Tea at Trianon: Caring About Your Appearance

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

Friday, May 6, 2011

Caring About Your Appearance

Is it vanity? Betty Beguiles reflects on the virtues of maintaining one's appearance, saying:

No one wants to be around a woman who feels badly about herself. Who would I bless by being too tired or overweight to tend to my duties? What message would I be sending to my children? How effectively could I witness to the culture if I dragged my disheveled self around here, there and everywhere? And how would my husband feel if I never made an effort to dress up a bit for him? (Read More)

Julygirl said...: Even animals groom themselves, so there is a line between vanity and good grooming.; May 6, 2011 at 8:14:00 AM EDT
El Jefe Maximo said...: I should pay more attention to my own than I do. The trouble is attention. . .usually my own brain is focused elsewhere.; May 7, 2011 at 12:15:00 AM EDT