Tea at Trianon: How to Become an “Organized Person”

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, November 15, 2021

How to Become an “Organized Person”

From Apartment Therapy:

Instead of: “No matter how hard I try, I just can’t keep my house looking good like all the influencers I follow on social media.”
They say: “My house is a place people live in and enjoy. When the time comes to reset the house for the week, it shouldn’t take me more than an hour to do so.”

For one thing, you already know what so-and-so posts to their highlight reel isn’t a true picture of how they actually live on a daily basis — and your end-of-the-weekend mess isn’t the full story, either. According to DiTer Avest, owner of D is Organized in Baltimore, organized people are as realistic as they are on the ball. They know homes are dynamic, not static, and they come up with game plans for resetting their spaces when things cross a particular line. (Read more.)