Tea at Trianon: Smile or Die

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, May 30, 2010

Smile or Die

How positive thinking fooled America. Share

2 comments:

Julygirl said...: If it's a choice between, woe is me, Woe is me, or, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again, I will choose the latter,(after spending a little while with the former). I have known people to become totally imobilized and physically debilitated with the woe is me mantra. Americans did not literally walk across this country and successfully settle a hostile environment by thinking negatively. The "Little Engine That Could" is the American way.

But the positive thinking Cancer Teddy Bears does give one pause... When I was growing up one would no sooner repeat the word "Cancer", than they would the word "pregnant", not even in a whisper. You were to pretend it wasn't happening. So we have come a ways fron that. However, the current tell all trend in a public forum needs to take a couple of steps back in my opinion.; May 30, 2010 at 7:07:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Great observations!; May 30, 2010 at 7:10:00 PM EDT