The Charm School

She watched the gap between ship and shore grow to a huge gulf. Perhaps this was a little like dying, the departed no longer visible to the others, yet both still existed, only in different worlds.

She had always been good at dreaming, but what she had never done before was believe a dream could actually come true. She believed now. The wonder of setting sail created possibilities she had never considered before.

It was a wonder, after so many years of trying to press herself into society’s mold, to suddenly suspect that the problem was with the mold, not with her.

Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation! —Jane Austen (1798)

I can see the Lady has a genius for ruling, whilst I have a genius for not being ruled. Jane Welsh Carlyle, (1845)

She inhaled air so damp it seemed to drench her lungs.

Now she realized that the key to happiness had less to do with setting up housekeeping with an appropriate spouse and more, far more, to do with finding someone who gave one confidence and peace and passion, gifts so rich she had no words for them.

anything was possible if only she dared to believe herself worthy.

It’s all to do with the way you carry yourself, the way you face the world.

The sea was his mistress, one with the power to heal, nurture, love, torture… or destroy at her caprice.

The disaster came so swiftly and so completely that there was, Ryan conceded, a certain poetry in its magnificence.

A capital ship for an ocean trip Was the Walloping Window Blind—No gale that blew dismayed her crew Or troubled the captain’s mind. The man at the wheel was taught to feel Contempt for the wildest blow. And it often appeared, when the weather had cleared, That he’d been in his bunk below. —Charles Edward Carryl, Davy and the Goblin: A Nautical Ballad

he’d formed the idea that she was a solitary sort, not one to seek company when a good book lay at hand.

My dear, you are unhappy to the last inch of your shadow. I fear this state is so familiar to you that you no longer recognize it as unhappiness.

We all have our own unique gifts. It is incumbent upon the larger society to discover them.