Tea at Trianon: Rediscovering Washington Irving

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

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Rediscovering Washington Irving

Eric Seddon discusses the great American author, and the "specter of cultural continuity." (Via Andrew Cusack)

Perhaps, at just this moment, we can make the intellectual world safe for the academy’s stock villain: the loathed dead white male. Perhaps we can make the academy safe once again, not so much for democracy but for Longfellow.

Alexandra said...: What a nice article. Thanks for the link. Dead white men figure prominently in our homeschool curriculum. In fact, just tonight I set aside a 1915 Washington Irving book for my son, The Alhambra. I found it over at Google Books using a 1911 children's bibliography. Man, I love Google Books!

I can't wait to read it...I read a lot of my son's books.; March 19, 2009 at 11:09:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: I used to have a "hard copy" of The Alhambra, and it might still be around somewhere. I love Google books, too!; March 19, 2009 at 11:20:00 PM EDT