Tea at Trianon: The Fruit of Intemperance

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, March 10, 2016

The Fruit of Intemperance

From Return to Order:

Temperance involves the control of one’s appetites, sentiments, passions and instincts according to light of reason. It is the virtue that keeps everything in balance and functioning according to its nature. One aspect of temperance is related to speed. Whenever someone practices the vice of intemperance, it often comes accompanied with a desire for an excessive and disproportional speed. The person develops a taste for super-rapid excessive speeds as might be seen in physical speeds of traveling. There is the speed of a quick thrill found in the person who is inebriated or drugged. The thrill of constant and quick communication found in modern gadgetry can easily throw a person out of balance. Intemperance can also be found in excessive slowness. The desire for a quick high often leads to a corresponding low. A person falls victim to false slowness, lethargy and depression. This frenzy of action is followed by a period of unproductive listlessness. The stressful person simultaneously feels he has no time for anything, yet senses that he does nothing at all with his time. (Read more.)