CHAPTER EIGHT: CORRESPONDENCE AND INVITATIONS
Perfect Behavior | ||
A Correct Letter from a Young Man Traveling in Europe to His Fiancée
How I long to see you—to hold tight your hand—to look into your eyes. But alas! you are in Toledo and I am in Paris, which, as you know, is situated on the Seine River near the middle of the so-called Paris basin at a height above sea-level varying from 85 feet to 419 feet and extending 7½ miles from W. to E. and 5½ miles from N. to S. But, dearest, I carry your image with me in my heart wherever I go in this vast city with its population (1921) of 2,856,986 and its average mean rainfall of 2.6 inches, and I wish—oh, how I wish—that you might be here with me. Yesterday, for example, I went to the Père Lachaise cemetery which is the largest (106 acres) and most fashionable cemetery in Paris, its 90,148 (est.) tombs forming a veritable open-air sculpture gallery. And what do you think I found there which made me think of you more than ever? Not the tombs of La Fontaine (d. 1695) and Molière (d. 1673) whose remains, transferred to this cemetery in 1804, constituted the first interments—not the last resting place of Rosa Bonheur (d. 1899) or the victims of the Opéra Comique fire (1887)—no, dearest, it was the tomb of Abelard and Heloise, those late 11th early 12th century lovers, and you may well imagine what thoughts, centering upon a young lady whose first name begins with E, filled my heart as I gazed at this impressive tomb, the canopy of which is composed of sculptured fragments collected by Lenoir from the Abbey of Nogent-sur-Seine (Aube).
Edith dearest, I am sitting in my room gazing
Farewell, my dearest one—I must go now to visit the Catacombs, a huge charnelhouse which is said to contain the remains of nearly three million persons, consisting of a labyrinth of galleries lined with bones and rows of skulls through which visitors are escorted on the first and third Saturday of each month at 2 P. M. I long to hold you in my arms.
CHAPTER EIGHT: CORRESPONDENCE AND INVITATIONS
Perfect Behavior | ||