September 4, 2019
Dear Abigail:
Please do not hasten to judge me as you set your eyes upon this page. I know you have implored me to write by electrical means, and I am forever indebted to you for establishing my account upon my visit last. But if by God’s grace I were to recall the password, it is of little use to me now! I write this by the light of a sweet maple chai candle!
Oh, how I beg your fervent prayers. My dear Jemmie procured a charming place in northern Carolina for this final weekend of summer, but our lives and our duplex have been assailed by Dorian. All the board games in the cellar have been dampened by the flood! There is little to do but listen to the violent sounds of wind and rain and pray to God that He does not tear off the shutters and lift us skyward to his waiting arms.
But I will share with you a secret, my dear Abigail, that I trust will remain only in your mind’s possession: a harbinger of our mortality and a want of cell service can bring strength to any man! My dear little Jemmie, still without descendants, has been so very intent with his affections, so many times in a day.
Yet as tender as he has been, he lay beside me this morning looking up at the winds through the transom window, in longing distress. It is not Dorian but the storm of indolence, he says. He forever murmurs on about Alabama. He must know all his efforts go in vain. He recycles plastic and glass, all variety of corrugated papers in all variety of containers and colors, all the lights in our homestead are the most green, the most kind to the earth. We dine on rabbit stew and never a portion of beef! Yet still the climate changes. I can see it changing quite fast!
Is it wise, I ask him, to bring a child into this fated world? Is it wise, I ask you? How could a man love a child while so hating mankind?
If it happens, you will be the first to receive news, I promise you. I implore your kind discretion, as I am ever your affectionate friend,
Dolley
