Tea at Trianon: The Coffee Shop Writer

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

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The Coffee Shop Writer

Working at the cafe. According to author Malcolm Gladwell: "The problem with writing in coffee shops is that everyone hates the kind of people who write in coffee shops—especially the kind of people who write in coffee shops." Share

3 comments:

Pentimento said...: Years ago in the East Village I used to wait tables in a coffee shop. There was a guy who wrote books in the coffee shop and had the books he wrote there PUBLISHED. And yes, I hated him -- because he was a writer who wrote in a coffee shop, while I was just a waitress in a coffee shop.; October 5, 2010 at 12:16:00 PM EDT
elena maria vidal said...: Delightful!; October 5, 2010 at 1:00:00 PM EDT
Julygirl said...: The birthplace of the Harry Potter Series.

As someone who actually would like to sit down and have coffee, I find it annoying when there are no tables available.; October 5, 2010 at 1:37:00 PM EDT