5、November 18,1949

                    14 East  94th St.
                    November 18,1949
WHAT KIND OF A BLACK PROTESTANT BIBLES
IS THIS?
    Kindly inform the Church of England
they have loused up the most beautiful
prose ever written, whoever told them
to tinker with the Vulgate Latin?
They’ll burn for it, you mark my words.
    It’s nothing to me, I’m Jewish
myself. But I have a Catholic
sister-in-law, a Methodist
sister-in-law, a whole raft of
Presbyterian cousins (through my
Great-Uncle Abraham who converted) and
an aunt who’s a Christian Science
healer, and I like to think none of
them would countenance this Anglican
Latin Bible if they knew it existed.
(As it happens, they don’t know Latin
existed.) 
    Well, the hell with it. I’ve been
using my Latin teacher’s Vulgate, what
I imagine I’ll do is just not give it
back till you find me one of my own.
    I enclose $4 to cover the $3.88 due
you, buy yourself a cup of coffee with
the 12￠. There’s no post office near
here and I am not running all the way
down to Rockefeller Plaza to stand in
line for a $3.88 money order. If I wait
till I get down there for something
else, I won’t have the $3.88 any more.
I have implicit faith in the U.S.
Airmail and His Majesty’s Postal
Service.
    Have you got a copy of Landor’s
Imaginary Conversations? I think there
are several volumes, the one I want is
the one with the Greek conversations.
If it contains a dialogue between Aesop
and Rhodope, that’ll be the volume I
want.

                          Helene Hanlf

注释：
Protestant Bible 新教圣经
the Church of England 英国国教，称为Anglican Church，圣公宗
the Vulgate Latin 拉丁文圣经
Catholic 天主教信徒
Methodist 卫理公会教徒
Presbyterian 长老派成员
Great-Uncle Abraham 亚伯拉罕叔公
Christian Science healer 基督教科学治疗师
Rockefeller Plaza 洛克菲勒广场
Majesty's Postal Service 皇家邮政
Imaginary Conversations 《假想对话录》