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 go West via New York3 and came here
to last Friday to spend a week with the
Hambourgs4, who are here
for the summer. Ysaye5 and Maurice Dambois6 are staying with them and
Thibaud7 has a house across the
street. We have Beethoven8 quartettes
and Motzart9 every night. Last night the
Tenth Beethoven10 and Schubert's11
Death and the Maiden12. The gods on
Olympus' hill do not have such music. One might travel the world around and
not hear its equal. My right to be in this Heavenly choir is mainly that I
loaned the bunch my cook, Josephine13,
for the summer. They are so fond of her good french food, and so afraid I'll
take her away that they will even play 'request' programs for me. It is a
glorious party, but the silence of the cornfields will be almost welcome
after so much of it. As Josephine says; "Les Sonat', les quattuores a deux
heures le matin—c'n'est pas raisonable, vous-savez, mademoiselle!"14
So this is why I won't have the pleasure of lunching with you in Boston15.
After Sunday my address will be Red Cloud, Nebraska16.
Faithfully, W. S. C.Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0429.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0429
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Ferris Greenslet1
- Date letter was written
- [August 6 to September 4, 1918]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
In #0428, Cather informs Ferris Greenslet that she will be traveling to Scarsdale, NY. By September 6, 1918, she was in Red Cloud, NE (see #0430).
- Place letter was written
- Scarsdale, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Houghton Mifflin Company correspondence and records, 1832-1944 (MSAm1925), Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, MA
Individual Annotations
Translation: Sonatas and quartets at two in the morning--come now, this is outrageous, Miss! (French)
Person Annotations
Greenslet, Ferris (1875-1959). American editor and writer.
Born in Glens Falls, NY, Ferris Greenslet earned a BA (1897) from
Wesleyan University and a PhD (1900) from Columbia University. He served as
associate editor at the Atlantic Monthly from 1902 to
1907, and married Ella Stoothoff Hulst in 1903; they had two children,
Marguerite (born 1904) and George (born 1906). As an author he specialized
in biography. He became literary editor at Houghton Mifflin, the Boston
publisher of the Atlantic, c. 1908 and was socially
and professionally acquainted with Annie Adams Fields and Sarah Orne Jewett,
who may have introduced him to Cather. He evidently solicited Cather to
submit Alexander’s Bridge (1912), her first published
novel, to Houghton Mifflin. In 1910, when Greenslet became editor in chief
of the trade department, Roger Scaife divided his shares as a director of
the company with him, and the two presented themselves to authors as
partners, with Scaife handling book advertising and format and Greenslet
negotiating contracts and supervising editing; when Greenslet was absent
from the office, Scaife handled correspondence with Cather. Greenslet became
a director of Houghton Mifflin in 1919 and manager of the trade department
in 1933. Cather left Houghton Mifflin as a publisher for Alfred A. Knopf,
Inc., because she became dissatisfied with the production and advertising of
her books. However, she remained on cordial terms with Greenslet and
undertook several projects for him after her departure. Her extant letters
to him constitute one of the largest groups to a single correspondent.
Hambourg, Isabelle McClung (1877-1938). Cather’s longtime
friend. Cather met Isabelle McClung, the daughter of a socially
prominent, Pittsburgh (PA) family, in 1899 in the dressing room of actress
Lizzie Hudson Collier. McClung seems to have been the first woman to
reciprocate Cather’s romantic affections. In 1901, McClung invited Cather to
live in her family’s large home in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of
Pittsburgh. She and Cather traveled together to Europe in 1902, and McClung
accompanied Cather on a visit home to Nebraska in 1905. After Cather moved
to New York City in 1906, she frequently visited McClung in Pittsburgh,
finding the familiar house a congenial place to write, and McClung visited
New York City, staying with Cather and Edith Lewis. Cather and McClung also
rented a vacation cabin in Cherry Valley, NY, in 1911, and traveled together
to Virginia in 1913. In late 1915, shortly after the death of her father,
Judge Samuel McClung, Isabelle announced her intention to marry violinist
Jan Hambourg. Cather reacted negatively to the marriage (which took place in
1916) but eventually reconciled herself to it, enjoying long visits with the
Hambourgs in Toronto, Ontario, in 1921 and France in 1923 and 1935. Cather
and Edith Lewis also spent time with the Hambourgs in Paris is 1930 and
1935. The latter trip occurred after Isabelle sought treatment in the U.S.
for the kidney disease that killed her several years later in Italy. Her
death came only four months after Cather’s brother Douglass died, leaving
her feeling bereft. “No other living person cared as much about my work,
through thirty-eight years,” she wrote her brother Roscoe (#2137). After
Isabelle’s death, Jan sent to Cather the six hundred letters from Cather to
Isabelle in his possession, and Cather destroyed them, although a few
letters from Isabelle and Cather postcards to Isabelle are extant.
