Sea Maiden 8 Heather by Robert Kline
Sea Maiden 8 Heather
Mermaid art and story by Robert Kline
This is a retired mermaid art print and is therefore limited in supply. This print is only available in the following matted sizes: 5″ x 7″ and 8″ x 10″.
This beautiful mermaid illustration is from a collection of Sea Maidens (mermaids), Sea Babies (mermaid babies), Sea Masters (merman), pirates and fairies created by renowned artist and novelist Robert Kline of St. Augustine, Florida. This lovely mermaid illustration has been derived from his book The Forgotten Voyage of the H.M.S. Baci. The print is a lithograph reproduction of Robert’s original pencil and watercolor painting. It has been hand labeled and hand signed by Robert in pencil. All of the prints come with a 1/4″ foam backing and the 5×7′s, 8×10′s, 11×14′s are matted sizes so all you need is a frame and they are ready to hang on your wall! Each of the prints come with an excerpt from Robert Kline’s novel The Forgotten Voyage of H.M.S. Baci in which multiple generations of the Roberts’ family explore the seven seas in search of the world’s mermaid and merman population. The following is the excerpt for this print:
In late November of 1832 the HMS Baci lay anchored in Hamilton Harbor Bermuda, now fully armed with all the ordinance she could float, her former captain in the foretop calling out to the passing birds to join him for tea.
His wife, Constance Daphne Fitzwillie, until recently a cowed women of epic weight and seething subservience, assumed command and trimmed down as quickly as her husband embraced mental folly. With reborn confidence and a crew of slobbering sailors at her command, Constance Daphne Fitzwillie savored a late but wondrous blossom of womanhood.
Enamored of pomp and emulation the Royal Navy, she turned the crew out in their best for a speech prior to departing Hamilton Harbor. It was a rousing speech relating past glories (thumping Naughty Nat), and a promising future. She opened with a dream she had, laminated others “little noting nor long remembering” their deeds, imploring they ask not what their ship, ect., ect., declared their finest hour, lowered her voice and confided that while she had reduced Naughty Nat to penury, she was not a crook, then shifted obliquely to men abed in England holding their manhood cheap (prompting sly nods and bawdy gestures), told them what England expected, explained the had not yet begun to fight, allowed they would find a way to make one and confessed she was the luckiest women in the world, fairly whipping the men into frothy excitement spilling into mirth when she said that while “Baci” was Italian for kiss, a kiss was just a kiss and theirs, indicating the gleaming cannons, came with tongues of fire. She encouraged the best gun captains by name (Itcy Ben, Einber, Learner) and led the crew to shout their names in a chant heard from Salt Kettle to Paget Parish.
Yet it was more a drama than the words that inspirer the men – taken to wearing her husbands old Royal Navy uniform, brass buttons and golden epaulets agleam, her ample bosom grudgingly entrapped in straining blue fabric, her enthusiasm and deep breathed delivery took its toll mid speech as buttons in descending succession succumbed. The first popped unnoticed but by the sailor who took it in the eye; the second soon sailed into a pack of crewmen and with the third everyman and boy was attentive. When crescents of pale, up thrust and bounteous bosom peeked forth, the crew believed en masse they were victims of their own active fantasies. But as further buttons sailed forth, intuitive cross communication encouraged every passionate gesture of their new captain.
Precut threads not withstanding, Constance Daphne Fitzwillie concluded with a few chaste buttons denying the crew their final ha’ pennies from heaven. Amid roaring approval she raised her arms, bent proffered fingers into V’s and shouted “Into glory we steer!”
Submerged in Halley’s diving bell four meters below, Sir Edmund Roberts, Sea Maiden questor heard only the faintest hum transmitted by the Baci’s oaken hull as he sat rapt, watching a Sea Maiden perform mute arabesques beneath his bell.
His journal reads:
Fair maiden! How your silent dance entwined my heart! Oh, that I could slip these surly fetters and join you!
Maidenous Bermudus
“Heather” (Bunches used to counter the bell’s stale air).
November 24th, 1832
Hamilton Harbor, Bermuda
Well formed body, Powerful yet graceful swimmer. Supple. Healy. Beautiful.
Gnarly Dan says, “a man unmoved by a Sea Maiden’s dance is naught a man at all.”
