Passion & Precipitation

Do, or do not. There is no try.

[katharineashe]

My brief reply to folks who diss romance novels without knowing much about them.

[katharineashe]

(via @mic_news)

[buzzfeed]

This is a tumblr post about a tweet about a Facebook post about a tumblr post about a Facebook post about a BuzzFeed post.

[lifeisamazingblog-deactivated20]

[medievalpoc]

One of the most fascinating figures of the 18th century was the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a composer, violinist, fencing champion and military hero whose fame spanned continents. That he was black, born in 1745 to a white planter and his slave mistress in Guadeloupe, not only shaped his life in France but has fed a growing interest in him today. Though Saint-Georges’s life reads like a Hollywood screenplay, it was his musical talent that most interested Gabriel Banat, a concert violinist and musicologist whose biography, “The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow,” was published by Pendragon Press in 2006. “He’s not a Mozart, but his innovative violin technique makes him a bridge between Italian virtuosos like Vivaldi and Locatelli and Beethoven in his violin writing,” Mr. Banat said in an interview in his home here. “He did a lot for the violin in bringing Italian virtuoso technique to the great masters.” Saint-Georges, who died in 1799, wrote 14 violin concertos, 8 symphony concertantes and 5 operas, among other works.  Now retired, Mr. Banat, 81, has spent years researching and writing about Saint-Georges, who made music in the court of Marie Antoinette and went on to lead a regiment of black soldiers in the French Revolution.

“A Swashbuckling Violinist, Fresh From the 1700s”

[Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Print after Mather Brown, France, c. 1790s]

Watercolor of Henry Angelo’s Fencing Academy, by Thomas Rowlandson, 1787. The Chevalier St. George’s portrait, foils, and fencing shoes are displayed on the right wall.

(via medievalpoc)

This man was the inspiration for the mentor of my hero, Saint, in THE ROGUE. In honor of the historical master swordsman and sublimely cultivated gentleman, I bowed to his name in my hero's name: Frederick Evan Chevalier de Saint-Andre Sterling.

[katharineashe]

With Calmness, Vigour and Judgement

In the short 17th-century rule book for fencers, The Swordsman’s Vade-mecum by Sir William Hope, Rule #1 states:

“Whatever you do let it always (if possible) be done Calmly, and without Passion, and Precipitation, but still with all Vigour, and Briskness imaginable, your Judgement not failing to Direct, Order and Govern you as to both.”

Yeah, no.

⚔