Tea at Trianon: Echo and Narcissus: A Story About Love And Obsession

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, April 13, 2021

Echo and Narcissus: A Story About Love And Obsession

Echo and Narcissus (1903) by John William Waterhouse

From The Collector:

One of the women that fell in love with Narcissus was the nymph Echo (which derives from the Greek word for ‘sound’). Echo was once a woman who enjoyed talking and was known for interrupting others in conversation. However, she did the mistake of helping Zeus, the King of the Greek Olympian gods, in hiding his love affairs from his wife, Hera. Whenever Hera was close to catching Zeus with someone else, Echo disoriented the goddess with long stories giving Zeus time to leave. As soon as Hera realized what Echo was doing, she cursed her to never be able to speak her mind out loud again. Instead, Echo would only be able to repeat the last words spoken by someone else. One day, Echo saw Narcissus in the woods and, enchanted by his looks, began spying on him. Echo followed the boy and became more and more attracted to him, but there was one problem. Echo was unable to speak to Narcissus. The only way to let him know of her feelings was to wait for him to say something. (Read more.)