Tea at Trianon: Helen Keller the Socialist

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

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Helen Keller the Socialist

Yes, I was a bit surprised myself. Share

3 comments:

Lindsay said...: I'm originally from Alabama, and I recall how sad I was when I first learned this about Keller.; October 31, 2009 at 5:25:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: She was influenced by the people who taught her at Radcliffe when she went up North, I have no doubt.; October 31, 2009 at 7:00:00 PM EDT
Julygirl said...: Many intellectuals of that era supported most of the same ideas thinking of them as a solution to what they considered the immigrant problem and the poverty and disease which sprung from it. Eventually the basic human need to 'better oneself' eliminated the problems and the immigrants went on to make contributions to this Country's advancement in the Arts, Sciences, Medicine and Technology.; November 1, 2009 at 12:16:00 PM EST