Tea at Trianon: Gill Hornby on the Lesser Known Austen Sister

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, June 17, 2020

Gill Hornby on the Lesser Known Austen Sister

From Literary Hub:

While her younger sister is still known and loved the world over for her writing, Cassandra Austen—the first-born daughter, and therefore the Miss Austen to their contemporaries—is known, if at all, for one thing. In the last years of her life, she sifted through all the many hundreds of letters she had received from her beloved Jane and burned nearly all of them. It is the defining act and fact of Cassandra’s life: a notorious episode of literary vandalism. And most Jane Austen fans find it very hard to forgive her.

But these fans often discount the matter of the deep love and trust between the two sisters, and the fact that Cassandra was Jane’s literary executor: the keeper of the flame. They ignore the evidence that Jane herself, had she been given the chance, would have approved of this bonfire. After all, the celebrated author was a deeply private person, who had chosen to be published anonymously in her own lifetime and not share her secret with numerous friends and neighbors, even as they were discussing her work in her presence. There is little doubt that Cassy and Jane would have been of one mind on this, as they were of one mind on most things: the novels are enough. The rest of it is none of anybody’s business. And from their own 19th-century point of view, that seems perfectly reasonable: a lady should never draw attention to herself; it didn’t do. (Read more.)