NOTA BENE: The text below is an English translation of an actual letter. Any attempt to find the original violates the honor code, tempting though it may be!
[To the writer’s wife]
You write that you are affected not moderately by my absence and you have one consolation when you don’t have me: that is, that you hold my books and frequently even place them in my impression beside you. I am happy to know that you miss me and happy too that you can erase the pain with this sort of medication. I for my part read and reread your letters and return to them again and again as if they had just arrived. But this only fans the flames of my longing for you: if there is such pleasure in reading what you write, think what joy it is to talk with you! Do write as often as you can, even though it will torture me as much as it delights me. Farewell.
Feeling: use adficio, adficere, adfeci, adfectum
“when you don’t have me” = pro me
place: collocare
impression: vestigium
miss: requiro, requirere
ease the pain: adquiescere
medicine: fomentum
read and reread: use the frequentative lectitare (i.e.you don’t need to repeat it)
again and again: identidem
i.e. as if (quasi) new
‘fan the flames’ accendere (look it up, and you don’t need flames)
pleasure…joy: suavitas, -tatis (f)…dulcedo, -inis (f)
even though: licet + subjunctive
as much as: ita….ut…
