My dearest friend,
It has been a long time since I have seen you, and I wish that the day we reunite would come sooner. Times have been hard for me over here in the north, although I'm sure you are aware with how the country is struggling overall. However, I have lately come across some spare change, and while I was in the bookstore I had written about in past letters, I found this book and thought of you and our studies together. And maybe a little of the way that you talk. I know you have your own small collection of editions, but I wanted to add to that so you will think of me fondly when you see the green linen. I also am well aware from past experience that you prefer your books to be without annotation, so instead of inscribing where it ask, I instead write my note to you from this letter.
The cover may be fairly unassuming, and I know that your artistic eye may be critical of the use of light green against gold embossing, but it is because of your artistic eye that I chose this edition. It has been a while, but I don't believe I saw an illustrated edition the last time I visited you. That being said, you could have acquired one since then. Do you remember when we spent those months completely enamoured art nouveu movement? I found an artist who uses that style, and I wanted you to have the same elation that I felt in finding it. It reminds me a little of the project that we had worked on, with the ornament study in our print press apprenticeship. It almost looks like the one you made in our second year. Maybe sometime when things get better for me, we can take a page out of Omar's Rubáiyát and, "While you live; Drink!--for, once dead, you never shall return."
I miss you madly, and I reminisce about the time we spent together after work when I am looking for a new position in New Hampshire. Although I loathe that I am far from you, I would rather these letters and finding you later with a bottle of wine and a steady income. Instead of marking the verse that makes me think of you, I shall transcribe it here so you need not worry about its condition. You may have forgotten when you quoted it to me so long ago, but I have not. May I see you again soon, but I shall count the days until then as they pass me by so slowly.
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
And Wilderness is Paradise enow!
Yours forever,
-name ineligible-
All citations belong to Edward FitzGerald's translation of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, verses XXXIV and XI.
Khayyam, Omar. Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam. Translated by Edward FitzGerald, illustrated by Willy Pogany, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1935(?)