Member writers included willa cather, sir, who used the library and our collection over a number of years, both in our prior building on University Place and in this building where we moved in 1937 from the surviving charging records, we know that both cather and her partner, edith lewis, visited the and checked out quite a few book both for resech and for reading. Our 2017 2018 exhibition, the new york world of willa cather uncovered a lot about cathers f this library so feel free to speak to a staff member or take a look at our website to learn more will also continue our cathers sesquicentennial celebration with a special featuring Benjamin Taylor on his brand new biography, chasing bright uses a life of willa cather coming up on november 14th. Because of that historic connection. Were particularly honored evening to present this special event celebrating the squicentennial of cathers in cooperation with the National Willa Cather center. Our great to Peter Cipkowski from its event. I will now hand the stage over him. Thank you and enjoy. Thankim with the national weatr center and im here with some of my colleagues. The ce particularly olsen, our executive director from red cloud, nebraska. We are so excited to be here to be partnering with the society willa cather birthday is this december. And it is the 150th anniversary of her birth. In 1873. Its important to state, as sarah suggested, that will cather was a member of the library. She was a quintessential new yorker in the sense that she lived here most of her adult life down in the before migrating to the upper east side, she was a member of the on University Place for those years when she was living in the village and later when it migrated here. She a good deal f research in this space, as many of you probably know and use the cardce here in the library that she researched a number of her books particular her last book saphira and the slave girl, which based on some memories memories she had of her childhood in virginia. As you may know, she migrated with her family to nebraska when she nine y and we know her, of course, for her nebraska novels primarily where she wrote so beautifully about the landscape up there. Also like to point out that that willa cather brings a kind, unique american voice and kind of broke e code to speak. She followed her great Edith Wharton and henry, who were writing about very different that they were writing about, about aristocrats, folks who had european tours and so on. Willa cather about common people, the people that she grew up with and loved and and a way to express what it was to be quintessentiallynovels. Tonights program is brought to you both by the National Willa Cather center and the New York Society Library. Just a word about we do at the center, which is based on red cloud willa cather hometown. Our mission is advance willa cather work, obviously, and to protect the national nationally does a designated historical landmarks attached to one author in red cloud. So i encourage you to to come to red cloud and have a look around its extraordinary place and the center has a magnificent originally opera house where willa cather performed as a as a girl as well as an archive and a library and so on. But althat remai to say thank yr for being here. Its a special year for for the willa cather center. Thank you so much to the willa cather. Thank you. Thank you to the New York Society Library for for hosting us. And now i think it remains for to welcome our our actors steve routn lorette. Thanks to them for being here. Willa cather letter. Mrs. Stoll, 31, 1888. Dear mrs. Stoll, when i received your letter, i was much i had begun to doubt your intention. Write scol begins monday and i suppose i shall go. But i do not feel buoyant over the prospect i have grown so attachede i have a dissecting outfit. Its hard to leave my animals here i am, miss heather govern there. I am a child and am that makes great difference with frail humanity. I have been stuffing birds are affectionate. William cather letter to louise pound age 20 june 29th, 1893. Dear louise morning your card just receiveot disappointment never mind, i am getting used to them now i will be into lincoln the fourth, fifth and 6th of july. You will be gone then again, fate. I dont know that. I shou ci have set my stipulati. You do not deign to say whether you intend coming down you return from chicago for Goodness Sake make up your md you dontr matters eternally cut short next year it has been too a one sided nt want to be under obligations to anyone, even you. How do come, my dear fellow, i cant help thinking you dont come because. Well you know why i have tried one whole year to a face that tried as hard as i ever tried to do anything. For mercy sake, come down and show me i am forgiven if you dont come at. Re goodbye, will a letter to witter dinner age 33 february906. Dear mr. Benner, thank you for returning my story, which i think i have been able to improve. You asked me my novel, indeed. You asked about it once before and i neglected. Answer your question. The truth is that i hadot it out of the wrapper in which you sent it back me nor even opened it until some ago when i needed a piece of string and used the one which you had put it inousoe absolutely nothing with it. It seems to be not quite bad enough to away and not quite good enough to wrestle with again. Therefore it reposes in my old. I do think it was most awfully zealous you to put in a word to mr. James and call his attention to my collection of stories. And know that you must think his reply with your pains. Its such a personal communication, although its about something toward which he declares himself dead. Mr. I wish to acknowledge of the troll garden and to not reading it or intending to read■y it. Promiscuous fiction has become abhorrent to me and find it the hardest thing in the world to read almost any new novel. Any is hard enough, but the hardest from the innocent of young females and Young American females. Perhaps above all, this is a subject my battered, cynical all too expert outliving of such possibilities on which i could beut i havent time and i will be more vivid and complete some other day. Ive only time now to say that i will then, in spite of these professions, do my best for miss cather so as not to be shamed by