At What Age Is Love Enthralling?

choi

Sophy Burnham, At What Age Is Love Enthralling?  An octogenarian reflects after a an 30 years younger says he is attracted to her. New York Times, Feb 10, 2019 (in the column Modern Love).
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/ ... enthralling-82.html

Note:
(a) The English surname Burnham is name of places in England, composed of Old English burna stream + ham homestead.
(b) "in Italy, where, as a young student, I had grown accustomed to walking down the street in a mist of commentary: 'Bellina, bella.'  Later, visiting Florence in midlife, I heard two boys on a motor scooter cry out behind me, 'Bellina! Bellissima!' And then, as they passed: 'Ah, scusa, Signora.' "

Italian-English dictionary:
* bellino (adjective masculine; from [adjective or noun masculine] bello +‎ -ellino [suffix indicating diminutive: gonna skirt + ‎-ellino → ‎gonnellino short skirt] or bello +‎ -ino [suffix indicating diminutive: eg, gatto cat + ‎-ino → ‎gattino kitten])
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bellino

In English, diminutive can signal closeness (Little John).
* bellissimo: "superlative degree of bello"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bellissimo
   ^ Italian grammar
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_grammar
     (section 4 Adjectives, section 4.1Degrees of comparison)
* scusa (noun feminine): "apology"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scusa

(c) "As a teenager, I read a book by H Rider Haggard called 'She [published in 1887].' * * * And if I occasionally forget, the high numerals of my years rush back into my brainpan * * * The other day, however, I was brought up short. A younger man I know came knocking on the door. * * * this man 30 years younger than I screwed up his courage to blurt that he felt attracted to me."
(i) H Rider Haggard
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Rider_Haggard
(1856 – 1925; English)
(ii)
(A) brainpan (n): "BRAINCASE [ie, cranium, which is Latin]"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brainpan
(B) skull
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull
(The skull is composed of two parts: the cranium and the mandible)
(iii) bring sb up short
https://dictionary.cambridge.org ... h/bring-sb-up-short
(iv) screw up the/one's courage [to dp something]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/screw%20up%20the/one's%20courage

(d) "the writer Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne, who married the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson [1850 – 1894; Scottish; wrote Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde], took up after his death with a young writer, Ned Field, nearly 40 years younger and wild about her when she was in her 70s (which 100 years ago was the equivalent of today's 80 or 90). She was, he wrote, the only woman in the world worth dying for.  After her death he married her daughter, only 20 years older than he, and who knows how she felt about not being the only woman worth dying for."

Fanny Stevenson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Stevenson
(1840-1914; Fanny Vandegrift was born in Indianapolis; At the age of seventeen she married Samuel Osbourne, a lieutenant on the State Governor's staff; section 2 With Stevenson)