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Quote of the Day: What Is a Weekend?
She’s known best, not for her own words, but for those put in her mouth by others. For six years, much to our delight, Maggie Smith has seamlessly inhabited the person of Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham. The character is a remarkable old lady with a (well-protected) soft heart, a sharp tongue, and a bon mot for every occasion.
Today’s quote of the day, actually the product of the fertile imagination of Downton Abbey’s creator and screenwriter, Julian Fellowes, encapsulates the enormous social upheavals taking place in Britain just ahead of World War I. The aristocratic Crawleys have discovered that the future of their magnificent estate no longer rests in the hands of “the family proper.” The heir (James) and his son (Patrick) have both gone down with the Titanic, along with the family’s hopes for a stable transition to future generations, via the marriage of Patrick to Lady Mary Crawley, the current Earl’s oldest daughter.
Upon investigation, they learn that the next Earl of Grantham will be someone (for reasons which should be obvious) have ever met. He is a distant cousin who is a lawyer and, more importantly, is the son of a middle-class doctor from Manchester. While every upper-class bone in their bodies resents him and wishes him elsewhere, their noblesse oblige, sense of duty and tradition require them to embrace him (and his mother).
The first dinner isn’t an unqualified success, as the family finds Matthew modern, brash, classless, and, in a word, deplorable. He makes it clear that the dress code requirements of the upper classes make him deeply uncomfortable. It is his determination to work as a lawyer (an actual job!) and to treat his commitment to the estate merely as a “weekend” obligation that fussels Lady Violet’s boogie to an unconscionable degree.
“What is a weekend?” she asks in her own inimitable way.
It’s a fair question for 1912. Such things were not known among the aristocracy, who didn’t need a “weekend,” to enjoy free time away from their jobs, either to spend it with friends or to go on a little holiday. They could do that whenever they wanted, regardless of the day or time of year.
Until the early decades of the 20th century, weekends were not enjoyed much by the lower classes either, as the concept of a standard “working week” with time off for rest and recreation was not codified in law until the very late 19th century. (The OED records the first use of the term “weekend” in the periodical Notes and Queries, in 1879, by which time Lady Violet would have been in early middle age.)
The fact that Matthew knows what weekends are, and that he is so comfortable with the term and expects to enjoy them himself, is an indicator of his own less-than-aristocratic upbringing. It also previews the dislocation that’s about to occur in this family’s life as it propels through what is quite possibly the most significant single decade of social upheaval in the history of Great Britain.
Much as I love this quote, it’s not my favorite emanation from the Dowager Countess. That one follows the death of Mr. Pamuk (a storyline lifted from real life and proving the DC’s point), as follows: “Last night! He looked so well. Of course, it would happen to a foreigner. No Englishman would dream of dying in someone else’s house.” Or, perhaps it’s this one, which I’m finding more and more true every day: “At my age, one must ration one’s excitement.”
On that note, perhaps my favorite on-screen quote from this grandest of dames isn’t from Downton Abbey at all. Perhaps it’s from a different performance altogether, in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in which she pithily observes: “At my age, I don’t plan that far ahead. I don’t even buy green bananas.”
Copy that. Good advice to start with, and it just gets better every day.
There’s something about this lady that brings out the best in the screenwriters. Couple that with her impeccable delivery, and you have a winner every time.
Happy 84th Birthday, Maggie Smith. Fifty years later, and you’re still in your prime.
Published in Entertainment
And what would she think of that phrase?
Mr. Knightly apparently had stuff to do, but if I were Emma, I think I would have blown my brains out.
Oh, like you’ve never had your boogie fusseled.
Huh?
I’m guessing that Lady Violet fusseled a boogie or two in her day.
Mr. Knightly ran a farm. Emma, as near as I can tell, had nothing to do. I wouldn’t have been able to deal with that all day every day.
Yes. I know. I’m wondering how it plays into the thread, that’s all.
Perhaps you’re thinking of Northanger Abbey? Or a song by Petula Clark?
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was my first “Adult Movie” (original rating M = Mature, now considered PG) that I saw with my mother. The adult issues were toned down substantially. I liked the Gordon Lowther character the best, played by Gordon Jackson.
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Fusseling boogies is probably illegal in ol’ Blighty now.
Ah. Gordon Jackson (Mr. Hudson, from Upstairs, Downstairs.) Another wonderful character actor of British stage and television. The two of them together. Both, together–what a treat!
Perhaps a side-trip from Julian Fellowes to Miss Austen? Great reflection on Dame Maggie!
He was also great in the Australian TV series A Town Like Alice.
Yes, I loved that too.
Who knows? Sometimes I can’t even trace what elicited my response. Something strikes a chord in my subconscious and something just pops out. Usually it makes sense. Sometimes not.
Downtown?
Yeah. Like Downtown Abbey.
We need a song: “Downtown Funk” (a la “Naptown Funk”) for the shades of the monks of the Abbey: to which they could/can tripudiate/chorambulate. Paging @skipsul…
I’ll if maybe I can get back to this later today. I’m back at work today and a bit swamped.
Deferments permitted, of course! Blessed Christmastide!
Since I am in the middle of watching the 2009 mini-series version of Emma, I follow the logic of the comment by @randywebster .
Although Mr. Knightly is landed gentry, he is presented in the story as being actively involved in (or at least aware of and interested in) the working activities of his tenant farmers. Emma, as mistress of Hartfield, is completely disconnected from the cares and concerns of “work.” In the original novel, Mr. Knightly’s estate (Donwell Abbey) is land-rich but (relatively) cash poor (thus necessitating more active management), while the Woodhouse estate (Hartfield) has less land but more cash, so Emma has little to do, perhaps contributing to her recreation of trying to manage the romances of others.
Most of us modern Americans who are so accustomed to work can’t imagine living with the “leisure” of Emma (early 19th Century) or the women of Downton Abbey (early 20th Century).
That makes sense. Thanks!
I enjoyed immensely the BBC? production of Pride and Prejudice. Is Emma more or less the same, and how do you access it?
They are all the same book with different covers.
They might have the same moral, but they aren’t the same books.
They are formulaic, because Jane Austen was writing about what she knew.
Is that true? I thought she lived with her mother and sisters pretty much her whole life, and was pretty poor. I doubt she ever went to the Pump Room at Bath.
Fie on such comments as this, Sir Percy; Miss Jane wrote with perception of her milieu, wit, and knowledge of the human heart! The young Emma is much different from Miss Anne Elliot, of Persuasion, it must be said.
I disagree! The female protagonists are completely different from one another, so the sources of conflict between the female protagonist and the male foil (each of whom are also different from each other) are different.
We have long owned DVD’s of most movie and video adaptations of Jane Austen novels, so I’m not sure how to get them nowadays.
We do not own the Downton Abbey DVD’s, but our public library has all but the last season (why don’t they have the last season?).
Anne Elliot of Persuasion and Emma Woodhouse of Emma are about as opposite as you can get!
They did all have relatively happy endings. Does that make them formulaic?