"All is extremely genteel; and there is almost as much repose as in the golden saloons of the contiguous palaces. At any rate, if there be as much vice, there is as little crime"
About this Quote
Genteel surfaces are doing the heavy lifting here, and Disraeli knows it. The sentence glides like a well-trained servant through a corridor of “golden saloons,” purring with admiration while quietly smuggling in an accusation: comfort is not character. “Repose” becomes a class performance, the luxury of those insulated from consequence. He’s describing a world where order is aesthetic, not ethical.
The pivot - “At any rate” - is the tell. It’s the sound of a writer lowering his voice in polite company, offering a consolation that is also a barb. If vice is present in equal measure, why is crime absent? Because the apparatus that names and punishes crime is tuned to protect “contiguous palaces,” not to measure harm. Disraeli draws a line between sins that can be upholstered and misdemeanors that can’t. The privileged can afford vices that remain private, discreet, and legally legible as indulgence; the poor get their survival tactics reclassified as criminality.
Context matters: Disraeli writes in an era when urbanization and inequality are sharpening British anxieties about disorder, and when “politeness” functions as a moral alibi for empire and aristocratic power. His phrasing doesn’t thunder; it insinuates. The real target isn’t vice. It’s the comforting fiction that refinement equals righteousness, and that a society’s calm rooms prove its virtue rather than its immunity.
The pivot - “At any rate” - is the tell. It’s the sound of a writer lowering his voice in polite company, offering a consolation that is also a barb. If vice is present in equal measure, why is crime absent? Because the apparatus that names and punishes crime is tuned to protect “contiguous palaces,” not to measure harm. Disraeli draws a line between sins that can be upholstered and misdemeanors that can’t. The privileged can afford vices that remain private, discreet, and legally legible as indulgence; the poor get their survival tactics reclassified as criminality.
Context matters: Disraeli writes in an era when urbanization and inequality are sharpening British anxieties about disorder, and when “politeness” functions as a moral alibi for empire and aristocratic power. His phrasing doesn’t thunder; it insinuates. The real target isn’t vice. It’s the comforting fiction that refinement equals righteousness, and that a society’s calm rooms prove its virtue rather than its immunity.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
|---|
More Quotes by Isaac
Add to List
