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WITH LOVEAn Archive of Love Letters
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Atlas

Between them

Love often exists between places. Distance is not a metaphor first. It is a measurement, then a feeling.

Distance is not only measurement. It is also relation. A line, when it appears, is a path of relation, not a lineage, and not proof that anyone walked it.

Atlas plate · High Roman Empire

The Empty Threshold

She is in Campania for her health. He walks the rooms where she sat.

From one shore toward the other. A path of relation, not a lineage.

From

Comum (Como)

Between

her health, his office, the ordinary distances of empire

Toward

Campania

A path of relation, not a lineage

Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

From
Comum, on the lake in Cisalpine Gaul
Toward
Campania, south of the city
Between
the Italian peninsula, roads, villas, the length of a married absence
Distance
about 560 km of land that can be named and still not crossed tonight
Obstacle
her health, his office, the ordinary distances of empire
Beloved
Calpurnia
Approximate route
down the peninsula from the lakes toward the southern shore
Time apart
the season of her convalescence
Message delay
wax, a courier, the wait for a letter in her hand
What stands between them
rooms she has left empty, and a correspondence of which only his side survives

Read the story

The plates

Each plate keeps what the story can honestly hold: a site, a region, an approximate route, a symbolic placement, or no single site.

  • Plate · Gupta-period India

    The Cloud Messenger

    An exile asks the monsoon to walk India in his place.

    Rāmagiri (associated with Ramtek)→Alakā on Mount Kailāsa

    Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

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  • Plate · England and Rome, 1819 to 1821

    Two Luxuries

    He goes to Rome to die. She remains in Hampstead.

    Hampstead→Rome

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  • Plate · Washington, July 1861

    If I Do Not Return

    A letter home from camp, written as if it might outlive him.

    Camp Clark, Washington→Smithfield

    Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

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  • Plate · Halifax, 1832 to 1840

    Crypthand

    A Yorkshire house, a York church, a communion taken as marriage.

    Shibden Hall, Halifax→Holy Trinity, Goodramgate

    Open the plate

  • Plate · Italian campaign, 1796

    From the Italian Campaign

    He writes from the Italian campaign in a fever of need.

    Milan→Paris

    Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

    Open the plate

  • Plate · Twelfth-century Paris

    Héloïse Will Not Be a Plot

    Paris, then the house she governed. The Latin that survives is not a romance.

    Paris→The Paraclete

    Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

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  • Plate · Tang dynasty

    Everlasting Sorrow

    The court flees. At Mawei the army will not move while she lives.

    Chang’an→Mawei

    Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

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  • Plate · Ireland and Wales, late Georgian

    Plas Newydd

    They leave Kilkenny and keep a household in Wales for fifty years.

    Kilkenny→Llangollen

    Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

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  • Plate · Te Arawa oral tradition

    The Swim to Mokoia

    The flute crosses the lake. She swims.

    Owhata→Mokoia Island

    Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

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  • Plate · Massachusetts and Philadelphia

    Remember the ladies

    Braintree writes the farm and the law. Philadelphia is making a country.

    Braintree→Philadelphia

    Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

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  • Plate · Qing China, late 18th century

    Six Records

    A failed clerk and a woman who arranged flowers write an ordinary Chinese marriage: jokes, pawned hairpins, shared moonlight, and the days after she is gone. Two of the six records are lost.

    Yangzhou→Suzhou

    Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

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  • Plate · Occitania, late 12th century

    A chantar m'er

    A trobairitz writes that she must sing of what she would rather not. Hers is the only woman's song from that court whose melody still sits on the page.

    Die→Occitan courts

    Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

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  • Plate · Song China, early 12th century

    Yi Jian Mei

    Li Qingzhao writes Song lyric while Zhao Mingcheng is away, and later after he is dead. The feeling leaves the brow and climbs the heart. The two weathers are not the same poem.

    Jiangnan→Zhangqiu

    Placement is approximate where the record is not a surveyor.

    Open the plate

Gazetteer

Other rooms of the archive, held as sites and regions without a drawn path.