Summer Sale

Shabby Apple is having a dress sale.* Dresses in women's sizes as well as maternity clothes and little girls' outfits, too. Sale includes the Practically Perfect Collection, HERE.



*20% off nearly everything. Enter code SUMMER20 at checkout. Share

It's in the Dirt

Dirt is healthy. I always thought so. According to the Therapeutic Landscapes Network:

...A strain of bacterium in soil, Mycobacterium vaccae, has been found to trigger the release of seratonin, which in turn elevates mood and decreases anxiety. And on top of that, this little bacterium has been found to improve cognitive function and possibly even treat cancer and other diseases. Which means that contact with soil, through gardening or other means (see Elio, above), is beneficial. How did this discovery come about? (Read entire article.)

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Otto von Habsburg as Prophet

The effects of communism on cultural and psychological politics in Eastern Europe. An essay by the late Otto von Habsburg. (Via Joshua Snyder)

More on the late Archduke's political activities, HERE. Share

Bath

The ancient spa.

Bath's trademark "Crescent" is a residential road of 30 houses, designed by the architect John Wood the Younger and constructed between 1767 and 1774. Over the past 100 years it has been home to numerous historical figures, including Marie-Louise princesse de Lamballe, the lady in waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette, Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, and explorer Thomas Falconer. Today most of the houses are privately owned. (Read entire article.)

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Potpourri

How to create original blends.

In fact, the garden is a perfect place to start in thinking about fragrances for the house. Potpourri today is largely a failure of the imagination: rose and lavender. ("Vapourri," or sprays, and plug-in air fresheners are also big on things like "pound cake," popular with the diet-weakened.)

But if you have a space to grow, why not begin in the garden, in conceiving original dried blends: meadowsweet, verbena, bergamot, gardenia, tuberose, thyme, honeysuckle, sage and violet. The list goes on. A variety of mint: orange, blackberry, apple, pineapple, chocolate, in addition to peppermint.

Scented geraniums like rose, lime and nutmeg; grasses like gingergrass, lemongrass and vetiver. There are 400 kinds of artemisia, including southernwood and tarragon, all pungent, and ready to plant. And fragrant ingredients to gather too: oak moss, cedar and bamboo. (If Antoine Du Piney de Noroy, writing in an herbal published in 1561, thought stuff like this could cure hair loss, how hard could scenting your home be?) (Read entire article.)

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Kind, True and Necessary

Devout people are, as a class, the least kind of all classes. This is a scandalous thing to say; but the scandal of the fact is so much greater than the scandal of acknowledging it, that I will brave this for the sake of a greater good. Religious people are an unkindly lot.
 — from Fr. Frederick William Faber's Spiritual Conferences

It is comforting to read Father Faber's words and know that devout people of the past treated each other as badly as they do now. I am wondering if that is why God permits the Church to be purified from time to time with persecution, so that we will be shaken out of our petty squabbles and remember the Savior who should be at the heart and center of our lives on earth.

Someone sent me an article from the National Catholic Register in which my friend Catholic author and speaker Colleen Hammond is ridiculed by name. Colleen's book Dressing With Dignity and her articles on fashion have helped many young ladies learn to dress with both style and modesty. Colleen is a warm and incredibly witty lady as is her book. She has always shown me a great deal of support and kindness. It is one thing for a writer to take a swipe at a worthy adversary, which can be done without depriving the other person of their dignity. The remark about Scooby-do is a childish insult intended to do nothing but demean Colleen rather than welcome intelligent debate. It is unfair that her name was mentioned in the article since the point could have been made without doing so. If a person really feels the need to offer fraternal correction to another it can be done so without derision. If you do not like someone's book, just go to Amazon and write a review.

When I read the article in question I was still reflecting upon the wonderful time I had in New York with a group of purely secular writers, editors and agents, who appeared to be supportive of each other as well as being very polite to me, whom they did not know at all. It struck me that some Catholic writers cannot even pretend to be nice to each other, for the sake of propriety if not for the sake of charity. Or maybe they can be nice only to people who think exactly the same way they do. In that case, what happens to the beautiful  and genuine diversity of the universal Church? I wish people would be comfortable with who they are and not have to make others the target of facile humor and snark. I am disappointed in the National Catholic Register for allowing such goings on.

In the meantime, another friend sent me an uplifting article by Elizabeth Foss. It is worth pondering. Mrs. Foss says:

Is it necessary? Does this need to be said? As our communications lurch forward at reckless speed and it becomes commonplace to tweet, share and blog every time we sneeze, children have to be intentionally taught the value of silence. Without quiet, we cannot hear. Without quiet, there is no white space; there are no boundaries. Does what I’m going to share contribute to the holiness and happiness of our community? In a big, busy family, quiet is a valuable thing. 

It’s a simple three-fold filter: true, kind and necessary. The people who use it are happier, and the people who live with the people who use it are cradled in grace-filled communication.

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A Quick Trip to New York

Last week I made a day trip to New York by train so I could go to my friend Leslie Carroll's party. The party was held at the Irene Goodman Literary Agency where Leslie is represented. I love train travel; it is a great way to catch up with reading. The train was filled with families going on vacation, families with small children. They were loud but helped to create a festive atmosphere. I must say that I did not recognize New York at first when I saw it from a distance. What city is that? I wondered. The absence of the World Trade Center towers really changes the skyline. It gave me a eerie chill.