Hambourg, Jan (1882-1947). Russian-born violinist; Isabelle
McClung’s husband. Hambourg moved with his family to Toronto,
Ontario, in 1910, where he was the head of the violin department at the
Hambourg Conservatory and performed as part of the Hambourg Trio. He married
Isabelle McClung in April 1916. Cather reacted negatively to both Hambourg
and the marriage, but she gradually came to accept him. Beginning in the
1920s, Hambourg left the family conservatory and focused on solo violin
performance in Europe. Cather enjoying long visits with Isabelle and Jan in
Toronto in 1921 and France in 1923 and 1935. She dedicated The Professor’s House (1925) to him (“For Jan, because he likes
narrative”) and asked him to make musical corrections to Lucy Gayheart (1935). When Isabelle died, Jan sent to Cather the
three hundred letters from Cather to Isabelle in his possession, and Cather
destroyed them.
Ysaÿe, Eugène (1858-1931). Belgian violinist. Born in Liège,
Belgium, Eugène Ysaÿe learned to play first from his father, who had him
play in his local orchestra when the boy was seven. Violinist Henry
Vieuxtemps sponsored him to the Royal Conservatory when he was twelve. Ysaÿe
began his solo career in 1885, and began to tour extensively in Europe,
Russia, and North America. From 1918 to 1922 he was music director of the
Cincinnati (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra. Cather probably met him through Jan
Hambourg and Isabelle McClung Hambourg by 1917. Ysaÿe returned to Belgium,
where he died after a long illness.
Dambois, Maurice (1889-1969). Belgian cellist and composer. Born in Liège, Belgium, in 1889, Maurice Dambois trained as a cellist at the Liège Conservatory. With Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, he performed as part of the Eugène Ysaÿe Trio and the Eugène Ysaÿe Quartet. Cather met Dambois in 1917 while visiting Jan and Isabelle Hambourg in Toronto, Canada.
Thibaud, Jacques (1880-1953). French violinist. Born in the city of Bourdeaux in France, Jacques Thibaud studied violin at the Paris Conservatoire. Thibaud was known both as a soloist and a chamber player. His friend violinist Eugène Ysaÿe dedicated his 2nd Sonata for solo violin to him. Cather met Thibaud in 1917 while visiting Jan and Isabelle Hambourg in Toronto, Canada.
Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770-1827). German composer and pianist. Born in Bonn, in the Electorate of Cologne (later part of Germany), Ludgwig van Beethoven moved to Vienna, Austria, to study music composition with Joseph Haydn and became known as a virtuosic piano performer and one of the most important composers of his generation. Although his deteriorating hearing caused him to withdraw from conducting and public performance in 1811, many of his most admired works were composed after this withdrawal. He died in Vienna. Cather’s early journalism demonstrates her familiarity with Beethoven’s life and works, and she continued to enjoy listening to his works as a concertgoer.
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791). Austrian composer and musician.
Born in Salzburg, Austria, son of Anna and Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang
Mozart showed his musical genius early, as a keyboard performer from age
four and a composer from age five. He toured Europe performing for more than
ten years before becoming a court musician in Salzburg in 1773, composing
prolifically in many forms. In 1781 he settled in Vienna and married
Constanze Weber in 1782. After great success as a performer and composer of
everything from operas to church music, he fell on hard times in the late
1780s and died in poverty while trying to finish his Requiem Mass in D minor.
Schubert, Franz (1797-1828). Austrian composer and pianist.
Franz Schubert was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of a poor
schoolmaster. He early showed aptitude for the piano, violin, singing, and
composition; through the influence of Antonio Salieri, he was able to attend
the Imperial and Royal City College in Vienna, where he received one of the
best educations available to a non-aristocrat, and met many of the friends
who helped sustain him in later life. He was a prolific composer with a
particular genius for song, raising the German lied to an art form, though
his symphonies, chamber music and piano music are equally celebrated. As a
newspaper critic Cather reviewed live performances of Schubert’s works, and
she continued to enjoy such performances throughout her life. She also
alluded to Schubert and his works frequently in her fiction, especially in
Lucy Gayheart (1935).
Bourda, Joséphine Marie Bernardine Brun (1892-1959). Cather’s maid. Raised in Lourdes in the Pyrénées region of France, Joséphine’s father Jean-Marie Brun ran a restaurant. In 1909 she married Alphonse Bourda, and they had two children, Marie, born 1910, and Clémentine, born 1912. In 1913 Joséphine, Alphonse, and Joséphine’s father immigrated to the U.S., leaving Marie and Clémentine behind with relatives. Alphonse and Joséphine’s third child, Jeanette, was born in New York City in late 1913. Soon after, Joséphine found work cooking and keeping house for Willa Cather and Edith Lewis in their Five Bank Street apartment. In 1919 the Bourda family was reunited in New York and Joséphine stopped working, but by late 1921, she was back working half days until sometime after 1925. She resumed working for Cather and Lewis in 1932 when they moved to a new apartment at 570 Park Avenue, but in 1935, she and her husband decided to return to France because of his failing health. Cather considered Joséphine a personal friend and praised her as “an artist in her way” (#0563). Cather and Bourda evidently corresponded after her return to France but their letters have not surfaced. She died in the village of Saint Pé de Bigorre.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
String Quartet No. 10 in E flat (1809) by Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet No. 14 (1831) by Franz Schubert
