Tuesday morning

Thinking about things:

I came upon this archive while I was practicing my writing. That is, I was reading other people's writing and studying their words and images and how ideas are forged within [the] letters and spaces. This document represents two people's anguish captured in words borrowed from another.

"Time wastes too fast"

From The Library of Congress:

Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) was one of Thomas Jefferson's favorite popular authors. As his wife lay dying in September 1782, Jefferson and Martha copied these lines from Tristram Shandy.

[written by Martha] Time wastes too fast: every letter / I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen. The days and hours / of it are flying over our heads like clouds of a windy day never to return.../

[and written by Thomas] and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, every absence which / follows it, are preludes to the eternal separation which we are shortly to make!

For the remainder of his life, Jefferson kept this paper with a lock of Martha's hair entwined around it.