Tea at Trianon: The Dark Night for Mothers

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, September 27, 2007

The Dark Night for Mothers

Mommy Monsters, Inc has some words of consolation for adoptive mothers who struggle, especially when they have children with special needs. Some of the same negative feelings and trials are endured by other mothers, too, I think, although on a different level. To quote:

But sometimes – more often than we’d like to admit – that love is not a feeling, but a holding-on-by-the-fingernails choice. How could it be easy to love a chaos-creating, snot-spewing bundle of snarling rage? How could you not resent the fact that your efforts are unappreciated and resisted at every turn? How could you not feel as though you are being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the claustrophobic vortex of insurmountable neediness by a three-year-old insomniac and his openly defiant five-year-old sister? Share

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: Always keeping your eye on the future, and bearing in mind that your actions toward the child now may affect his or her attitudes toward life and people for years to come. This lifts you from the here and now chaos and puts things into perspective.; September 27, 2007 at 2:35:00 PM EDT