Tea at Trianon: Tolkien Exhibition

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

Monday, April 22, 2019

Tolkien Exhibition

From EW:

The Lord of the Rings was first published in the mid-’50s, and, along with the rest of J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, was intended to provide Great Britain with its very own formative mythology (the kind that he thought had been displaced by the 11th century Norman conquest). Nevertheless, the stories have always found a passionate following in America. “Many young Americans are involved in the stories in a way that I am not,” the author told The New York Times in 1967, as if he saw even then the shape that obsessive pop culture fandom would take over the following half-century.

Now the “Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth” exhibit at New York City’s Morgan Library & Museum provides some fans a rare chance to see an extensive public display of original Tolkien material culled from Oxford’s Bodleian Library and other collections. There are the kinds of historical documents you could expect from a museum: Black-and-white photographs of Tolkien’s parents in South Africa (where he was born), before they both died young. There are photos of Tolkien himself throughout different stages of his life, as well as his wife, Edith. But there’s a touch of unique personality to it as well. Because Tolkien was an orphan, he was under the guardianship of Father Francis Morgan (no relation to the library), who forbid him from pursuing a relationship with the non-Catholic Edith…at least until Tolkien could come of age, graduate Oxford, and make such decisions for himself. So, to motivate himself academically, Tolkien kept a record of his number of hours worked, and kisses that Edith owed him in return; you can see the cute document in the exhibit. (Read more.)