FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141  
142   143   144   145   146   147   >>  
lves up to the ceilings at Sunnybook Farm and dangled there, making fun for everybody. They never withered, even at the brick house in Riverboro, where the air was particularly inimical to fairies, for Miss Miranda Sawyer would have scared any ordinary elf out of her seventeen senses. They followed Rebecca to Wareham, and during Abijah Flagg's Latin correspondence with Emma Jane they fluttered about that young person's head in such a manner that Rebecca was almost afraid that she would discover them herself, although this is something, as a matter of fact, that never does happen. A week had gone by since the Latin missive had been taken from the post-office by Emma Jane, and now, by means of much midnight oil-burning, by much cautious questioning of Miss Maxwell, by such scrutiny of the moods and tenses of Latin verbs as wellnigh destroyed her brain tissue, she had mastered its romantic message. If it was conventional in style, Emma Jane never suspected it. If some of the similes seemed to have been culled from the Latin poets, and some of the phrases built up from Latin exercises, Emma Jane was neither scholar nor critic; the similes, the phrases, the sentiments, when finally translated and written down in black-and-white English, made, in her opinion, the most convincing and heart-melting document ever sent through the mails: Mea cara Emma: Cur audeo scribere ad te epistulam? Es mihi dea! Semper es in mea anima. Iterum et iterum es cum me in somnis. Saepe video tuas capillos auri, tuos pulchros oculos similes caelo, tuas genas, quasi rubentes rosas in nive. Tua vox est dulcior quam cantus avium aut murmur rivuli in montibus. Cur sum ego tam miser et pauper et indignus, et tu tam dulcis et bona et nobilis? Si cogitabis de me ero beatus. Tu es sola puella quam amo, et semper eris. Alias puellas non amavi. Forte olim amabis me, sed sum indignus. Sine te sum miser, cum tu es prope mea vita omni est goddamn. Vale, carissima, carissima puella! De tuo fideli servo A.F. My dear Emma: Why dare I write to you a letter? You are to me a goddess! Always you are in my heart. Again and again you are with me in dreams. Often I see your locks of gold, your beautiful eyes like the sky, your cheeks, as red roses in snow. Your voice is sweeter than the singing of birds or the murmur of the stream in the mountains. Why am I so wretched and poor and unworthy, and you so sweet and good and noble? If you will think
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141  
142   143   144   145   146   147   >>  



Top keywords:

similes

 

carissima

 

murmur

 

phrases

 

puella

 

indignus

 

Rebecca

 

montibus

 
cantus
 

rivuli


dulcior

 

wretched

 
pauper
 
sweeter
 

nobilis

 

dulcis

 

singing

 

mountains

 

stream

 

somnis


Iterum
 

iterum

 

capillos

 
rubentes
 

cogitabis

 

unworthy

 

pulchros

 

oculos

 

beatus

 

fideli


cheeks

 

beautiful

 

Always

 
dreams
 

goddess

 
letter
 

semper

 
puellas
 
goddamn
 

amabis


person
 

manner

 
discover
 

afraid

 

Abijah

 

correspondence

 

fluttered

 

missive

 
happen
 

matter