For Stephen, dispassionate

What were his motives, beyond a desire for knowledge, an itch for cataloguing, measuring, naming, recording?

--HMS Surprise

The More Loving OneLooking up at the stars, I know quite well ( Read more... )

For Stephen and Brigid acuishla
With thanks to sanon

Full Moon and Little FriedaA cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket ( Read more... )

For Stephen
Boston, Spring 1812

What could he do, with his mainspring, his prime mover gone?

--The Fortune of War

HiddenIf you place a fern ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

For Stephen and Jack
Castell de Recasens, 1802

'But the most romantic thing I saw was the Rock, rearing up there at the end of our road like a lion. That, and the orange-tree in Stephen’s castle... this orange-tree was in a court with arches all round, a kind of cloister, and it bore oranges, lemons, and tangerines all at the same time! Green ( Read more... )

For Stephen on the eve of expected death
Dover, 1802

'There are days,' he reflected, 'when one sees as though one had been blind the rest of one's life. Such clarity --perfection in everything, not merely in the extraordinary. One lives in the very present moment; lives intently. There is no urge to be doing: being is the highest good ( Read more... )

For wandering Stephen

Untitled, from the Catalan

Sol, i de dol, i amb vetusta gonella ( Read more... )

For Stephen, falling out of love

He walked out of the hotel into the fog, fog that thickened as he wandered down towards the harbour: fog in his mind as he tried to interpret the strong and sometimes contradictory emotions that overlapped and mingled in his unreasoning part --grief, disappointment, self-accusation, loss: above all irreparable ( Read more... )

A prayer for Stephen Maturin, who believes his love for God to be unrequited

My Sweet, Crushed AngelYou have not danced so badly, my dear ( Read more... )

For Stephen, hope looks like Captain Aubrey

'Never vex your heart for me, Jack.'

--HMS Surprise

Of YouWhen the little devil, panic ( Read more... )