Happy Government
Lady Glencora scolds the Earl of Brentford for political inactivity, but he warns her to be careful what she wishes for.
1867
Lady Glencora scolds the Earl of Brentford for political inactivity, but he warns her to be careful what she wishes for.
1867
The rising politician Phineas Finn eavesdrops as Lady Glencora, the young, pretty and ambitious wife of Plantagenet Palliser, Chancellor of the Exchequer, playfully berates the Earl of Brentford for blocking her husband’s policy initiatives.
“WHAT a nice, happy, lazy time you’ve had of it since you’ve been in,” said she to the Earl.
“I hope we have been more happy than lazy,” said the Earl.
“But you’ve done nothing. Mr Palliser has twenty schemes of reform, all mature; but among you you’ve not let him bring in one of them. The Duke and Mr Mildmay and you will break his heart among you.”
“Poor Mr Palliser!”
“The truth is, if you don’t take care he and Mr Monk and Mr Gresham will arise and shake themselves, and turn you all out.”*
“We must look to ourselves, Lady Glencora.”
“Indeed, yes; — or you will be known to all posterity as the fainéant government.”*
“Let me tell you, Lady Glencora, that a fainéant government is not the worst government that England can have. It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something.”
“Mr Mildmay is at any rate innocent of that charge,” said Lady Glencora.
See for example Isaiah 52:2.
‘Faineant’ is a noun and adjective (rarely used today) derived from French, ‘faire’ + ‘néant’, ‘do-nothing’.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.