The Selected Letters of Willa Cather, Page 6

  TO MARIEL GERE

  Friday [July 1896]

  Pittsburgh

  My Dear Mariel;

  I have only been a few hours in this City of Dreadful Dirt, so you must not take my first impressions seriously I feel like being funny. I began to feel good as soon as I got east of Chicago. When I got to where there were some hills and clear streams and trees the Lord planted I did’nt need any mint julip. The conductor saw my look of glee and asked if I was “gettin’ back home.”

  Mr. [James W.] Axtell met me and timidly approached me. I did not think he could be the man and at first repulsed him with scorn. He was exceedingly cordial and brought me right out home. They live in a beautiful part of the city where the hills are all built up with big ivy-grown houses that are beautiful to see. When we entered the parlor my heart sank. It is one of the hair cloth furniture kind and its only ornament was a huge crayon portrait of Grandpa˘!! But the library is much better. It also contains a picture of grandpa˘, but there are also novelists of the milder sort and I saw Mrs. [Nellie] Axtell reading Harpers, which is encouraging. Now for the sad news, the Puritan maid [daughter Clara] is not at home. She is over in Wainsburg [Waynesburg, Pennsylvania] visiting “aunt somebody” and being coached in Greek preparatory to going to Vassar this fall—not Wellesley—So they say, but I secretly believe they sent her away to save her from my contaminating influence. I am rather glad she is not here, it will give me a better chance to get on to my new role. The room I have must be hers, I think, as it contains three bibles. Of course she took three with her, so that makes six. Alas! It also contains many a well worn copy of the trashy religious novels of E. P. Roe. I can stand the bibles, but not E. P. Roe. Now hear the joyful tidings, Grandpa˘ is not here, he is down at Mission Ridge with Aunt Somebody and will probably remain there the rest of his natural days. They say the climate suits him, may it continue to do so! for I feel that the stern eye of Grandpa˘, so accustomed to detecting the follies and foibles of this world, would penetrate me thin disguise as the old sage did Lamia’s, and he would cry out “I see her, the devotee of French fiction, the consort of musicians and strolling players!” Heaven save me from the Argus-eyed grandpa˘.

  In Chicago I caught the [Paul Gustave] Doré exhibition at the gallery. Great splurges of color, theatrical effects, enormous canvases and a sort of general spectacular effect a good deal like the “Last Days of Pompeii” bill boards. There was only one I could see any lofty or even honest work in, The “Neophyte.” The rest either had a flat chromo look or they were done by a trick.

  When I get a good pen and some new impressions I will write a letter that you can read. For the present this must do. Love to all and especially to your mamma.

  In Haste

  Willa

  Came from Chicago here by the B.&.O.

  c⁄o Home Magazine, Pittsburgh, Penn.

  After arriving in Pittsburgh, Cather got right to work, managing the magazine practically by herself only weeks after starting. At least, that’s what she reported to friends back in Lincoln. Eighteen ninety-six was an election year, and Nebraskan William Jennings Bryan was making his first of several failed attempts to become the U.S. president. Cather saw an opportunity to exploit her connections in Lincoln and get something good for the Home Monthly.

  TO MARIEL CLAPHAM GERE

  July 13 [1896]

  Pittsburgh

  My Dear Mrs Gere;

  Why dont some of your heartless daughters write to me? If they only knew how lonely and alone I am they surely would. I can stand it very well through the day when there is plenty of work and bustle at the office, but at night my soul yearns a good deal for my own kind and for those three beloved girls of yours. I would give anything just to see Jack ten minutes. I dream about those big tender gray eyes of his every night. The Axtells are gone West now, and from days end to days end I see only the prim old maid who keeps my boarding house and my stenographer.—Dont that sound large, my stenographer!—You see the entire responsibility of the first issue devolves on me. We are of course short of manuscript on the start and I have written fully one half of the magazine. Then the foreman is not used to magazine work and I have to oversee everything that goes on in the composing room. I’ll tell you my old Hesperian experience helps me out there. I was down in composing room until one oclock last night sweating over those forms and making up the pages. Then I have all the manuscript reading and purchasing for the September number, and all the correspondence with literary people, which of course demands some care. Fortunately the stenographer is an exceptionally good one and knows how to spell. The responsibility is something awful. I dream about that magazine every night.

