Tea at Trianon: The Prison of the Mind

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

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

The Prison of the Mind

From Sons of St. Joseph:

As someone with mental illness – I often asked myself a few of those same questions: Why am I doing this to myself? I couldn’t explain why my mind worked the way it did. Even though I knew that I wasn’t thinking correctly, I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t this way. I had this inner dialogue taking place inside my head. I incessantly analyzed and questioned everything I did and said. I analyzed and quested everything everyone else did and said; then, I tried to analyze and predict what they were thinking. It was exhausting.

Thinking back, when I was a child, I don’t remember being particularly anxious or high-strung; in fact, I tended more towards solitary introspection. I was alone a lot. I made-up little games and fantasy scenarios whereby I was an astronaut with my treehouse serving as a spaceship. In school and in life, I was alienated and distant from other boys and men – including my father. I strangely felt safe while barricading myself into ever smaller spaces – the basement, a large cardboard box, my tiny bedroom closet. In these safe spaces, I spent countless hours floating through a fantasy world in my mind. I invented movie plotlines during which a courageous man would rescue me from my self-imposed exile. He never showed up.

Mirroring my mental imprisonment within a series of increasingly narrow thoughts, my world became smaller. I felt like a giant “Alice” trapped inside the White Rabbit’s house. Mental illness is incredibly difficult to describe. You no longer feel safe – anywhere. As a result, you hide deeper and deeper within yourself, until you are almost completely lost. Then you lose control. It feels as if you are trapped in someone else’s body. Controlled by someone else’s mind and you are buried deep inside – screaming: Please help me! Except no one can here you. Its terrifying. (Read more.)