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 |
2nd
1922 My dear Mr. Whipple1:
I am awfully sorry I could not see you when you were in New York.
Once in a great while I have an invitation to lecture that really stirs some response in me—like the one in Omaha3 last autumn4. There was a personal reason why they wanted to hear me and why I wanted to speak to them. But perfunctory lecturing doesn't interest me at all and I would be foolish to let myself in for it. Besides, I intend going to France5 in the late winter or early spring.
It might be that you would have one or two engagements to offer me that I would like to accept, but the trouble is that when the rush of work is on I haven't even time to write you refusing applications or even to make decisions of that kind.
So I think you had better wait a few years. Like most other writers, when I become incapacitated for writing I may lecture!
Very cordially yours, Willa Sibert Cather George N. Whipple, Esq., The Players, 162 Tremont St., Boston, Mass.6
