Tea at Trianon: Sunset on the Autumn Porch

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

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Sunset on the Autumn Porch

From Victoria:

I cannot say why autumn is my favorite time of year. Perhaps it’s all the vibrant shades of yellow—the goldenrods that begin blooming into their full color just as August is ending, the black-eyed Susans by the side of the road, the beautiful elms with their burnished foliage. The garden delights and inspires me as much in fall as it does when it is born in the spring.

The little poplar in the middle of the yard is majestic, even though it was planted only a few months ago. Its leaves are a buttery gold now, demanding to be not just admired, but captured eternally in a painting, an illustration, or a poem. Wind chimes announce the arrival of a sharp hint of autumn air, as do the orange mums that sway like awkward children beside licorice-scented marigolds and winterberry holly leaves that sift to the ground in each lifted breeze. (Read more.)