The Necklace

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  “SHE WAS one of those pretty, charming young ladies, born, as if through an error of destiny, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no hopes, no means of becoming known, appreciated, loved, and married by a man either rich or distinguished; and she allowed herself to marry a petty clerk in the office of the Board of Education. . . .  She had neither frocks nor jewels, nothing. And she loved only those things. She felt that she was made for them. She had such a desire to please, to be sought after, to be clever, and courted.” —THE NECKLACE Guy de Maupassant    France, 1884 (pic by Grok) Read this short story here:  https://americanliterature.com/author/guy-de-maupassant/short-story/the-necklace

Such Beauty

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“No spring nor summer-beauty has such grace, 

As I have seen in an autumnal face. 

Of the latter he says, 

In all her words to every hearer fit, 

You may at revels, or at council sit.”


John Donne, writing on the beauty of Magdalen Newport, the youngest daughter of Sir Richard, mother of poet George Herbert, in the early 1600’s

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