Tea at Trianon: The George Orwell Roller-coaster

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

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

The George Orwell Roller-coaster

From The Telegraph:

George Orwell' s admirers each seem to admire him for a different reason. Some revere his politics, though those change according to which passage in his depressingly short life one focuses upon. Others laud his abilities as a novelist. For some, he is a great essayist - my own favourite is his 1952 memoir of prep school, Such, Such Were the Joys. For others, the content of his writing is secondary to his command of the English language; he has a justified reputation as the finest writer of English prose of the last century.

There is much more to Orwell, though, than comes under those headings. Another important aspect is considered in Robert Colls's superb analysis of his writings, George Orwell: English Rebel. As the title suggests, Colls considers Orwell' s relationship with his country: and what a roller-coaster ride it was. (Read more.)