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saw. Another holiday we spent at Tarbert on Loch Fyne, where we climbed the hills and wandered in the woods of Barmore, and where I used to go out with the fishermen at night, see the whales blowing slender phosphorescent columns as they pursued the "schools" of herring, watch the fishermen trawling in the shallow bays, until the boats were full to the gunwales, and arrive at the quay at five o'clock in the morning covered with scales. I need not detail week-ends during the year at Dunoon, where the surf in the south-west gales is magnificent, or at Skelmorlie in the summer, where the rhododendrons bloom as nowhere else in the world, or at Rothesay, or the Kyles of Bute, or the Holy Loch, or Loch Lomond. The tourist sees little of these lovely places as he rushes past by swift steamer. Their full enchantment can only be absorbed by frequency and leisure; and this enchantment is incommunicable. The impossibility of conveying such a feeling is expressed in the charming little poem by the late Miss Kitty Mann which is placed at the head of this chapter. The same beloved haunts, the boat and the islets were very familiar to me in older days.

CHAPTER VIII

DISRAELI: WITH NOTES ON HIS EARLY LIFE

Who would true valour see

Let him come hither!
One here will constant be,

Come wind, come weather:
There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first-avow'd intent
To be a Pilgrim.

Whoso beset him round
With dismal stories,
Do but themselves confound;
His strength the more is.
No lion can him fright;
He'll with a giant fight;
But he will have a right
To be a Pilgrim.

JOHN BUNYAN.

THE wave of Liberalism, which had carried Gladstone into power in 1868, had spent itself by 1874. Notwithstanding the great expansion of trade during the six years of Liberal administration, for which expansion the Liberals claimed an amount of credit to which they can scarcely be regarded as entitled, the conservative working man made himself felt at the polls for the first time. He may have been exhibiting a belated gratitude to the Tories for the extension of the franchise in 1866, or he may have disliked Gladstone's bid for the middle-class vote by the promise to abolish income tax, or he may have been dazzled by the mysterious dreams of empire which Disraeli interpreted for him. Whatever was his motive he sent the Conservatives to Downing Street, with Disraeli at their head.

As from the death of Palmerston until 1874 the most important figure in the public life of England was Gladstone, so between 1874 and 1880 the most important figure in the same field was Disraeli. Indeed, with the possible exception of Bismarck, he was the most important political figure in Europe, not merely because he was Prime Minister, but because of his ascendancy over men, and because

he gave the political activities of Great Britain a direction determined largely by his personal political ideas.

Disraeli was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1874. He did not deliver his Rectorial Address for nearly two years after his election. For some reason I was unable to be present when he gave his Rectorial Address; but immediately before its delivery I saw him. It is difficult to set down in cold words the impression of that singular figure. His face was deadly pale, a black lock almost detaching itself from his hair came sharply over his brow. His eyes were penetrative and sparkling with intelligence. Clearly he knew what he was about; he was not given to dreaming of mysterious things. His nose was large, but not obviously Hebraic. His upper lip was as if it were chiselled in marble; his lower lip in its mobility suggested a trace of self-consciousness, as if he were aware that he might be suspected of posing. His gait was easy and not in the least infirm. His whole aspect suggested that he might have sinister impulses, but habitually kept himself in leash and controlled them. He might have been taken for a magician, the more easily in his medieval costume as Lord Rector, a long gown, heavily embroidered with gold lace, and he might have been credited with knowing and practising the Black Art. He looked as if he might have been in Hell, and successful in escaping unscorched and undismayed. He looked as if he might have been in Heaven, and able to endure the evaporation of some of his illusions. In short, he was a figure giving the impression of austere and commanding power-not without moral sense and moral direction, but with intelligence predominating.

Froude lays emphasis upon what he calls Disraeli's extraordinary "cleverness"; but cleverness is too feeble a word. Disraeli's intellect was not disciplined in the academical sense, but it was, nevertheless, an important, if not a great intellect, which such training might have spoilt. The course of his life showed that he had, and desired to have, mastery over men, rather than sympathy with them. We cannot suppose that those over whom he exercised ascendancy were all ineffectual and unintelligent persons; indeed, many of them were precisely otherwise. The influence he exercised over men of great ability, Lord Salisbury for example, implied an unusually powerful intellect on his own part. A merely clever man might have done many of the things done by Disraeli; clever men did them, and did some of them better than he; but only a man of real genius would have done all the things Disraeli did, or could have had the temerity to think he could do them.

