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 had a pleasant journey, with arrival in cool weather, to find all my family
well. I confess to having you a little, more than a little, on my mind. If
you shake everything and get away to England3 for a few months, you can make[?] the twelve months of the year count
for twice as much. You know that,—and yet detail, that has become magnified
far beyond it's true importance, holds you back. Won't you take a steer
from a very, very well-wishing friend just
this once, break away and go. You know how little machinery counts for as
against personal force. You can let the machine go all to bits and bind it
up again if you are up to your best vitality—and that vitality once gone,
not the most perfect machine in the world will do much to accomplish your
ends. I presume a little in urging to think of this, because detail exhausts
you much more than it does Miss Breckinridge4. She has a harder shell to
protect her for one thing, and her blood doesn't need a certain kind of
nourishment that yours plainly does. Excitement about committees and things
rather stimulates her, and it really impoverishes you. You must know know all this yourself. For God's sake
act accordingly. You'll squander your special power, and life's no good
after that's gone, to yourself or others. Get
away before you have to. Do
send
me
a
line
saying
you've
booked
your
passage!
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0736.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0736
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, handwritten on recto and verso of first leaf and on recto only of second leaf. Includes one handwritten envelope.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Edith Abbott 1
- Date letter was written
- [June 20, 1924]
- Place letter was written
- Red Cloud, Nebraska, United States2
- Location of original letter
- , University of Chicago, Special Collections Research Center, Chicago, IL
Person Annotations
Abbott, Edith (1876-1957). Social reformer and educator.
Edith Abbott was born in Grand Island, NE. After graduating from the
University of Nebraska in 1901, she earned a PhD in economics from the
University of Chicago in 1905. She lived at Hull House from 1908 to 1920,
and became dean of the College of Social Service Administration at the
University of Chicago from 1924 to 1942. Like her sister Grace Abbott, Edith
Abbott worked for legislation to improve the lot of immigrants, women, and
children. Abbott and Cather were both awarded honorary doctorates from the
University of Nebraska in Lincoln in 1917.
Breckinridge, Sophonisba Preston (1866-1948). American social scientist. Born in Lexington, KY, daughter of Col. William C.P. Breckinridge and Issa Desha Breckinridge, Sophonisba Breckinridge began studying at the future University of Kentucky in 1880; she graduated from Wellesley College in 1888, then in 1895 was the first woman admitted to the Kentucky bar. After going to the University of Chicago and working for Marion Talbot, she earned her PhD. in political science and economics in 1901. In 1904 she became the first woman graduate of the University of Chicago’s law school. While teaching at Chicago, she met student Edith Abbott, and in 1907 she persuaded Abbott to leave her position at Wellesley to pursue social work and research in Chicago. The two women became partners personally and professionally, collaborating on many important studies of conditions for women, children, and immigrants, and co-founding the Social Service Review in 1927. Cather knew Breckinridge, or of her, through Edith Abbott, whom she met when both were given honorary degrees by the University of Nebraska in 1917.
Place Annotations
