Even the most pragmatic person fell victim at times to a longing for something other.

True love, it's like an illness. I never understood it before. In books and plays. Poems. I never understood what drove otherwise intelligent, right-thinking people to do such extravagant, irrational things. Now I do. It's an illness. You can catch it when you least expect. There's no known cure. And sometimes, in its most extreme, it's fatal.

...which fairy-tale princess ever chose her maid over her prince?

Curiosity might have killed the cat, but little girls usually fared much better.

He had the vague sense of standing on a threshold, the crossing of which would change everything.

Had any poet adequately described the wretched ugliness of a loved one turned inside out with grief?

A girl expecting rescue never learns to save herself. Even with the means, she will find her courage wanting.