Tea at Trianon: The Courtship of J.R.R. Tolkien

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, October 11, 2017

The Courtship of J.R.R. Tolkien

From The Vintage News:

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, known as Ronald in his family, met Edith, who was three years older than him, when he and his brother, Hilary, moved into a boarding house on Duchess Road in Edgbaston, where she lived. Edith and Hilary Tolkien got along very well and they frequently spent time together; however, there was a special spark between Ronald and Edith. They didn’t share the same interests but were on the same level in emotional ways.

According to the English biographer Humphrey Carpenter, she had no interest in his love of books and languages, just as he wasn’t much into her love of piano-playing, but that didn’t prevent them from smuggling food out of the kitchen and making secret feasts in Edith’s room. Their everyday adventures included visiting tea shops and throwing sugar-cubes into the hats of passers-by. Carpenter described their relationship as one that was meant to flourish, since they were both orphans who needed affection and kindness and they realized that they were capable of giving that to one another. In the summer of 1909, they fell in love. (Read more.)