“The Circumlocution Office was… the most important
Department under Government. No public business of any kind could possibly be
done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its
finger was in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was
equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong
without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office….
“This glorious establishment had been early in the
field, when the one sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing
a country, was first distinctly revealed to statesmen. It had been foremost to
study that bright revelation and to carry its shining influence through the
whole of the official proceedings. Whatever was required to be done, the
Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art
of perceiving — HOW NOT TO DO IT.”— English novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870), Little Dorrit (1857)
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