Lessons From Cather

As a college student, I have had to learn to balance my life choices between the quixotic and the pragmatic. Do I sign up for a class covering a topic I want to learn more about, or do I choose a course that I’m required to take to fulfill my graduation requirements? Should I spend all day in the bookstore looking for the perfect CliffsNotes tome to study from, or do I stay in my dorm and study the notes I already have? Having to deal with these questions on a daily basis at school has taught me that if I always yield to my impulses to spend my time on minimally productive pursuits, I won’t get as much out of my limited time during the day as I would otherwise. On the other hand, if the only criterion I use to decide what I do every day is whether it’s time-efficient, I won’t take any chance on an activity or cause that might broaden my intellectual horizons or make me a better person. So, my experiences making these decisions gave me a good background for understanding one of the underlying themes in Willa Cather’s novel, “The Professor’s House”, about the choice between making quixotic and pragmatic decisions.

For example, Professor St. Peter is a man primarily concerned with leading a life of practicality and expediency, even going so far as to only allow his family a certain amount of time with him, so he could devote himself to his work. In her book, Cather writes ”Two evenings of the week he spent with his wife and daughters… He had Saturdays and Sundays, of course, and on those days he worked like a miner under a landslide… He had burned his candle at both ends to some purpose—he had got what he wanted” (Cather 18-19). This passage establishes the Professor as a man of great capacity for planning and ensuring everything in his life happens according to plan. As a man of great pragmatism, St. Peter seeks to live a life of tranquility, shunning any opportunity his life offers him for pursuits he deems too spontaneous. For instance, he doesn’t deviate from his routine even when his daughter gets stung by a bee, viewing her as “a square-dealing, dependable little creature… she was to play in the garden all morning, and was not on any account to disturb him in his study” (Cather 73). St. Peter feels content with how his life is organized, because it makes him feel secure and successful—however, the only person who ever made him question his frame of mind was Tom Outland.

When Professor St. Peter meets Tom Outland, he is struck by his affinity for being wonderful and brilliant, entertaining his daughters with tales of his vagabond childhood. Furthermore, Tom is everything St. Peter is not—he spends copious amounts of time playing with his then-young daughters, enjoying “the prettiness and freshness and gaiety of the little girls as if they were flowers” (106). Outland is quixotic where St. Peter is pragmatic—though Outland has the same amount of intellect as St. Peter does, he expresses it through his passion for things that are beautiful and wonderful, rather than merely what will keep his life running smoothly.

Furthermore, Outland’s paradigm helps St. Peter learn to cherish what brings joy to his life, instead of just valuing what will further his career. For example, the Professor learns from Tom that a person can “keep affection and advancement far apart… [and] must never on any account owe any material advantage to his friends” (151), which is an attitude unlike what he has learned as a professor concerned with navigating the difficult world of faculty politics and a loveless marriage. Tom’s friendship teaches the Professor that his life doesn’t have to just be about devotion to pragmatic concerns, but can include a respect for elements in his life that bring him happiness and closer relationships.