Tea at Trianon: Holly Jolly

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

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Holly Jolly

From The Imaginative Conservative:

The holiday also so ably serves as a fixed moment in time, thus transcending the normal bounds of time and space. “The wondrous and mysterious thing about Christmas is that for one day a year, we live in the past as well as in the present,” Mr. Voger explains. “We break out the same decorations, many that go back decades. We observe the same traditions. We’re always saying things like, ‘Remember that Christmas back in ’78? Or whenever. But each year, we add a few new decorations, traditions and memories—which, of course, are revisited in ensuing Christmases.” Mr. Voger is especially effective in remembering and describing the timelessness of Christmas Eve as well, a night which teaches all children “the ultimate in delayed gratification.” Anticipation of the gifts, he argues rather beautifully, is not about what one gets, but potentially what one can become. The desire for a bb-gun, after all, is not about owning a bb-gun. Rather it’s about becoming an armed warrior-hero-vigilante.

Additionally, Mr. Voger wonderfully captures his own Christmas shopping as “from a young age, we children were encouraged to save our pennies, nickels, and dimes all year to buy Christmas presents for one another.” His favorite place to shop, the Berlin, New Jersey, Farmer’s Market. “There was no place on Earth like the Mart at Christmastime. Small gestures like strings of colored lights and Old Christmas songs playing through tinny speakers transformed the drab milieu into something magical. The Mart’s sometimes forlorn denizens moved with a bit more purpose, and even some joviality. At the lamp shop, the animated ‘bleeding Jesus’ framed art (remember those?) took on extra significance.” (Read more.)