19th December

19th December
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

You never answered my question and it was very important.

ARE YOU BALD?


I have it planned exactly what you look like--very satisfactorily--
until I reach the top of your head, and then I AM stuck. I can't
decide whether you have white hair or black hair or sort of sprinkly
grey hair or maybe none at all.

Here is your portrait:

But the problem is, shall I add some hair?

Would you like to know what colour your eyes are? They're grey,
and your eyebrows¹ stick out like a porch roof (beetling, they're
called in novels), and your mouth is a straight line with a tendency
to turn down at the corners. Oh, you see, I know! You're a snappy
old thing with a temper.
(Chapel bell.)
9.45 p.m.

I have a new unbreakable rule: never, never to study at night no matter
how many written reviews are coming in the morning. Instead, I read
just plain books--I have to, you know, because there are eighteen
blank years behind me. You wouldn't believe, Daddy, what an abyss
of ignorance my mind is; I am just realizing the depths myself.
The things that most girls with a properly assorted² family and a home
and friends and a library know by absorption, I have never heard of.
For example:

I never read Mother Goose or David Copperfield or Ivanhoe or
Cinderella or Blue Beard or Robinson Crusoe or Jane Eyre or Alice
in Wonderland or a word of Rudyard Kipling. I didn't know that Henry
the Eighth was married more than once or that Shelley was a poet.
I didn't know that people used to be monkeys and that the Garden
of Eden was a beautiful myth. I didn't know that R. L. S. stood
for Robert Louis Stevenson or that George Eliot was a lady.
I had never seen a picture of the `Mona Lisa' and (it's true but you
won't believe it) I had never heard of Sherlock Holmes.

Now, I know all of these things and a lot of others besides,
but you can see how much I need to catch up. And oh, but it's fun!
I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an `engaged' on the
door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry³ slippers⁴ and pile
all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass⁵ student
lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read one book isn't enough.
I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and
Vanity Fair and Kipling's Plain Tales and--don't laugh--Little Women.
I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on
Little Women. I haven't told anybody though (that WOULD stamp me
as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last
month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes,
I'll know what she is talking about!

(Ten o'clock bell. This is a very interrupted letter.)


Saturday
Sir,

I have the honour to report fresh explorations in the field of geometry.
On Friday last we abandoned our former works in parallelopipeds
and proceeded to truncated⁶ prisms. We are finding the road rough
and very uphill.


Sunday

The Christmas holidays begin next week and the trunks are up.
The corridors are so filled up that you can hardly get through,
and everybody is so bubbling over with excitement that studying is
getting left out. I'm going to have a beautiful time in vacation;
there's another Freshman⁷ who lives in Texas staying behind,
and we are planning to take long walks and if there's any ice--
learn to skate. Then there is still the whole library to be read--
and three empty weeks to do it in!

Goodbye, Daddy, I hope that you are feeling as happy as am.
Yours ever,
Judy




PS. Don't forget to answer my question. If you don't want
the trouble of writing, have your secretary telegraph. He can

just say:
Mr. Smith is quite bald,

or

Mr. Smith is not bald,

or

Mr. Smith has white hair.


And you can deduct⁸ the twenty-five cents out of my allowance.

Goodbye till January--and a merry Christmas!

1 eyebrows   

眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
• His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。

2 assorted   

adj.各种各样的，各色俱备的

参考例句：

• There's a bag of assorted sweets on the table.桌子上有一袋什锦糖果。
• He has always assorted with men of his age.他总是与和他年令相仿的人交往。

3 furry   

adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的

参考例句：

• This furry material will make a warm coat for the winter.这件毛皮料在冬天会是一件保暖的大衣。
• Mugsy is a big furry brown dog,who wiggles when she is happy.马格斯是一只棕色大长毛狗，当她高兴得时候她会摇尾巴。

4 slippers   

n. 拖鞋

参考例句：

• a pair of slippers 一双拖鞋
• He kicked his slippers off and dropped on to the bed. 他踢掉了拖鞋，倒在床上。

5 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

6 truncated   

adj.切去顶端的，缩短了的，被删节的v.截面的( truncate的过去式和过去分词 )；截头的；缩短了的；截去顶端或末端

参考例句：

• My article was published in truncated form. 我的文章以节录的形式发表了。
• Oligocene erosion had truncated the sediments draped over the dome. 覆盖于穹丘上的沉积岩为渐新世侵蚀所截削。 来自辞典例句

7 freshman   

n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女)

参考例句：

• Jack decided to live in during his freshman year at college.杰克决定大一时住校。
• He is a freshman in the show business.他在演艺界是一名新手。

8 deduct   

vt.扣除，减去

参考例句：

• You can deduct the twenty - five cents out of my allowance.你可在我的零用钱里扣去二角五分钱。
• On condition of your signing this contract,I will deduct a percentage.如果你在这份合同上签字，我就会给你减免一个百分比。