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 |
One of you letters sent to France3
must have missed me, for until your last letter reached me here2 I had no idea that you expected me to
be present when the portrait4 is presented to
the Public Library. I may have said in one of my letters to you that I hoped
to be at home5 at Christmas time. I
did hope, and I very much wish to be there, but I am afraid it will be
impossible. The fact is simply that I have begun on a new story6, and if I leave it at this
stage, I will lose it. I have to stay with a piece of work in the beginning;
if I go away from it and let other things rush in, I never recapture my
first int interest in it. Of course if
Mother7 and father8 insisted, I'd go, but I'd lose my
story. This is an explanation of my not coming; it is for you, and for those
most interested, but it's not for publication.I don't
like details about my methods of work in print. If you have anything in print about my not coming, you
can simply say that my business engagements in New York won't permit my
leaving at all just now.
Because I have come to regard you as a friend, you will let me say that it
will be much better for me not to be there, but to visit you at sometime
later, when there is no 'ceremony' and everything will be easier. I've cut
out every sort of public appearance this winter, even the William Vaughn Moody lectures in Chicago9, which I would very much have really liked to give. You see, people want me
to do anything in the world but write.! I could ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩lecture and visit for the rest of my life. My countrymen seem
quite willing to support me for the present and future, if only they can
keep my mind broken up and keep me from writing. How they must really detest
the books they make such a fuss about! Even the pleasantest, (most of all
the pleasant!) meetings with crowds of people- - - well, they tire me
terribly, and take exact from me exactly the
quality that should go into my work. I never let
allowed the indifference of my
fellow-countrymen to bother me at
all; but if I'm not very careful,
their well-meant attentions will simply wreck me,- just break the machine
that makes it. That's not a figure, but a fact.
(I am so sorry your last letter
came too late. The portrait was shipped on Saturday the 8th, to your
address.)
No, it was not I have just got
back from a rapid taxi trip uptown, to look into the matter. I
The picture will go tomorrow, addressed to the
Library, as you request, charges pre-paid. I will send you a statement
of the shipping and express charges later. I hope your tooth is quite
well by this time, dear Mr. Vinsonhaler, but I'm afraid I've inherited
it. With ten thousand absolutely necessary things to do, I've been going
to the dentist daily. Poor Caesare10, the cartoonist, is trying to do a
black-and-white of me with one cheek turned
to the wall and a pained look about the eyes.
I hope you'll like the photograph I sent you.
Faithfully yours Willa Cather Mr. Duncan M. Vinsonhaler1 First National Bank Building Omaha11 Nebraska NEW YORK.N.Y.STA.C2 DEC 10 1923 730 PMInformation about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0709.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0709
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, typewritten on the recto only of each leaf, and handwritten on recto and verso of second leaf. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Duncan M. Vinsonhaler 1
- Date letter was written
- [December 10, 1923]
- Place letter was written
- New York, New York, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Willa Cather Papers, 1899-1949, in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library (6494), University of Virginia, Special Collections, Charlottesville, VA
Individual Annotations
According to the internal records of Cather's literary agent, Paul Revere Reynolds, earlier in 1923 Reynolds sold My Mortal Enemy (1926) to McCall's Magazine and "Uncle Valentine" (1925) to the Woman's Home Companion. Cather may have been working on one of these. She did not begin work on The Professor's House (1925), which incorporated the earlier unpublished "Blue Mesa," until the summer of 1924.
Person Annotations
Vinsonhaler, Duncan MacArthur (1867-1954). American judge. Born in Missouri, Duncan MacArthur Vinsonhaler married Isabelle Ellison in Kirksville, MO, in 1889, and received a law degree from Michigan University in 1891. Vinsonhaler served as judge of Douglas County, Nebraska (1900-1906) and as a senior member of the firm Vinsonhaler, McGuckin & Caldwell in Omaha, NE. In 1922 Vinsonhaler wrote Willa Cather a letter praising One of Ours (1922), and in 1923 Vinsonhaler and Cather corresponded about Léon Bakst’s portrait of Cather commissioned by a group of women in in Omaha, NE.
Cather, Mary Virginia Boak (1850-1931) (“Virginia” or
“Jenny”). Cather’s mother. Born in Virginia to William Lee Boak
and Rachel Seibert Boak, Virginia was educated in Baltimore, MD, and was a
schoolteacher until her marriage to Charles Fectigue Cather in 1872. Her
husband’s family were primarily Union supporters during the Civil War while
her family supported the Confederacy (three brothers served in the
Confederate Army although their mother opposed slavery). After her marriage
she tried to help unite the divided family. Four of her children, Willa,
Roscoe, Charles Douglas, and Jessica Virginia, were born in Virginia, while
three, James Donald, Elsie Margaret, and John Esten, were born in Nebraska
after the family moved there in 1883. Despite occasional differences, Cather
remained in affectionate contact with her mother, who remained in Red Cloud,
NE, where the family settled in 1884. After her husband’s death in 1928
Virginia Cather suffered a stroke while visiting her children and their
families in California. She spent nearly three years in a sanitarium in
Pasadena, CA, unable to speak. Willa Cather visited her there several times
but was unable to travel quickly enough from Grand Manan to Red Cloud for
her funeral and interment after she died in Pasadena in 1931. Virginia
Cather was the prototype for Victoria Templeton in “Old Mrs. Harris” (1932),
which Willa Cather completed shortly before her mother’s death.
Cather, Charles Fectigue (1848-1928). Cather’s father.
Charles Fectigue (possibly Fectique) Cather was born in the Back
Creek Valley of Virginia, north of Winchester. His family were sheep raisers
who were largely, but not entirely, Union supporters during the Civil War.
He married Mary Virginia Seibert Boak, daughter of Confederate supporters,
in 1872. In 1883 he and his family followed his parents, William and
Caroline Cather, and brother George to Webster County in Nebraska, where
various cousins and uncles had also settled. Initially he ran a ranch in the
county but soon moved his family into the town of Red Cloud, where he had an
insurance and real estate business. Four of his children, Willa, Roscoe,
Charles, and Jessica, were born in Virginia, while three, James, Elsie, and
John, were born in Nebraska. Cather’s relationship with her father was very
warm: she made regular visits to her parents in Red Cloud and especially
enjoyed her father’s letters expressing appreciation of her novels. A week
after she concluded a visit to her ailing father in Red Cloud, he died of
heart disease. He served as the prototype for Hillary Templeton in “Old Mrs.
Harris” (1932).
Cesare, Oscar Edward (1883-1948). Swedish-American illustrator. Born in Sweden, Oscar Cesare studied art in Paris, then moved to the U.S., studying art in Buffalo, NY, and Chicago, IL before moving to New York City in 1911. His work was widely published in magazines and books, and he exhibited at the Armory Show in 1913. In 1916 he married Margaret Porter, daughter of William S. Porter (“O. Henry”); they divorced in 1920. A pacifist in World War I, he was allowed to visit the Kremlin in 1922 and drew portraits of Lenin and Trotsky. In December 1923 he did a portrait of Cather.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Portrait of Willa Cather by Léon Bakst (1923).