  Now Mrs. Gere I want to ask a big favor of you, and no one but you can do it. I want to write an article on Mrs. W. J. [Mary Baird] Bryan and Mrs. [Ida Saxton] McKinley before any of the other magazines do. Its a chance for a big “scoop” and I want to make a grand success of it. The old maid who keeps my boarding house knew Mrs. McKinley well in her youth. I have worked her for all she is worth and got lots of valuable data. Next week I go down to Canton Ohio to get early photographs of Mrs. McKinley etc. Now I cant go to Lincoln—how I wish I could—so I want you to please send me all the facts you know and can get about Mrs. Bryan. What her literary tastes are, her club standing, her house, her legal studies, how she came to take them up etc. You know what I want, personal matter that the newspapers dont give. Of course I will keep your name out of it, and mine too for that matter. I will use a pen name, I have had to use half a dozen in the first number. Now dont fail me, Mrs. Gere, for this means lots to me. Mr. Axtell will be delighted if I can work it up thoroughly. I will write to Captain Phillips and ask him to try to get me Mrs. Bryan’s photograph. I must have some if they are to be had.

  The magazine is not all I could desire from a literary standpoint, its policy is rather namby-pamby, but of course that is the publishers’ business, not mine. I want to show you all that I can take up a thing and stick to it even if it dont just suit me. The great key of success is to work when you are not suited, I fancy. You would’nt know the lazy girl I used to be in me now. Even the stenographer has been lecturing me about working too hard. If Mr. Axtell is suited, I’ll make this thing succeed. I never felt so able to work before. My own literary work I will have to keep up outside largely, its a little too heavy for whats wanted in the monthly. Of course its a little hard for me to write gentle home and fireside stuff, but I simply will do it. Its so satisfactory to be really of some importance, to have something to do that no one else can do quite as well. It takes all the ennui out of life. At first I rebelled at some things, I had to learn that every editor is not a Mr. Gere or a Mr. [Will Owen] Jones. But I have learned that now and have resigned myself to the fact. I mean to stick this thing out. Thats the size of it. Three tall, plain, stiff, prim, Presbyterian Miss Rushes called on me this evening, three of Lydas [Axtell] ten thousand cousins. I was very demure and discussed flower gardening church music.

  Give my love to the three girls who have forgotten me, and much to yourself and Mr. Gere.

  As ever yours

  Willa

  TO ELLEN GERE

  Monday [July 27, 1896]

  c⁄o Home Monthly, Pittsburgh

  Dear Little Neddins;

  Excuse the diminutive, but it always seems to me that Mariel and I ought to be grandmothers to you and Frances.

  Well, Neddy, its not half so bad as I feared. They are not the infant damnation sort of Presbyterians at all, in fact their church split off from the other church because of its more liberal interpretation of the creed regarding predestination and the “summary treatment of infants” as Mr Axtell calls it. He means to be a jolly man and is an awfully nice one, but fun does’nt come natural to him. He has told me all about Lyda’s over-zeal and their worry over her. He seems to look at it quite sensibly. But everything is church here. When they have parties they invite the members of their Sunday school class! I inadvertantly told Mr. Axtell that
my folks were Baptists—I had to say something—and alas, the Baptist minister lives next door and in ten minutes he had him over and upon me. Pity me! Miss Rush, one of Lyda’s five thousand seven hundred cousins, was over to dinner yesterday. She is going to Vassar with Lyda this fall and was talking about the work required in various universities. I told her how many hours I usually carried at the U. of N. The dear thing looked up in sweet surprise and said innocently, “What, how did you ever find time with your newspaper work and church work?” My church work, O Neddy! Here every girl has her church work just as other girls have fans or powder boxes.