At the Pennsylvania Station there were soldiers with machine guns and police everywhere. I have to begrudgingly admit it that made me feel safer, much safer than I used to feel in New York back in the 1980's. Manhattan was as crowded as ever and seemed more run down than I remember. But there were oodles of young people who add a freshness and a vibrancy to the scene. Everyone I encountered was very friendly, but then I was only there for a few hours.

I took a taxi to the agency and was delighted to meet Leslie Carroll in person. She is the author of some non-fiction works which I have reviewed. I also met Leslie's friend Juliet Grey who is writing a three volume epic saga about Marie-Antoinette. We had a lively discussion about the Queen and then began to partake of the refreshments, which were varied and generous. I enjoyed chatting with Miss Goodman's staff, all of whom were poised and intelligent. I had so much fun talking about historical figures with authors Lauren Willig and Isobel Carr and we agreed that Someone needs to write a novel about Henrietta Maria. My friend Christine Trent was also there with her wonderful husband, John. John and Christine helped me to find my way back to the train station in plenty of time to catch my train. We had a lovely conversation and my only regret is that my day in New York was too short. Share

Luther and the Bible

A great post from Biblical Evidence for Catholicism.

The big myth under consideration is the commonly heard legend among Protestants (especially of an anti-Catholic bent) of Catholic hostility to the Bible and desire to keep it out of the hands of the people, for fear that its doctrines will be exposed as contrary to the Bible. I have written about the falsity of this charge....(Read entire article.)

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The Shooting Party (1985)

 

 Lady Aline Hartlip: Why are you smiling?
Sir Randolph Nettleby: [Introspectively] I can't imagine... except that... sometimes when my thoughts about the future are particularly gloomy, I find myself feeling more and more light-hearted. —The Shooting Party (1985)

 The Shooting Party is a film of simple magnificence which captures in a few subtle scenes what was good and bad about the old order. It was an order that was to be dealt yet another death blow by World War One, the first blow being the French Revolution. What was good about society on the eve of the conflagration seems to greatly out weigh the flaws, those (alleged) flaws being the class distinctions and decadent aristocrats. Unfortunately, instead of class distinctions we now have no class at all, by which I mean we live in a society bereft of manners and a code of polite conduct. As for the decadent aristocrats of old, in our time the decadence of a few has overwhelmed most of society.

According to MemorableTV:

Set on the cusp of World War One the sumptuous The Shooting Party is a movie about one very privileged way of life slipping away and another harder life coming in.

A great cast is headed by James Mason, in his last completed film role. Mason plays the head of a large country estate where a Shooting Party weekend is in full swing, his guests a mixture of well to do English types and some foreign incomers. The goings on of these “upstairs” characters (from late night affairs, to petty rivalries) are contrasted with those of the beaters on the shoot.

Elegiac in tone and full of muted browns and greens The Shooting Party captures the period beautifully, showing the class divide which World War One helped to break down some.

To be always obsessing about class divisions seems to be a malady of the modern age, brought about by the persistent encroachments of Marxism into our way of thinking. It ends with people having a sense of rootlessness as well as problems being comfortable with their own identity. I was always proud to be descended from hard-working and resourceful people who were brave enough to build families in a far away land. I personally do not understand the jealousy which underlies class conflict. When people know and accept where they come from then they know who they are, and who they are not. Everyone in The Shooting Party knows who they are, except for the adulterous and nouveau-riche Hartlips, who symbolize the crass new age which has already dawned. The Hartlips are in sharp contrast to Sir Randolph and Lady Nettleby (James Mason and Dorothy Tutin) who see their duties to their family and their tenants as sacred. This is exemplified by how Sir Randolph weeps over his fatally wounded tenant as if the man were his brother.

"Idle Historian" expresses it well, as follows:

At the same time, the sorrow of Sir Randolph for his dying indigent tenant (who has also indulged in poaching) is certainly real (that is, of course, for a fictional account). For him, noblesse oblige and the conduct of a gentleman still matter supremely. Nor is the anger of his young granddaughter any less real, directed against the Austro-Hungarian aristocrat who is attempting to woo her, and who dismissively claims that the dead man "was only a peasant." In his arrogance he is unaware that in the coming war his entire way of life, and the Empire that gives him his prestige, will be entirely decimated. She hits back with the phrase "we all knew him," indicating that fact that, for all its wrongs and inequalities, the England depicted in the film was still a society. People, rich or poor, important or inconsequential, still in some way belonged. In the final scene of the film, the poor dead man is borne across the desolate fields in a procession of the great and the humble, like some elevated train of the Elizabethan "chain of being." It represents a disappearing world where the fact that "we all knew him" became less relevant, where large and unseen forces such as the corporation de-personalized the world of getting by and getting the better of one's fellow human beings. The lord of the manor might well have mistreated his peasants, but he still had to look them in the eye. The advent of a new world, and the recession into mythology of the world of The Shooting Party, altered all that.

While Lady Aline is having an affair, the shy Lady Olivia Lilburn (Judy Bowker), quite unhappily unmarried as well, has fallen in love with the handsome and intellectual barrister Lionel Stephens (Rupert Frazer). Rupert and Olivia, instead of choosing adultery, choose the path of honor, acknowledging to each other that although love exists between them, there are too many realities in the way. "But the love is real all the same?" asks Lionel. "Yes, it is," concedes Olivia and arm and arm they lead the funeral march into the future.

(Photos)

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