Skip to main content

#3023: Willa Cather to Ellery Sedgwick, February 4 [1937]

More about this letter…
Plain view:

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 deleted passage
passage deleted by overwritten added letters overwritten passage
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
⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ Dear Mr. Sedgwick1;

Certainly you did a kind and friendly thing when you took the trouble to review3 my little book of essays4 yourself. They were written, those sketches, for persons like yourself, to whom the great names are still great. Some persons have taken the book as literary criticism, but I had no such thought in mind. What I wished was to recall the charm of life and manners which developed under the shelter of that old belief that "writing" had something to do with character, and that it was not merely a brutal form of journalism.

It is interesting to learn, however, that Mr. Knopf5's office has been flooded with letters from boys and girls still in college, protesting that they are "not like that", and their only quarrel with me is that I am not "fair" to Balzac6! Isn't it good to know that the youngsters still read him?

Cordially yours Willa Cather