  We went of an organ recital by William Archer at the great Carnegie music hall Saturday night. It was great. I never heard [Robert] Schumann’s “Traumerei” on an organ before. The music hall is in the same huge building with the Carnegie library and art gallery. I thought the U. of N. Library was nice, but this—its marble from one end to the other and the colors and frescoes are just one artistic harmony. It is only a short distance from the office and they have all the books in the world there I think. And right near it is the Casino theatre and my old friend Pauline Hall plays there all next week. I foresee alas, that I will not go to the library on matinee afternoons but will slip across to the Casino to look upon Pauline’s glorious anatomy once again. The old Nick is in me Neddy, its no use talking. The Axtells are awfully nice, but they are chilly as a wine cellar and sort of formal even with each other. I cant express it, its just the old infant damnation business. Phillip is a comfort, for he is little at least. Because I come from the West he expected me to tell him Indian stories, and I fulfill my role in a way that would convulse you could you hear me. When I get through going to church and telling Indian stories I will have no more sense of truth left than [university classmate] Carlyle Tucker.

  I went to Church with the Axtells and their relatives, who comprise the entire population of East Liberty, last night. Opening hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers”, Golden text, “whosoever will, let him drink of the water of life freely.” Air’nt I doing well?

  As to the magazine Ned, I fear it will be great rot, home and fireside stuff, about babies and mince pies. But the financial outlook is good, so I guess I’ll stay by it for a while anyway. I will be virtually managing editor, Mr. Axtell and I being the only people who have anything to do with the literary part of it. During his month of absence I am to have sole charge. The proof reading goes all right, I found four mistakes he passed over this morning. I have a nice desk etc. of my own. Write to me soon and tell me if Mr. Oury goes to help the Cubans or gets killed or anything. He is real nice, is’nt he?

  Hurriedly

  Willa

  In the late nineteenth century, “Bohemianism” became a popular catchword for an impoverished, idealistic, unconventional, and artistic way of life following the publication of Henri Murger’s novel Scènes de la vie de Bohème and many subsequent dramatizations, the most famous of which is probably Puccini’s La Bohème. Cather had already distanced herself from Bohemianism in an article in the Nebraska State Journal months before writing the following letter: “For the business of an artist’s life is not Bohemianism for or against, but ceaseless and unremitting labor.” The phrase “a desert country by the sea,” which she quotes below, is Shakespeare’s description of Bohemia in A Winter’s Tale.

  TO MARIEL GERE

  August 4, 1896

  Pittsburgh

  [Written in the top margin:] c⁄o Home Monthly, East End, Pittsburgh

  My Dear Mariel;

  Your letter dated July 10 has just reached me after almost a month’s delay because you forgot to put the sacred words East End on the envelope. This is the tony part of the town and the people who are so happy as to dwell here have to be particularized.

  Now I am just back from an excellent rendition of Fra Diavolo [opera by Daniel Auber]—went with a little Chicago chap—and I feel the spirit of battle. Tomorrow I will write you a lot of pleasant things, but tonight I am going to scrap with you a bit. Now Mariel, did you ever think I meditated a solid course of Bohemia in all its degrees? If you did you do me rather an injustice. Of course one may think of it at times, but I used to actually think about slapping Tude Pound, yet I certainly never would have done it. Really, I never for a moment seriously contemplated becoming a citizen of that “desert country by the sea.” If I have’nt any regard for myself I have just a little for my family. I may go to New York sometime, but not for the express purpose of going to the bow-wows, and certainly not until I get some money ahead. I can most effectually surprise my friends and pain my enemies by living a most conventional existence, and I intend to do it. As to T. [university classmate Tom] Wing’s words, Heaven how much or how little did I tell you on that night of much morphine and little Morpheus? The less I care about T. Wing and his “words” the better, thats one reason I was so awfully glad to get away from Lincoln. I am going to quit writing to that gentleman pretty soon and then forget all about that conversation. Only yesterday I wrote him that I had never forgiven it and never could. He has one creed and I another. They are creeds that never meet in this world. There is no God but one God and Art is his revealer; thats my creed and I’ll follow it to the end, to a hotter place than Pittsburgh if need be. Its not an affectation, its my whole self, not that I think I can do anything myself, but the worship of it. That is about all that life has given me: it is enough. I dont ask anything more. I think I get as much good out of it as most people do out of their religions. I love it well enough to be a failure in it myself, well enough to be unhappy. It has felt this way from the time I could like anything, and it only grows stronger as I grow older.

