Family of Isaac Disraeli--Life in London--Birth of his
Children--Abandons Judaism and joins the Church of England--Education
of Benjamin Disraeli--School Days--Picture of them in 'Vivian Grey'
and 'Contarini Fleming'--Self-education at Home--Early Ambition.
[Sidenote: BIRTH AND EDUCATION]
Isaac Disraeli, having the advantage of a good fortune, escaped the
embarrassments which attend a struggling literary career. His
circumstances were easy. He became intimate with distinguished men; and
his experiences in Paris had widened and liberalised his mind. His creed
sate light upon him, but as long as his father lived he remained
nominally in the communion in which he was born. He married happily a
Jewish lady, Maria, daughter of Mr. George Basevi, of Brighton, a
gentle, sweet-tempered, affectionate woman. To her he relinquished the
management of his worldly affairs, and divided his time between his own
splendid library, the shops of book collectors or the British Museum,
and the brilliant society of politicians and men of letters. His
domestic life was unruffled by the storms which had disturbed his
boyhood; a household more affectionately united was scarcely to be found
within the four seas. Four children were born to him--the eldest a
daughter, Sarah, whose gifts and accomplishments would have raised her,
had she been a man, into fame; Benjamin, the Prime Minister that was to
be, and two other boys, Ralph and James. The Disraelis lived in London,
but changed their residence more than once. At the outset of their
married life they had chambers in the Adelphi. From thence they removed
to the King's Road, Gray's Inn, and there, on December 21, 1804,
Benjamin was born. He was received into the Jewish Church with the usual
rites, the record of the initiation being preserved in the register of
the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue Bevis Marks. No soothsayer having
foretold his future eminence, he was left to grow up much like other
children. He was his mother's darling, and was naturally spoilt. He was
unruly, and a noisy boy at home perhaps disturbed his father's serenity.
At an early age it was decided that he must go to school, but where it
was not easy to decide. English boys were rough and prejudiced, and a
Jewish lad would be likely to have a hard time among them. No friend of
Isaac Disraeli, who knew what English public schools were then like,
would have recommended him to commit his lad to the rude treatment which
he would encounter at Eton or Winchester. A private establishment of a
smaller kind had to be tried as preliminary.
[Sidenote: SCHOOL LIFE]
Disraeli's first introduction to life was at a Mr. Poticary's, at
Blackheath, where he remained for several years--till he was too old to
be left there, and till a very considerable change took place in the
circumstances of the family. In 1817 the grandfather died. Isaac
Disraeli succeeded to his fortune, removed from Gray's Inn Road, and
took a larger house--No. 6 Bloomsbury Square, then a favourite situation
for leading lawyers and men of business. A more important step was his
formal withdrawal from the Jewish congregation. The reasons for it, as
given by himself in his 'Genius of Judaism,' were the narrowness of the
system, the insistence that the Law was of perpetual obligation, while
circumstances changed and laws failed of their objects. 'The
inventions,' he says, 'of the Talmudical doctors, incorporated in their
ceremonies, have bound them hand and foot, and cast them into the
caverns of the lone and sullen genius of rabbinical Judaism, cutting
them off from the great family of mankind and perpetuating their sorrow
and their shame.' The explanation is sufficient, but the resolution was
probably of older date. The coincidence between the date of his father's
death and his own secession points to a connection between the two
events. His mother's impatience of her Jewish fetters must naturally
have left a mark on his mind, and having no belief himself in the
system, he must have wished to relieve his children of the disabilities
and inconveniences which attached to them as members of the synagogue.
At all events at this period he followed the example of his Spanish
ancestors in merging himself and them in the general population of his
adopted country. The entire household became members of the Church of
England. The children read their Prayer Books and learned their
catechisms. On July 31 in that year Benjamin Disraeli was baptised at
St. Andrew's Church, Holborn, having for his godfather his father's
intimate friend the distinguished Sharon Turner.
The education problem was thus simplified, but not entirely solved. The
instruction at Mr. Poticary's was indifferent. 'Ben' had learnt little
there. The Latin and Greek were all behindhand, and of grammar, which in
those days was taught tolerably effectively in good English schools, he
had brought away next to nothing. But he was quick, clever, impetuous.
At home he was surrounded with books, and had read for himself with
miscellaneous voracity. In general knowledge and thought he was far
beyond his age. His father's wish was to give him the best education
possible--to send him to Eton, and then to a university. His mother
believed that a public school was a place where boys were roasted alive.
'Ben' was strong and daring, and might be trusted to take care of
himself. The objections, however, notwithstanding the removal of the
religious difficulty, were still considerable. The character of a public
school is more determined by the boys than by the masters. There were no
institutions where prejudice had freer play at the beginning of the
present century. The nationality of a Disraeli could neither be
concealed nor forgotten, and though he might be called a Christian, and
though he might be ready to return blow for blow if he was insulted or
ill-used, it is not likely that at either one of our great public
foundations he would have met with any tolerable reception. He would
himself have willingly run the risk, and regretted afterwards, perhaps,
that he had no share in the bright Eton life which he describes so
vividly in 'Coningsby.' It was decided otherwise. The school chosen for
him was at Walthamstow. The master was a Dr. Cogan, a Unitarian. There
were many boys there, sons most of them of rich parents; but the
society at a Unitarian school seventy years ago could not have been
distinguished for birth or good breeding. Neither 'Vivian Grey' nor
'Contarini Fleming' can be trusted literally for autobiographical
details; but Disraeli has identified himself with Contarini in assigning
to him many of his own personal experiences, and Vivian has been always
acknowledged as a portrait sketched from a looking-glass. In both these
novels there are pictures of the hero's school days, so like in their
general features that they may be taken as a fair account of Disraeli's
own recollections. He was fifteen when he went to Walthamstow, and was
then beyond the age when most boys begin their school career.
