Tea at Trianon: After Wagner

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

Monday, April 12, 2010

After Wagner

Attacking the masters in the age of the idiot. Share

3 comments:

R J said...: Thank you so much for linking to this, ma'am!

So far the response which has come my way to the piece has been very polite. I think people, in the Internet era, are starting to twig to the fact that Wagner could have been as obviously saintly as Francis of Assisi, and still the PC carpetbaggers in academe and tabloid journalism would have tried to destroy his reputation. Why? Because ultimately the reputation of any Dead White Elitist Male with immense artistic talent has to be destroyed.; April 12, 2010 at 3:43:00 AM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: RJ, it is a wonderful piece.; April 12, 2010 at 9:22:00 AM EDT
Julygirl said...: All of us have lived a life tainted in some way or another, some by mildly reproachful actions and other's more so......However I have enjoyed many hours of pleasure listening to Wagner's music and that is all I have to say on the topic.; April 12, 2010 at 12:35:00 PM EDT