your so doing yours res7f■ pects henry james. Mr. Jamess letter has given me a very keen kind of satisfaction for the attitude he admits is so exact which one would expect him to have. Ive always that he must feel just so its comforting all the same to have it from him in black and white if mr. James, one or two other men did not feelwell it, would really break ones spirit, it would be a very deep personal hurt. Its. Un shrinking positiveness of his statement as to his estimation of the value of what he terms promiscuous. That makes mr. Jamess lett■eera kind of moral stimulant you shall see with what good grace i can stand up to whatever punishment he meets out to me in his second letter to haven of tn anticipation a second letter. However, i certainly do ask your sympathy even he should refine upon his treatment in the light of the presupposed youth and innocence. The subject i feel a good deal as if i were about to undergo en from whence i should come away with my formal unsuspecting confidence in the ordinary, dependable leannesofver shaken l with my doubts horribly confirmed, the prospect of his doing what he calls his best by me. Well, wouldnt know where you actually facing the prospect of such an attention have to whistle to keep up your so ill ask your sympathy beg you when you get his diagnosis as to let me have it soon faithfully will as siebert cather the song of the lark part one heaven and old and spanish. Johnny celebrated christmas together riotously that one was unable to to her lesson. The next day in the middle of the vacation a week till you went to meet her beautiful snow. The air a tender blue gray like the color of the doves that flew in and out of the white dove house garden the sandhills looked dim and sleepy the tamarisk hedge was full of snow like a foam of blossoms drifted over it would tear open the gate. Old mrs. Koehler was just coming in from the chicken yard with five fresh eggs in her apron and a pair of top boots on her feet. She called tana to come and look at a bantam, which she held proudly. Her bantam hens were remiss in zeal, and she was always delighted when they accomplished anything. She took tea into the sitting room, very warm and smelling ofe full of christmas cakes made according to old and hallowed formula, and put them bere warm. Then she went to the door of the kitchen stairs and called her voyage. Have. Heaven came down wearing an old wadded jacket with, a velvet collar. Worn the wadding stuck out almost everywhere. Hex6 a eyes when he came in, knotted without and pointed directly the piano stool. He was noton the scales. As usual, and throughout the little sonata of mozart, she was studying, he remained languid and absent minded. His eyes looked very heavy, and he kept wiping with one of the new silk handkerchiefs hat landlady had given him for christmas. Taylor loitering on the stools stool reached for a a rest when she sat down. It was a very old edition. The piano score of brooks or face. She turned over the pages curiously. Is it nice . She asked. Its the beautiful up ever once declared solemnly. You know, to story. Hey, how then she die . Orpheus went down below for his wife. Well, i know the story. I know there was an opera about it. Do people sing this■ now either . Yeah. What tells you like to try . See, he drew her from the over d act. He handed score to taylor. Listen, i play it through and youll the christmas i why that i feel he played through this lament then back his cups with awakening and nodded to taylor. Now one blacksmith meal. Oh, here. Oh is he there . All in all mind glue his room door. He would sang aria with much feeling. It was evidently one that was very dear him. No, yourself. He played the introductory measures. I then nodded at her vehemently, and she began. He shot busy and oren. Her mind grew. I guess noone die in for of irish ball in very dicey chauffeur don been very chauffr at andfn been when she finished one she nodded again sure, he muttered as he softly. It dropped his hands on his knees, looked up at taylor. That is fairly fine. He there is no such beautiful melody in the world. You take the book for one week and learn something to pass the time. It is good. Know all of you d t whoeady . J ray for a little head on he . He sang softly, playing the medy with his right hand. Taylor, who was turning the pages of the third act, stopped and scowled at a passage the old germans eyes watched her curiously for what do you look so in yours own face youll see something a little difficult may be and youll make such a face like it wasnt. Taylor laughed, disconcerted. Well difficult things are, arent they, when you have to get them once lowered his head and threw it up as if he were something not too tall by means. He took thbo looked at it. Only one woman could sing that good punch on it is written for alto. You e a part and there was only one to sing thats good in there, you understand . Only one. He glanced her quickly and lifted his red forefinger upright before her eyes. Taylor looked at that finger as she were only one, she asked breathlessly. Her hands hanging at her sides were opening and shutting rapidly. Once nodded and still held up that compelling finger when he dropped his hands, there was a look of satisfaction in his face, which she had very great vengeance, not it. Was she■n beautiful whom i began next at all. She was not so big mouth. Big teeth, no finger, post but e voice ah, she have something in his temples to follow all his gesticulations intently. Was she german . Nor spanish, z long, long chin d such sound . Did she die a long whi ago . Di i think not. I never hear anyhow. I guess she is alive somewhere in. The world paris may be but old, of course i hear her when i was a youth she is too old to sing now anyway was she the greatest singer ever heard one . She nodded gravely. Quite so. K4 . ■ most. He hunted for the english word lifted, his hand over his head, snapped his fingers noiselessly in the air, enunciating fiercely, could slip the words seemed to glitter in his uplifted hand. Voice was so full of emotion, which rose fro began to button his water jacket, preparing to return to his half heated room in the loft. Taylor regretfully put on her cloak and hood and set out for home when finch looked for his late that afternoon, he found that taylor had