Tea at Trianon: The Homemaker

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, July 27, 2013

The Homemaker

From Nissa Gadbois:

I read an obituary today. An obituary of a young woman in her 40s. A single sentence, listing her occupation, leapt from the screen.

She was a homemaker.
It felt so important. It feels so important. Because it is.

Making a home is to bring beauty, rhythm, harmony, order and comfort to one’s own family. And to guests. It is an act of hospitality – the supreme act of earthly hospitality.

Home is where our security is. It is where we run to when we have good news to share. It is the place we long for when we are broken.

Home is a scent, a flavour, a texture. It is the way the sunlight glints off of the beaded fringe on a lampshade, or how it slants into the room on an early spring morning. It’s how the kitchen smells on Sunday afternoons. It’s the squeaky stair – the Number Ten step.

Home is the way the beds were made with hospital corners, and the towels folded just so – and the soft smell of the powder stored in the linen closet. It is the way that there always seems to be a brownie, or your favourite jam for toast and tea. Every. Single. Time. (Read entire post.)

Tealady24 said...: How true this is! I like to think my home is a refuge from all of the darkness in the world, even on the brightest of days. Little details are what make my house a home.; July 30, 2013 at 12:09:00 PM EDT