The rise of Disraeli to high political position in England began in a period long antedating these memoirs. In general, I have refrained from repeating stories which have come to me at second-hand. It seems expedient to depart from this rule in order to give some details of the early life of Disraeli which appear to me to throw light upon the actual process by means of which Disraeli stormed a fortress regarded as impregnable, and obtained in it not only a footing, but a mastery. This fortress was the political power, held for nearly two centuries by one or other of two not very numerous groups, each very jealous of intrusion into its ranks by anyone who was not entitled to admission by birth, by fortune, or by brilliant ability shown at the public schools, and at Oxford or Cambridge. Disraeli was not only lacking in all of these qualifications, but he belonged to a race which on the ground of its traditional faith had been excluded from Parliament. Yet he succeeded in surmounting the enormous difficulties by which his pilgrimage was beset at the beginning of his career. The first steps were necessarily by far the most arduous. Whether or not the incidents I am about to relate were known to the biographers of Disraeli I am not aware. They may have been considered as too trivial for detailed narration. I do not take this view. It is impossible for me to vouch for the accuracy of the narrative. I can only tell it as it was told me, omitting merely those details which are well known. Circumstances have not favoured my making researches which might have led to confirmation or rejection of some parts of the narrative.

About 1888, my friend Sir David MacVail 1 told me that some years earlier he had met, at the town of Alnwick in Northumberland, a lady who had been an early friend and confidante of Lady Beaconsfield. I suppose that he must have mentioned the name of this lady; if he did, her name has not remained in my memory.

The story begins with the menage of Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham Lewis. They made their living by means of a haberdashery shop in the East End of London, and they lived in the premises behind the shop. Their income was no more than sufficient for simple needs. One morning Mr. Lewis received a letter from a solicitor informing him that if he would be good enough to call upon him, he would learn something to his advantage. Mr. Lewis lost no time, and discovered that the "something to his advantage" was a legacy from an uncle, who had bequeathed his fortune to him. When the estate was finally realised, it was found to consist of about £80,000 and the singular asset

1 Physician in Glasgow and member of the General Medical Council. He died in 1917.

of four hundred feather beds, which were not immediately saleable. In what manner and for what reason the deceased uncle had accumulated so luxurious a domestic equipment does not appear; but it may be surmised. Mrs. Lewis was a sprightly person, whose attendance at the haberdashery counter was an affliction to be endured rather than the occupation of her choice, and she naturally proposed that her husband should retire from retail commerce, and with his fortune in his hands, devote himself to other pursuits. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis were not experienced in the ways of any other than their own small world, and since they or rather she-aspired to pass beyond it, she resolved to seek counsel from someone who possessed a wider experience than their own. Mrs. Lewis sought this counsel from a lady who had been a school-fellow of hers, and who had been fortunate enough to acquire some touch with the great world. There was no doubt in Mrs. Lewis's mind about what she wanted. She wanted to enter the great world herself in order at least to see what it was like. She saw very well that through the newly acquired means of her husband, an entry could be made; but there must be a right way and a wrong way to set about it. In order that she should become a lady, it was obvious to her that first her husband should become a gentleman. So she invited her friend to make her aware by what process her husband could most speedily become a gentleman. Her friend advised her that one of the recognised methods, and also one of the speediest, was for her husband to enter at one of the Inns of Court, eat his dinners, and become a barrister-at-law. Provided he had a good digestion the process was certain and reasonably quick. Mr. Lewis failed not in respect of digestion. He ate his dinners, and he became a barristerat-law and legally a gentleman. But Mrs. Lewis was still in the outer world. Her position as a lady must in some manner be formally recognised. She consulted her confidante on this delicate point. The confidante was equal to the occasion.

Confidante. "It is necessary to install yourselves in a good house in a fashionable quarter where you may entertain suitably."

Mrs. Lewis. "That is very easy; but how am I to get the people to suffer themselves to be entertained?"

Confidante. "That will come later. First you must get yourself invited to some of the houses of the great, then you can invite them to your house."

Mrs. Lewis. "How can I manage that?"

Confidante. "There are noble and impecunious ladies who for a onsideration might be willing and able to arrange invitations for you."

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