At one point, money was stolen from one of the bedrooms. […] Afte that, the family employees were often tested. [Katherine] Jackson would leave the alarm on the closet unarmed, the one in which she kept her minks, chinchillas, and other expensive furs.

Our lack of information [about Agrippina the Younger] has led to wild speculations that her memoirs were a ‘chronique scandaleuse’, full of malice and slander written to blacken the reputation of her enemies. […] Obviously, the belief that they were a ‘chronique scandaleuse’, which is not in keeping with the character of commentarii, seems inspired by the prejudice that this is the kind of work women were apt to write rather than by any evidence.

And winking Mary-buds begin / To ope their golden eyes: / With every thing that pretty is, / My lady sweet, arise.

The modern sternpickers are quite a different matter. Sleek, efficient, redolent of power, they easily spool their 1,500-foot nets off large drums set on the afterdeck and have taken most of the back-breaking work out of fishing, although enough remains to still qualify it as very hard work.