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Ten minutes ago I rang up an old friend (he was gay but never a lover of mine) and it turned out that he died seven years ago!
A Brazilian, Machado de Assis 1839-1908, wrote a book translated in 1952 as "Epitaph of a small winner"which I first read in the '50s.
I've always remembered a phrase from it 'singing a yearning'. which occurred in the passage below.
How will we do without letters? When this computer dies the emails will probably die with it.
Love,
Anthony
quote:
Now and then I bustled about. I would take a bureau drawer full of old letters — from friends, relatives, girls (including Marcella)— would spill them onto a table, would open and read them all, and would recompose the past . . . Unenlightened reader, if you do not keep the letters of your youth you will never enjoy the pleasure of seeing yourself, far off in the flatteringly dim light, with a three-cornered hat, seven-league boots, and curled mustachios, dancing at a ball to the music of Anacreontic pipes. By all means, save the letters of your youth.
Or, if you do not like the figure of the three-cornered hat, I shall use an expression of an old sailor who used to come to Cotrim's house. I shall say that, if you save the letters of your youth, you will be able to "sing a yearning." It seems that our sailors give this name to songs about the land that are sung only at sea. It would be hard to find a more poetic expression of nostalgia.
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