  Just now I find it very easy to be “conventional,” I never worked half so hard before. The only form of excitement I indulge in is raceing with the electric cars on my bicycle. I may get killed at that, but certainly nothing more. And as to writing, it is not likely that I will treat more delicate subjects than “The Care of Children’s Teeth” for some years to come.

  Then really I like the work, grind though it is. I really like it immensely. Its a great boon just to be of some absolute use somewhere, to be at the head of something and have work that you must do. It does away with the tedium of life. Then the town and the river and the hills would compensate for almost anything. And I meet so many different kinds of people. I have met a lot of New York dramatic critics, [popular novelist] Amelia E. Barr paid me a business call last week as she went through Pittsburgh, and I have talked 46 minutes with Rudyard Kipling, which alone was worth coming here for. Then my head is so thumping full of new ideas. I seem for some reason to be able to do better work than ever before. I begin a little serial story “The Count of Crow’s Nest” in the September Monthly which I showed to Harold Dundy one of the mss. readers of the Cosmopolitan, and he pronounced it first class stuff, said he could use it and would give me a hundred dollars for it. Of course I was’nt at liberty to sell it as it was needed here. The artist to whom I sent it to be illustrated [Florence Pearl England] also wrote me a charming note about it, though she did’nt know it was mine. Its so good to be in a country where there is a Caesar to appeal to in these things. Since my work is improving I dont feel that I am wasting time here. O if I can only make it some day and triumph over T. Wing and the rest! I doubt if I ever do anything very good, though. I seem to lack the one thing.

  I enjoy the manuscript reading and the proof reading dont bother me as I feared it would. They are very considerate of me at the office, and let me off a day to write whenever I want it. Indeed, I do pretty much as I please, I am rather at the head of things so long as I follow their policy.

  I cant tell you how nice Mr. [George] Gerwig has been to me. He is my devoted slave and I can call on him for anything. I have met a lot of charming people and already belong to the “swell” Woman’s Club of the town. That dont look very Bohemian, does it?

  Well, I have written you a long tirade about my work. Pretty soon I will get time to tell you about the picni
cs and boat rides and excursions and things. I have a good deal of that sort of thing and enjoy it immensely.

  Please dont forget to thank your mother—or yourself—for those photographs.

  In Haste and with much love to all

  Willa

  P.S. I have a real live stenographer of my own, she is a dandy too. I dictate all my business letters.

  W.C.

  TO FLORENCE PEARL ENGLAND

  September 10, 1896

  The Home Monthly, Pittsburgh

  My Dear Miss England:

  Your drawing arrived this morning, and while we like it we do not find it as satisfactory as the others. I send it back to you by express this morning, hoping that you can make a few changes in it for us. In the first place I very much wish that you could have Mademoiselle DeKoch appear without a hat. I have been among singers a good deal, and never knew one to wear a hat to a concert. It seems to me if you could just have a wrap thrown over the back of the chair and have her hair done high that it would be a very great improvement. Some way she and Buchanan do not seem to look just as they did the last time. If you could put him in a dress coat and have him look a little more like he did last month, I think it would improve the picture. The tenor is thoroughly satisfactory, but if you will notice he seems to have a good deal more animation and intelligence in his face than either Buchanan or Mademoiselle, whereas he was supposed to be rather a silent partner.