Product Description
In a doll shop, we are quickly transported to another time. Hundreds of lovely ladies are perched alluringly in multiple rows arrayed from ceiling to floor.The atmosphere is sentimental, demure, eyelashes fluttering in anticipation of romance.In contrast to contemporary women who are calculating, desensitized, bottom-lining and far less sensual than Victorian women, the dolls are picturesque, statuesque, poised and graceful. Small things like ceremonies, symbolic intentions, favored treats, and especially surprises, are very special. Each of these carefully detailed personages embodies a feminine mystique that is at once universal and unique. One doll in particular engages us with her bemused smile, and her longing gaze. Her name is a secret that she bemusedly conceals, but we call her Cassandra, because she seems to know the future without it having any effect on the present. Her thoughts reflect the thrills she feels at every little thing, nothing escapes her notice, and she communicates the soulful sensitivity of her feelings to us effortlessly with a non-verbal eloquence that can only be approached suggestively through the descriptive poetry of music. Her visage is expressive, like the face of an actress, conjuring up emotionselucidating a profound simplicity the reality and clarity of which belies the carefully crafted artifice of her temporal being. Some of these feelings are memories, preciously guarded, some hopes and aspirations, full of exuberance and anticipation, and some are tinged with overtones of a bittersweet, resigned melancholia, fleeting glimpses of a time that has not been. These are replete with the silent, peaceful tranquility of stillborn children.
1. PROLOGUE: At the ball,she enters the halland looking around, compares herself to others and wonders how people see her. Shes impatient, hopeful, and crisp, with lump-in-her-throat expectations. Shes from a time before photography, and realizes her attention must be keenly focused so that she can relive this auspicious night all the rest of her life. Oh, how she wants to remember it all. Not a wrinkle in her dress, not a snag on her fingernails, nary a flaw in the politesse of her demeanor, she is living completely in the moment, posed for her part in a painterly scene, possessing a calm within her that reinforces the heartfelt grace that palpitates in the moonlight. She knows that she will meet and know hundreds of people in her life, and is welled up with possibilities; whose presence will become irreplaceable? Who will matter, who will cause tears and laughter, who will gain her complete trust and loyalty?What about love?
2. NURSERY RHYMES: Philosophies gained from stories heard in childhood.she especially loves tales where children had privacy and went on adventures, for example, Little Red Riding Hood, who paraded into the forest unescorted. Shes not so keen on talking animals, as shed rather have them just be animals.shed like to watch them frolic, faint, and foam at the mouth as they naturally would wish instead of requiring them to self-consciously invent an anthropomorphic quasi-mythical human persona. She loves to listen to nursery rhymes, eyes squeezed shut, spontaneous pictures popping in front of her, but HATES to look at illustrations, someone elses interpretation. Tacky, she thinks. Give me some credit, she thinks, to hold the magic and expand upon it.
3. GAMES: She loves the orderliness of games, the absolute expected behavior, the elusive objective of fairness, the equalizingforces of fortune, chance and luck. To stop the world and be able for a time to concentrate on sliding little pieces of wood over colorful cardboard squares, or squeaky toys, or buzzers, to announce a strategically clever move. Parlor games like Look-a-bout, Blind Mans Bluff, Change Seats or Forfeits cause her to blush with childlike enthusiasm.
4. WALTZ: As they dance, shes worrying about every aspect of her
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