On TV, talking heads wrung their hands over a lack of traditional feminine values and wondered if girls’ sports were to blame. Then they cut to a commercial featuring a sexy college coed vacuuming her dorm room in her underwear.

Can we really conquer chaos so easily? If that were so, I should be able to prune the pandemonium of my own soul into something neat and tidy rather than this maze of wants and needs and misgivings that has me forever feeling as if I cannot fit into the landscape of things.

Beauty, grace, and charm my foot. It's a school for sadists with good tea-serving skills.

What do you feel? I’ve never been asked this question once. None of us has. We aren’t supposed to feel. We’re British.

Did you hear? You are free." Yessss. Choice. It is a fine thing. And I choose to take you back, Most High.

A man bumps me on his busy way without so much as an apology. But that is all right. I forgive you, busy man about town with the sharp elbows. Hail and farewell to you! For I, Gemma Doyle, am to have a splendid Christmas in London town. All shall be well. God rest us merry gentlemen. And gentlewomen.

Any librarian or scholar will tell you: Close is not the same as accurate.