The other novels which have contributed to Miss Cather’s reputation are equally based on suppression. They include the “Song of the Lark,” “My Antonia,” “One of Ours.” The heroine of the “Song of the Lark,” Thea Kronburg, is the daughter of a village pastor. She grew up alone in an indifferent and commonplace atmosphere. She fell in love with her German music master, who was the choir leader in the church where Thea played the organ on Sundays. Her soul vents itself through music, like Corinne or Consuelo. She must have art and passion to be happy. Thea’s music teacher is also her professor of philosophy, and this philosophy is not puritanical but romantic. How small the world! How petty, life in America! There is only one thing worth while, and that is aspiration, romance. It is that at the bottom of our hearts which gives its value to all things,--its redness to the rose, its azure to the skies and love to man. Without it there is no art. Poor Thea is only too easily converted to this creed. Thank goodness, she will not be cheated from her happiness! She leaves her village and has a magnificent artistic career, but she remains modest and sincere in success. Art for Thea is not vanity; it is the realization of her dearest and most intimate self, the whole-hearted expression of her truest personality. Not all of the inhibited people portrayed by Miss Willa Cather have been as fortunate as Thea Kronburg; witness the Lost Lady and Professor Saint Pierre. In “My Antonia” the author has gone back to a less optimistic theme. She has put into this novel the best of her art and of her philosophy. The scene of the novel is far-away Nebraska. Antonia is a Czech. “My Antonia” is what is called in America an “immigrant” novel. Immigration has given to America a new exotic background, and a new source of local color. In “My Antonia” Willa Cather studies the immigrants with her usual sympathy. Antonia is a portrait drawn from within. Her self-abnegation is rare. A hard worker, devoted to children, betrayed yet ever faithful, she is a new edition of Flaubert’s “Simple Heart.” She is the incarnation of the motherly feeling. The sites of the Far West, the rustic rites of the seasons form the background of this canvas painted with the simplicity and the forcefulness of a master. It is difficult to find in “My Antonia” passages for an anthology. Everything in it holds together. The tale is unfolded, “not as a thing of which one thinks, but as conscience itself,” slowly, in sheer duration. “My Antonia” is a little epic, the “Evangeline” of the Far West. Here is a description of a Nebraska hamlet. It tells a lot as to the nostalgia of its inhabitants. It is Jim, the hero of the story, who is speaking: