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 do find it a splendid and most exciting book3! Surely
this is the way to do the story of a strain of blood—not the Orlando4 way. The awfulness of a
family is that it is not one being undergoing vicissitudes, but a succession of
beings, swift into the world and out again; even under the delusion that he is a
comp complete creature and a free agent, when he
is neither,—when he is but a momentary aspect of something that is wholly
indifferent to him. The title is exactly right for it. The book has a nice balance;
the tone is cheerful and the facts are grim. By “cheerful” I mean—well, the
mood in which life has to be carried on if it is carried on at all. I do avow that
this book makes me feel that it had better not be
carried on. It wouldn’t be, perhaps, except for the fact that before the age of forty forty it is physically and impossible for most of us to believe in either
death or defeat. We hear “forever, forever” ringing in our ears, but it does not mean what it means in your book—far
from it. This leads me to the only thing I don’t like, which is the introduction of
the writer and New York5. It serves a
purpose, and it’s interesting from point of composition. But for me, the more I can
forget that a book is a kind of “writing” and done by a writer, the better. I think
La Prisonnière6" suffers greatly from the fact
that there for the first time Proust7 begins
to speak of himself as a writer instead of remaining merely an eye and an ear
(mostly and ear!) and grandmother’s spoiled baby. I know painters put themselves in
their pictures, but that’s different. Some day I’d like to thrash this out with you.
But that’s a very small point, and the book itself is a great delight. I feel so
happy and satisfied for you. You’ve got into the pages somehow the terrible way that
life rus rushes on, and how no plans count for
anything and no person counts for anything. The title rings in one’s mind afterward
like a tune one would like to be rid of.
Oh, I’ve never thanked you for the long letter you wrote me from California8, which did me a world of good and brought that country all back to me again. I’ve thought a little of going to live in San Francisco9 - - - but I’m a little afraid. I hope you saw the Porters10, I liked them so much. I want to talk about California with you. I’ll go down to New York in a few weeks.
Hastily W. P. P. S.Perhaps I wish the Expositor in your story (I realize there had to be one) were a
sober and studious person person engaged in
digging out family history - - - and somewhat staggered by what she found. Your
choice is more modern, but I think the other would have certain merits of its
own.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0981.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0981
- Contents
- Document is two leaves, handwritten on recto and verso of first leaf and on recto only of second leaf.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant1
- Date letter was written
- October 2 [1929]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
The penciled year at the top of this letter is confirmed by the publication of Sergeant's Short As Any Dream in 1929.
- Place letter was written
- Jaffrey, New Hampshire, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Literary and Historical Manuscripts (MA 1602 (67)), Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY
Person Annotations
Sergeant, Elizabeth Shepley (1881-1965). American journalist and
author. Born and raised in Winchester, MA, a suburb of Boston,
Elizabeth Sergeant graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1903. In 1910,
Pauline Goldmark sent her to Cather at McClure’s
Magazine with a proposed article, published as “Toilers of the
Tenements,” and Cather and Sergeant became lifelong friends. In 1914
Sergeant became one of the original contributors to the New Republic. While on assignment in France in 1917 she was
injured by a land mine; her injury and recuperation were the subject of Shadow-Shapes: Journal of a Wounded Woman (1920). She
moved to New Mexico in 1920 and became involved with the Taos artists colony
and advocated for Native American rights, but her work frequently took her
back to New York City. She included Cather in her collection of portraits of
prominent Americans, Fire under the Andes (1927).
Sergeant studied with Carl Jung and Toni Woolf in Zurich, Switzerland, from
1929 to 1931. When she returned to the U.S. she sold her house in New Mexico
and settled in New York City, writing many magazine articles about authors
and psychological topics. She later moved to Rockland County, NY. Cather’s
letters to Sergeant comment frequently on both her own and Sergeant’s
writing and testify to a strong and lively friendship maintained despite
Sergeant's being a committed reformer and far to the left of Cather
politically and culturally. Sergeant’s Willa Cather: A
Memoir (1953) includes extensive paraphrases of Cather’s letters to
her.
Proust, Marcel (1871-1922). French author. Born in Auteuil, France, to Adrien Proust and Jeanne Weil, Marcel Proust received degrees in law and literature from the Paris Institute of Political Studies. Best known for his seven-part masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time (1913-27), Proust is widely considered a premier 20th-century author. Cather read his first novel, Swann’s Way (1913), as well as Within a Budding Grove (1918).
The Porters. Cather's California acquaintances. Cather likely met the Porter couple or family in San Francisco in 1929. No further information is available about these people.
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
Short As Any Dream (1929), by Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant
Orlando (1928), by Virginia Woolf
The Prisoner (1923), by Marcel Proust