'For the first time in my life,' says Contarini, 'I was surrounded by
struggling and excited beings. Joy, hope, sorrow, ambition, craft,
dulness, courage, cowardice, beneficence, awkwardness, grace, avarice,
generosity, wealth, poverty, beauty, hideousness, tyranny, suffering,
hypocrisy, tricks, love, hatred, energy, inertness, they were all there
and sounded and moved and acted about me. Light laughs and bitter cries
and deep imprecations, and the deeds of the friendly, the prodigal, and
the tyrant, the exploits of the brave, the graceful, and the gay, and
the flying words of native wit and the pompous sentences of acquired
knowledge, how new, how exciting, how wonderful!'
[Sidenote: EDUCATION AT HOME]
Contarini is Disraeli thus launched into a school epitome of the world
after the Unitarian pattern. It was a poor substitute for Eton. The
young Disraeli soon asserted his superiority. He made enemies, he made
friends, at all events he distinguished himself from his comrades.
School work did not interest him, and he paid but slight attention to
it. He wanted ideas, and he was given what seemed to him to be but
words. He lost the opportunity of becoming an exact scholar. On the
other hand in thought, in imagination, in general attainments, he was
superior to everyone about him, masters included. Superiority begets
jealousy. Boys never pardon a comrade who is unlike themselves. He was
taunted with his birth, as it was inevitable that he would be. As
inevitably he resented the insult. Contarini Fleming and Vivian Grey
both fight and thrash the biggest boy in their school. The incident in
the novels is evidently taken from the writer's experience. Disraeli
was a fighter from his youth, with his fist first, as with his tongue
afterwards. It was characteristic of him that he had studied the art of
self-defence, and was easily able to protect himself. But both his
heroes were unpopular, and it may be inferred that he was not popular
any more than they. The school experiment was not a success and came to
an abrupt end. Vivian Grey was expelled; Contarini left of his own
accord, because he learnt nothing which he thought would be of use to
him, and because he 'detested school more than he ever abhorred the
world in the darkest moment of experienced manhood.' The precise
circumstances under which Disraeli himself made his exit are not known
to me, but his stay at Walthamstow was a brief one, and he left to
complete his education at home. His father, recollecting the troubles of
his own youth, abstained from rebukes or reproaches, left him to
himself, helped him when he could, and now and then, if we may identify
him with Vivian, gave him shrewd and useful advice. Disraeli wanted no
spurring. He worked for twelve hours a day, conscious that he had
singular powers and passionately ambitious to make use of them. He was
absolutely free from the loose habits so common in the years between
boyhood and youth; his father had no fault to find with his conduct,
which he admitted had been absolutely correct. The anxiety was of
another kind. He did not wish to interfere with his son's direction of
himself, but warned him, very wisely, 'not to consider himself a
peculiar boy.' 'Take the advice,' said Mr. Grey to Vivian, 'of one who
has committed as many--aye, more--follies than yourself. Try to
ascertain what may be the chief objects of your existence in this world.
I want you to take no theological dogmas for granted, nor to satisfy
your doubts by ceasing to think; but whether we are in this world in a
state of probation for another, or whether at death we cease altogether,
human feelings tell me that we have some duties to perform to our
fellow-creatures, to our friends, and to ourselves.'
[Sidenote: THE YOUNG DISRAELI]
Disraeli's conception of himself was that he had it in him to be a great
man, and that the end of his existence was to make himself a great man.
With his father's example before him literature appeared the readiest
road. Contarini when a boy wrote romances and threw them into the river,
and composed pages of satire or sentiment 'and grew intoxicated with his
own eloquence.' He pondered over the music of language, studied the
cultivation of sweet words, and constructed elaborate sentences in
lonely walks, and passed his days in constant struggle to qualify
himself for the part which he was determined to play in the game of
life. Boyish pursuits and amusements had no interest for him. In
athletic games he excelled if he chose to exert himself, but he rarely
did choose unless it was in the science of self-defence. He rode well
and hard, for the motion stimulated his spirits; but in galloping across
the country he was charging in imagination the brooks and fences in the
way of his more ambitious career.
This was one side of him in those early years; another was equally
remarkable. He intended to excel among his fellow-creatures, and to
understand what men and women were like was as important to him as to
understand books. The reputation of Vivian Grey's father--in other
words, his own father--had always made him an honoured guest in the
great world. For this reason he had been anxious that his son should be
as little at home as possible, for he feared for a youth the fascination
of London society. This particular society was what Disraeli was most
anxious to study, and was in less danger from it than his father
fancied. He was handsome, audacious, and readily made his way into the
circle of the family acquaintances. 'Contarini was a graceful,
lively lad, with enough of dandyism to prevent him from committing
_gaucheries_, and with a devil of a tongue.' 'He was never at a loss for
a compliment or a repartee,' and 'was absolutely unchecked by foolish
modesty.' 'The nervous vapidity of my first rattle,' says the _alter
ego_ Vivian, 'soon subsided into a continuous flow of easy nonsense.
Impertinent and flippant, I was universally hailed as an original and a
wit. I became one of the most affected, conceited, and intolerable atoms
that ever peopled the sunbeam of society.' The purpose which lay behind
Disraeli's frivolous outside was as little suspected by those who saw
him in the world as the energy with which he was always working in his
laborious hours. The stripling of seventeen was the same person as the
statesman of seventy, with this difference only, that the affectation
which was natural in the boy was itself affected in the matured
politician, whom it served well as a mask or as a suit of impenetrable
armour.