Tea at Trianon: A Walk in Emily Brontë’s Footsteps

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

Sunday, September 30, 2018

A Walk in Emily Brontë’s Footsteps

The original "Wuthering Heights"

From The Spectator:

Two hundred years ago today in a village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Britain’s most famous literary family gained an extra member. That child’s name was Emily Brontë. Apart from her only novel, Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë left us with little else after her death. Famous for her love of solitude and of the wild moors where she spent most of her time, Emily’s personal life remains tantalisingly enigmatic. And yet her evocative descriptions, her warts and all portrayal of human emotion, won her the loyalty of generations of fans. The bleakly beautiful Yorkshire landscape where Emily was born and bred leaves an indelible mark on every page of Wuthering Heights. No mere background, it is an active presence with a force of its own, as captivating as any of the book’s characters.

It’s often said that the only way to understand both Brontë and her book are by experiencing the environment that shaped them. So I decided to do just that and head up to ‘Brontë country’ to romp around the moors doing my best Kate Bush impression (minus the flowing garb). (Read more.)