Tea at Trianon: A Car for Mary

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, August 8, 2015

A Car for Mary

Please consider helping my friend Mary. To quote:

Mary, in her early 60s, lives on a small social security disability, without any other income at the moment. There had been plans to leave an old car [1991 Buick] with Mary when her mother went south but the week of the move the old car died absolutely and finally. Now Mary is living in a rural area with nothing but a post office within nearly 20 miles in any direction. She has been putting off taking care of some of her own health issues till her mother was safely gone with her sister, but now there's no means for her to get to a doctor or to physical therapy or to go find little bits of work that she can do to augment her income. All of her transport, for the time being, has to be provided by people who drive considerable distances to get her and take her to where she needs to go and then take her back home—this is not a viable permanent solution. Moving is also not a solution for the transportation issue, because Mary is in a stable and inexpensive home that could not be duplicated at the same price anywhere else. (Read more.)