This volume opened with a scene of mentoring, as renowned author Sarah Orne Jewett counseled Willa Cather on how to develop as a writer. It seems appropriate to turn as a means of conclusion to another scene of mentoring but, this time, with Cather in the position of mentor. From March 1901 through June 1904, Cather taught at Central High School in Pittsburgh, where she met a student named Norman Foerster. Foerster continued on in his education, receiving an MA from the University of Wisconsin, and he taught English at several universities, including the University of Iowa, where he was instrumental in starting the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Occasionally, Foerster corresponded with Cather. On January 14, 1931, Cather wrote to decline a speaking invitation from Foerster and to comment on one of his recent books, Toward Standards: A Study of the Present Critical Movement in American Letters (1928). Cather wrote that she “read [his] book very carefully and with great interest” (Selected Letters, 436). While she believed that Foerster made an important contribution to the history of literary criticism in the United States, Cather was skeptical about the art of criticism. She argued that “a fine critic must have something more than a studious nature and high ideals, and the very best criticism I happen to know was not written by professional critics at all” (437). She went on to name Henry James, Walter Pater, and Prosper Mérimée as examples; she suggested that some (but not all) artists are themselves better at judging literary works than professional critics.

By this time in the 1930s, Cather was quite conscious of her image. Her postscript, worth quoting in full, captured her reservations about sending her thoughts to her former student:

P.S. This letter was written some days ago—but my secretary [Sarah Bloom] begged me not to send it. “Just this sort of indiscreet letter that falls into the wrong hands and makes you a lot of enemies for nothing,” says she. However, as she has gone to Cuba for her vacation, I think I’ll send it anyhow. I feel that it won't fall into the wrong hands, and that you won't quote me—even to your publisher, who is rather a chatter-box. (437–38).