Tea at Trianon: How a Grandmother Keeps in Touch

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, November 14, 2015

How a Grandmother Keeps in Touch

From Southern Lady:

About a year ago, my son and his wife moved from here in Alabama to Arizona, taking my precious granddaughter Brooke with them. She was 4 at the time, and I vowed to find ways to let her know there was an Anna and Granddaddy who kept right on loving her even though she now lived far away.

My first way was to leap into the modern world and buy an iPad so I can talk with Brooke and see her sweet face on FaceTime.

But I also use not-so-modern means of staying connected. I send her greeting cards with cute pictures—in these, I often enclose an entire dollar, which is big money to her young self. Sometimes I write her simple letters, drawing little pictures to help her read the words. And every week or so, I mail her a care package containing delights like toys, clothes, dress-up jewelry, art supplies … The contents are often cheaper than the postage, a fact I push out of my mind by picturing the expression on Brooke’s face when her gifts arrives. (Read more.)