Harp

For Christmas, I has a harp. My father and I are building her. She is cherry, so she's sort of pale brown with this lovely pink tint. She is the Sophie . She is a little Limerick lap harp, so she's a little shorter than my arm, with 26 strings. She has no sharps or flats, but one can buy a 'sharper' that will allow one to set the strings to sharps and/or flats.

I am of the opinion that harps, more than any other instruments, are like ships. Don't they look like ships? And they have the curve of the pillar and neck that looks like the prow and figurehead, and all the strings are like rigging, and then there's the soundbox, which is of course the body of the ship.

Besides this, there IS a character in the Aubrey-Maturin series with a harp. Molly Harte plays the harp. Unfortunately, she is not a character one should aspire to be... she is Jack's mistress. And she gives him a venereal disease.

But I think Sophie (Jack's wife) has a harp. She definitely plays the piano. At any rate, I have named my beautiful cherry harp for her and for Jack's first ship. She feels like a Sophie. She is certainly not a Diana. If I get a Gothic harp (big and spiky) I will name that one Diana.

I am very pleased with the Sophie.