to my dear, with all my love ♡ x

"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it."

-Donna Tartt, The Secret History

Source: Pinterest

—Extract from: XVII. Here I Love You; Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair, Pablo Neruda

مرسال ورا مرسال وصعب الحال لو تدري!

والشوق لك قتال عدد الرمال، يحرقني.

A couple of little treasures found in the archives at work..

A request for more fish! (I have no idea why Senator Hayden would be the person to handle such a request, in fact)

And this thrift-minded change to the letterhead on some Phoenix Flagstaff Realty and Improvement Co. McGonigle Lumber Company stationery

A priceless century-old thank you letter from the Queen Mother, written to a friend after her engagement, discovered as a bookmark.

Just one tiny piece of the past:

Feb 11, 1944

Dear Dorothy

" I received your letter yesterday so glad you are better also Mrs Mary (I do not know her other name) thought we might get to Cumberland Sunday but the way the snow is pouring down it will be two feet deep and the car is not so good to travel in the snow. We had a letter from James he is in the Perry Point hospital then we got a letter from an officer who said James was eligible for a pension beginning June I knew they wouldn't take him in the Merchant Marine. Did Lester stop and get that (bag duffel) at Leo's have you talked to Margaret lately or heard anything from Nellie. If Paul takes this down when he comes from school you will get it before Sunday will write more next time.

Love

Mom

Yes I got Julia Catherine's Valentine Bless her heart."

Julia K Footen 1874 - 1946 Dorothy F Hendricks 1901 - 1969

love letters ♡

Sogdian ancient letter 5, about the year 313 CE

"The author of letter 5 was writing from Guzang, the modern Wu-wei, located northwest of Luoyang in the Hexi Corridor. The addressee of the letter may have been resident in Khotan, an important town along the southern silk route just before it crosses the Pamir Mountains to reach the oases of Transoxania, the region between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers. This letter also refers to the chaos and difficult conditions in China; the author's position had apparently been made the more difficult when his commercial partner, Ghawtus, abandoned him. Thus the author was forced to return from Dunhuang to Guzang.

The letters include the names of several products--silver, linen and a kind of unprocessed cloth, musk (whose source was Tibet), pepper, and "white" (probably white lead powder, a valuable commodity used in cosmetics and drugs). Unfortunately the meaning of some terms for other products is not known. It appears from the quantities mentioned that the trade was relatively small-scale and, as we might expect, focused on goods with high value for the weight."

-Prof. Daniel C. Waugh at University of Washington

Translations of the letter (translation by Prof. Nicholas Sims-Williams, University of London):

"[Verso] To the noble lord, the chief merchant Aspandhat. -- [Sent] by your servant [Fri-khwataw].

[Recto] To the noble lord Aspandhat, blessing (and) homage. And (it would be) a [good] day [for him] who might see you healthy (and) safe, happy, free from illness (and) content. Fr[om Fri-khwataw] your servant. And [for me the] day (would be still) better if [I might see] you [my]self [and] might pay homage to you from nearby, [as] (homage is offered) to the Gods.

[From] inside (China) [I] have heard worse, not better, (news) day (by) day, and whatever I might write concerning A[khurmaztakk](?), how he himself went (away) and what he had . . . I have become isolated, and, behold, I stay here in Guzang and I do not go hither (and) thither, and there is no caravan(?) (departing) from here. In Guzang (there are) 4 bundles of "white" for dispatch, and 2,500 (measures of)(?) pepper for dispatch, and a double prasthaka of n(••y)t, and 5 prasthakas of rysk, and half a stater of silver. When Ghawtus went (away) from Guzang I went after him, and I came to Dunhuang, (but) I was prevented(?) from straying(?) outside (China). (If) . . . Ghawtus had seen [=found?] a level route, then I would have brought out the "Blacks." Many Sogdians were ready to leave, (but) they could not leave, for Ghawtus went by(?) the mountains. I(?) would (have) remain(ed) at Dunhuang, but they [=the Sogdian inhabitants] were destitute. I depend(?) on charity(?) from your 'pr'k, for I am serving(?) . . . in Guzang, and [they . . .] me, and they make me . . ., and they obtain my . . ., [and] they increase (it) with our . . . And . . . I am very wretched, and . . . the . . .

I heard thus: Kharstrang [owed(?)] you twenty staters of silver, and he declared(?) thus: I (will) bring(?) (it). He gave me the silver, and I weighed it, and (there were only) four and a half staters altogether. I asked: If he [sent] twenty staters, why do you give me four and a half staters? He said thus: Aspandhat found me on the way and he gave (it) to me(?). {He said thus: (There are) seven and a half staters of silver.} And for four staters I obtained four loads of 'st(k)[•](m). And the "Blacks" took the silver, for they said thus: We(?) have no money. For (according to them it is) better (that) I should be wretched than they! (If) you should hear how Akhurmaztakk has done me harm, then you should pay heed (to this) too.

Sent by your servant Fri-khwataw. This letter was written from Guzang in the third month on the thirtieth (day)."

—4th November 1969: Letter to William Maxwell, Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner