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I am alluding to a man whose politics you used to consider and whose writings you even now consider as fantastic, but who, like another fantast of his race, may possess the wonderful gift of resurrection, and come again to life amongst you to Benjamin Disraeli.
I don't agree with Disraeli that "happiness is atmosphere;" yet constant sunshine, and a climate which never threatens one with discomfort or ills, certainly conduce to equable cheerfulness. I am quite interested with a native lady here, the first I have met with who has been able to express her ideas in English. She is extremely shrewd and intelligent, very satirical, and a great mimic.
Disraeli, on the other hand, with a wider grasp of the situation, understood that, in this, at any rate, inactivity was not masterly, and that by boldness the enemy would be hoist with their own petard. From Lady Smith Lowestoft, December 5th. Dear Mr. Reeve, It gave me pleasure to see your handwriting again, and some surprise.
Readers who had been offered the flash-romantic fiction of Disraeli and Bulwer, turned with refreshment to the placid annals of a village where, none the less, the human heart in its follies and frailties and nobilities, is laid bare.
One heard of cabinet councils and meetings at country houses. Some of us, pursuing such interests, went so far as to read political memoirs and the novels of Disraeli and Mrs. Humphry Ward.
Statesmen of Jewish descent, with a reputation for stoicism to preserve, would do well to learn from this story not to swing their crossed leg when tired. The great want about Mr. Disraeli is something to hang the countless anecdotes about him upon.
Disraeli talks of 'the well-sustained splendour of their stately lives, and it is just the phrase for an existence in which all the appliances to ease and enjoyment are supplied by a sort of magic, that never shows its machinery, nor lets you hear the sound of its working.
The Scotch Guardian writes: But for the folly exhibited in bringing forward Mr. Disraeli, scarcely any party within the College or out of it would have ventured to nominate a still more obnoxious personage.
"But, aside with joking, Grey, I really think, that if any man of average ability dare rise in the House, and rescue many of the great questions of the day from what Dugald Stuart or Disraeli would call the spirit of Political Religionism, with which they are studiously mixed up, he would not fail to make a great impression upon the House, and a still greater one upon the country."
The late Lord Strangford was distinguished by those external qualifications which are everywhere acceptable; his manners were polished and easy, his conversation elegant and witty, and these, added to great personal attractions, gave him a charm which was generally felt. Disraeli, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, and the leading men of the day, were his associates.
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