This week I’m showcasing some Victorian trade cards with shells and an oceanic theme…
“One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.” Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“A beach is not only a sweep of sand, but shells of sea creatures, the sea glass, the seaweed, the incongruous objects washed up by the ocean.” Henry Grunwald

“I was all in gold sequins for Million Dollar Mermaid, 50 feet in the air.” Esther Williams (Clark Gable was the first person to call her a mermaid.)

“I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
— T.S. Eliot

I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin’s back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song;
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid’s music.
– William Shakespeare

Who would be

A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?
I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb I would sing and say,
“Who is it loves me? who loves not me?”
– Lord Alfred Tennyson, The Mermaid