11月19日

親愛的長腿叔叔：

您都沒回答我的問題，那是非常重要的。

您禿頂嗎？

我畫了您的畫像——一切都很順利——直到您的頭頂，我就停住了。我沒辦法決定您是白發(fā)、黑發(fā)，還是在兩者間的灰發(fā)，或者沒有頭發(fā)。

這是您的畫像。

不過問題是，我該不該加點頭發(fā)上去？（鐘聲響了！）晚上9:45。

我訂了一條很嚴(yán)格的規(guī)定：絕對，絕對不在晚上學(xué)習(xí)，不管隔天是否有很多報告要交。相反，我只讀一般的讀物——我必須這么做，您知道的，我白白地浪費了18年。您無法相信，叔叔，我的腦中有多少空白的地方。我剛剛要開始了解我自己。一個正常的有家庭、有朋友、有圖書館陪伴的女孩子，她自然而然知道的事情，卻是我從來沒聽說過的。例如：

我從沒聽過《鵝媽媽》《大衛(wèi)·科波菲爾》《劫后英雄傳》《灰姑娘》《藍(lán)胡子》《魯濱孫漂流記》《簡·愛》或是《愛麗絲漫游記》，也沒讀過盧亞迪·吉卜林。我不知道亨利八世再婚，雪萊是個詩人。我不知道人類的祖先是猴子，伊甸園是個美麗的神話。我不知道R.L.S是羅伯特·路羅斯·斯蒂文森的縮寫，也不知道喬治·艾略特是個女性。我從未看過一幅叫《蒙娜麗莎》的畫，也從未聽過福爾摩斯什么的，您或許不相信，但這是真的。

現(xiàn)在，這些東西我都知道了，還知道一大堆其他的東西，不過您瞧，我還需要跟上進(jìn)度。哦，不過這是件樂事！我一整天都盼著黃昏，在門口掛上“讀書中”的牌子，然后穿上我舒服的紅睡袍，把枕頭堆在椅背上，打開手邊的臺燈，然后一直讀一直讀，一本書根本不夠。我同時找來四本書讀。現(xiàn)在讀的是丁尼生的詩歌、《名利場》和吉卜林的《平凡的故事》。此外還有《小婦人》，別笑我。我發(fā)現(xiàn)我是大學(xué)里唯一一個沒有在《小婦人》的陪伴下長大的。不過我沒告訴任何人，我只是悄悄地溜出去，用上個月剩的一塊一毛二分的零用錢買了它。

（10點的鐘聲響了。）

19 th 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?(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 assorted 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 Copperfeld 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 furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass 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.

(Ten o'clock bell.)