Tea at Trianon: The Scourge of Gossip

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, November 16, 2016

The Scourge of Gossip

From Mountain Catholic:

This sad phenomenon rears its head most through gossip — the sin of carelessly reporting the lives of others in conversation, almost always without the subject being present and more often than not about details that are private or otherwise sensational, spoken typically by people who have no business speaking them. Gossip, innocent though it may seem, always divides, and never unites. Gossip by its nature accomplishes the opposite of Christ’s call for us to sow peace and unity by bringing down another person. Plus, our words matter. If we trust what Jesus said (even one little bit), then we should keep Matthew 12:36-37 in mind:

“I tell you, on the day of judgment people will render an account for every careless word they speak. By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Jesus is indicating to us, once again, that our actions — good or bad — will always carry consequences along with them. (Read more.)