not forgotten. Take it with her. He smiled at his loose sarcasm to smile and thoughtfully rubbed his stubby chin with hisfingers. When fritz came home in the early blue twilight, the snow was flying faster. Mrs. Koehler was cooking in the kitchen and the professor was seated at the piano, playing the cloak which he knew by heart. Old fritz took off his shoes quietly behind the stove and lay down on the lounge before his where the firelight was playing over the walls of napoleon in moscow he listened while room grew darker and the windows duller wounded always came back to the same thing, he shot ther sea, the lord in all mine gloom, his wound. He were oh, very new. He could bore. Then hed see, he saw all fel be seashore of the old and to do t. From time to time . Fritz sighed softly. He too, had lost a eurydice. He my antonia, i first heard of antonyinterminable journey acroe great midland plain north america. I was ten years old then. I had lost both my father a vira were sending me out to my grandparent who lived in nebraska. I traveled in the care of jake, a mountain boy, one of the hands on my fathers old under the blue ridge, who was now going west to work for my grandfather. Jakes experience of the world was not much wider than mine he had never been in a railway until this morning when we set out together. Try our fortunes in a new world we went all the way in day coaches becoming more sticky and journey. Jake bought everything. Newsboys offered him candy, oranges,ons, a watch charm. And for me, a life of jesse james beyond chicago, we were f a friendly conductor who knew all the country to which we were going and gave us a great deal of advice our confidence, he seemed to us an experience stone worldly man who had been almost everywhere distant and cities. He wore the rings and pins and badges of different fraternal orders to which he belonged. Even his cuff buttons were engraved with hieroglyphics, he was more inscribed than an egyptian obelisk once, when he sat down to chat, he told us that in the immigrant car ahead there was family from across the water whose destination was the same as ours. I do not remember crossing the Missouri River or anything about that long days through nebraska. Probably that time i had crossed so many rivers that was dull to them. The only thing very noticeable about nebraska was that it was still all day long. Nebraska nebraska. I been sleeping curled up in a red plush seat for a long while when we reached black hawk, we stumbled down from thee men were running about with lanterns. I couldnt see any town or even distant lights. We were surrounded by, utter darkness. The engine was panting heavily after its long run in the red glow from the firebox, a group of people stood together on the platform, encumbered by bundles and boxes. I knew this must be the immigrant family, the conductor had told us about the woman wore a fringed shawl tied over her head and she carried a little tin trunk in her arms, hugging it as if were a baby. There. An old man, tall and stooped to have grown boys and a little girl clung to her mothers ■presently. A man with a lantern, approached them and begun to talk, shouting and exclaiming, i picked up my ears for it washeard a foreign. Another lantern came along, a bantering voice called out. Hello, are you mr. Burdens folks . If you are, its me youre looking for. Im otto. Im burdens hired man and im to drive you out. He told us we had long night drive ahead of us and wed better be on the hike. He us to a hitching bar where two farm wagons were tied and i saw the foreign family crowding into one of them. The other was for us. Jake got on the front seat with otto. I rode on the straw in the bottom of the wagon, covered up with a buffalo hide. The immigrants rumbled off into the empty darkness. And we followed them. I trie sleep, but the jolting made me bite my tongue, and i soon began to ache all ovi from under the buffalo, hide got up on my knees, peered over the side of the wagon there, seemed to be nothing to see, no fences was no creaks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but all. But the material out of which countries are made. I had the feeling that the world was left behind, that we had gone over the edge of it and were outside mans juristic person. I had neverefnot a familiar Mountain Ridge against it. But this was the complete dome of heaven. All there was of it. I did not believe that my dead father and mother were watching me from up there. They would still be looking for e sheepfold down by the creek or along the white road that led to the mountain ureft even their spirits behind me. The wagon jolted on carrying me. I knew not whether i. I dont think i was homesick. If we never arrived anywhere, it did not matter between that earth and that sky, i felt erased, blotted out. I did not say my prayers night here i felt what would be would be i do not remember our arrival at my grandfathers farm some time. But for■ daybreak, after a drie of nearly 20 miles with heavy work horse the road from the post office came directly by our door cross the farmyard and curved around little pond beyond which it began climb the gentle swell of unbroken prairie the west there along the western skyline, it skirted a great cornfield, much larger than field i had ever seen seen. I had almost forgotten that i had a grandmother. She came out her sun bonnet on her head, a grain of sac in her hand, asked me if i did not wans to go to the garden with her to dig potatoes for dinner. The garden was a quarter of a mile from the house and the way to it led up a shallow past, a cattle corral. I can remember exactly. The country looked to me as i walkedmy grandmother along the faint wagon tracks on that Early September morning. Perhaps the glide of a railway travel was still with me. For more. Anything else . I felt motion the landscape in fresh, easy blowing morning wind and in theshaggy were a sort ofe and underneath it herds of wild buffalo were galloping gallop gallop alone. I should have found the garden and i felt very little in it when i got straight through thed grass and over the edge of the world which could not be very far away. Grandmother took the pitchfork we found standing in one of the rows and dug potato. Well, i picked them up out of the soft brown earth, put them into the