Tea at Trianon: How to Apologize

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 3, 2009

How to Apologize

Here are some wise words of advice for gentlemen on how to apologize, much of which can apply to ladies as well. (Via Serge) A problem that I had as a young person, trying desperately to be humble and fervent, was that I would apologize right and left, even for things that were not necessarily my doing. Once I was working at a dress shop and the manager of the store, an extremely earthy but kind woman, turned to me and said: "Would you stop being so damned sorry!" Later, a priest encouraged me not to apologize unless I was genuinely and directly at fault since it was not healthy, either spiritually or psychologically, to be apologizing all the time. Humility is truth; when we step outside the bounds of truth and reality, then we open the door to many ills. Share