Reading these letters — just a few at a time on most evenings —was like hearing from a distant friend who is by turns cranky (especially about movie productions of her books), staunch in protecting her time and energy for what matters most to her, warm with those she loves, able to admit her mistakes and scold others for theirs, delighted by her successes and remarkably impervious to criticism ("I am so sorry my writing vexes you, and it will continue to vex you!").
Cather's wonderfully human voice comes across in letter after letter as does her deep pleasure in writing. "The actual development of a story that has been carefully planned is the pleasantest occupation I know," she wrote in 1941. Throughout, Cather is delightfully herself, despite the fact that her deepest emotional life — presumably her love for Isabelle McClung and her lifelong companion Edith Lewis — is never on display.
In a 1947 letter, Cather writes, “We learn a great deal from great people. The mere information doesn’t matter much — but they somehow strike out the foolish platitudes that we have been taught to respect devoutly, and give us courage to be honest and free. Free to rely on what we really feel and really love — and that only.”
Willa Cather’s letters offer a similar gift, which makes me glad that her wish to restrict access has been overridden now that anyone who could be hurt by them has died. As Peter Schjeldahl wrote in The Art of Dying, “I believe in earnestly agreeing to deathbed wishes and then forgetting about them, unless it’s to satisfy those among the living.”
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