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 |
How good you were to write me that you have enjoyed my books.! I am
especially happy when soldiers and sailors find something refreshing in my stories.
This really is a grand world, you know - or it was a grand world before this dark
cloud came over it. Clouds have come before, but the human race has always travelled
toward the sun again. Think how many really fine people you have known in your own
short life. They are just as real as the horrid people. The fine people I have known
and the fine things they did, are at the root of all that I have ever written. The
In the
"Archbishop"3 even more so than the rest. I had the good fortune to actually know several very
old priests who worked under him4 as very
young men. I have only to remember some of the things they told me, to feel the same
thrill that I felt when I first heard them. This great Christian and gentleman in our then wild Southwest.!
