tea at the Plaza, utterly weary of these four walls. I was feeling shaky, but couldn't bear being shut up. Knew I couldn't go out at night, but thought I might see you in the afternoon.
This note was to thank you for the flowers; I'll have them to cheer me tomorrow when those chilly doctors are here pumping and pulling at me. Thank you dear Zoe, a thousand times, what heavenly English stock!
Perhaps you can drop in Monday afternoon for tea—or, if its any sort of weather I could come up to you. It's damnable to be sick and not to know what's the matter. Tomorrow, Sunday, afternoon, I'll be engaged, for two doctors will be here doing stunts on me.
Au Revoir—and here's to better days!
Yours W. S. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0274.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0274
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Zoë Akins 1
- Date letter was written
- [February 7, 1914]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
In two letters dated Friday February 13, 1914 (#1908 and #0276), Cather explains that she had been diagnosed with a scalp infection on the back of her head that had caused her a great deal of pain and that might require surgery. In this letter, date lined Saturday, she is still getting tested to find the origin of these symptoms, and February 7, 1914, was the Saturday before February 13, 1914.
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Zoë Akins Papers, 1878-1959 (mssAU 1-5456), Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
Individual Annotations
5 Bank Street (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis beginning in 1912, located in Greenwich Village in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Subway construction forced Cather and Lewis to relocate in 1927.
Cather was soon diagnosed with an infection from a scratch on the back of her head (see #1908 and #0276).
Person Annotations
Akins, Zoë (1886-1958). American poet, playwright, and screenwriter.
Akins’ friendship with Cather started in 1909, when she submitted
verse to McClure’s magazine, which Cather rejected,
advising her to stay with playwriting. Akins subsequently moved from her
hometown of St. Louis, MO, to New York City and achieved success as a
playwright. She moved to California in the 1930s, adding screenwriting to
her accomplishments. Her play The Old Maid (1935), an
adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. In
1932, Akins married Captain Hugh Rumbold, a British theatrical designer and
director; he died eight months later. Cather and Akins carried on a lifelong
correspondence, with Cather writing affectionate letters that included both
commentary on her own works and criticism of Akins’.
Place Annotations
