Once upon a time in a faraway magical place, there lived a princess. The princess was adored by her kingdom, revered by many and treated lavishly and fawned upon by her parents, the King and Queen of the land. She lived in a palace made from the finest gold from Africa, dined on marble tabletops, sat and read on ottomans suitable only for royalty. Servants answered to her every whim and call, her every utterance and fantasy. They were called upon to fulfill her requests with the utmost urgency and respect. Her fingers were never called to engage in any form of active duty. Rather she was schooled by the most highly skilled tutors, committing the classics to memory, learning to utter many a different and foreign tongue, studying arithmetic and geography. She had many an occasion to walk through the courts and gardens with her playmates of which she had few. Only the finest and most worthy companions were allowed to be in her presence. This little princess was the most tenderly treated and utterly worshipped little girl in all the world.

And she slept on the loveliest down pillows, on the most delightful mattresses, nestled away in a private bed nook……

“My mother might find a thin gold chain at the back of a drawer, wadded into an impossibly tight knot, and give it to me to untangle. It would have a shiny, sweaty smell, and excite me: Gold chains linked you to the great fairy tales and myths, to Arabia, and India; to the great weight of the world, but lighter than a feather.“

Attribution to Architectural Digest, Buzzfeed. Trouvais