The Austen Family--Choice of a Profession--Restlessness--Enters a
Solicitor's Office--'Vivian Grey'--Illness--Travels Abroad--Migration
of the Disraelis to Bradenham--Literary Satires--'Popanilla'--Tour in
the East--Gibraltar--Cadiz--Seville--Mountain Adventures--Improved
Health--Malta--James Clay--Greece--Yanina--Redshid
Pasha--Athens--Constantinople--Plains of Troy and Revolutionary
Epic--Jaffa--Jerusalem--Egypt--Home Letters--Death of William
Meredith--Return to England.
[Sidenote: DREAMS AND AMBITIONS]
In the neighbourhood of the square in which the Disraelis now resided
there lived a family named Austen, with whom the young Benjamin became
closely intimate. Mr. Austen was a solicitor in large practice; his wife
was the daughter of a Northamptonshire country gentleman--still
beautiful, though she had been for some years married, a brilliant
conversationalist, a fine musician, and an amateur artist of
considerable power. The house of this lady was the gathering-place of
the young men of talent of the age. She early recognised the unusual
character of her friend's boy. She invited him to her salons, talked to
him, advised and helped him. A writer in the 'Quarterly Review' (January
1889), apparently a connection of the Austens, remembers having been
taken by them as a child to call on the Disraelis. 'Ben, then perhaps a
school-boy returned for the holidays, was sent for, and appeared in his
shirt-sleeves with boxing gloves.' His future destination was still
uncertain. Isaac Disraeli, who had no great belief in youthful genius,
disencouraged his literary ambition, and was anxious to see him
travelling along one of the beaten roads. Mr. Austen was probably of the
same opinion. 'Ben's' own views on this momentous subject are not likely
to have been much caricatured in the meditations of Vivian Grey.
'The Bar!--pooh! Law and bad jokes till we are forty, and then with the
most brilliant success the prospect of gout and a coronet. Besides, to
succeed as an advocate I must be a great lawyer, and to be a great
lawyer I must give up my chances of being a great man. The "services" in
war time are fit only for desperadoes (and that truly am I), and in
peace are fit only for fools. The Church is more rational. I should
certainly like to act Wolsey, but the thousand and one chances are
against me, and my destiny should not be a chance.' Practical always
Disraeli was, bent simply on making his way, and his way to a great
position. No _ignes fatui_ were likely to mislead him into spiritual
morasses, no love-sick dreams to send him wandering after imaginary
Paradises. He was as shrewd as he was ambitious, and he took an early
measure of his special capabilities. 'Beware,' his father had said to
him, 'of trying to be a great man in a hurry.' His weakness was
impatience. He could not bear to wait. Byron had blazed like a new star
at five-and-twenty; why not he? Pitt had been Prime Minister at a still
earlier age, and of all young Disraeli's studies political history had
been the most interesting to him. But to rise in politics he must get
into Parliament, and the aristocrats who condescended to dine in
Bloomsbury Square, and to laugh at his impertinence, were not likely to
promise him a pocket borough. His father could not afford to buy him
one, nor would have consented to squander money on so wild a prospect.
He saw that to advance he must depend upon himself and must make his way
into some financially independent position. While chafing at the
necessity he rationally folded his wings, and on November 18, 1821, when
just seventeen, he was introduced into a solicitor's office in Old
Jewry. Mr. Maples, a member of the firm, was an old friend of Isaac
Disraeli, and to Mr. Maples's department 'Ben' was attached. Distasteful
as the occupation must have been to him, he attached himself zealously
to his work. He remained at his desk for three years, and Mr. Maples
described him as 'most assiduous in his attention to business, as
showing great ability in the transaction of it,' and as likely, if
allowed to go to the Bar, to attain to eminence there.
[Sidenote: 'VIVIAN GREY']
If the project had been carried out the anticipation would probably have
been verified. The qualities which enabled Disraeli to rise in the House
of Commons would have lifted him as surely, and perhaps as rapidly, into
the high places of the profession. He might have entered Parliament
with greater facility and with firmer ground under his feet. He
acquiesced in his father's wishes; he was entered at Lincoln's Inn, and
apparently intended to pursue a legal career; but the Fates or his own
adventurousness ordered his fortunes otherwise. His work in the office
had not interfered with his social engagements. He met distinguished
people at his father's table--Wilson Croker, then Secretary to the
Admiralty; Samuel Rogers; John Murray, the proprietor of the 'Quarterly
Review,' and others of Murray's brilliant contributors. The Catholic
question was stirring. There were rumours of Reform, and the political
atmosphere was growing hot. Disraeli observed, listened, took the
measure of these men, and thought he was as good as any of them. He
began to write in the newspapers. The experienced Mr. Murray took notice
of him as a person of whom something considerable might be made. These
acquaintances enabled him to extend his knowledge of the world, which
began to shape itself into form and figure. To understand the serious
side of things requires a matured faculty. The ridiculous is caught more
easily. With Mrs. Austen for an adviser, and perhaps with her
assistance, he composed a book which, however absurd in its plot and
glaring in its affectation, revealed at once that a new writer had
started into being, who would make his mark on men and things. That a
solicitor's clerk of twenty should be able to produce 'Vivian Grey' is
not, perhaps, more astonishing than that Dickens, at little more than
the same age, should have written 'Pickwick.' All depends on the eye.
Most of us encounter every day materials for a comedy if we could only
see them. But genius is wanted for it, and the thing, when accomplished,
proves that genius has been at work.
The motto of Vivian Grey was sufficiently impudent:
Why, then, the world's mine oyster,
Which with my sword I'll open.
The central figure is the author himself caricaturing his own
impertinence and bringing on his head deserved retribution; but the
sarcasm, the strength of hand, the audacious personalities caught the
attention of the public, and gave him at once the notoriety which he
desired. 'Vivian' was the book of the season; everyone read it, everyone
talked about it, and keys were published of the characters who were
satirised. Disraeli, like Byron, went to sleep a nameless youth of
twenty-one and woke to find himself famous.
A successful novel may be gratifying to vanity, but it is a bad
introduction to a learned profession. Attorneys prefer barristers who
stick to business and do not expatiate into literature. A single fault
might be overlooked, and 'Vivian Grey' be forgotten before its author
could put on his wig, but a more serious cause interrupted his legal
progress. He was overtaken by a singular disorder, which disabled him
from serious work. He had fits of giddiness, which he described as like
a consciousness of the earth's rotation. Once he fell into a trance,
from which he did not completely recover for a week. He was recommended
to travel, and the Austens took him abroad with them for a summer tour.
They went to Paris, to Switzerland, to Milan, Venice, Florence, Geneva,
and back over Mont Cenis into France. His health became better, but was
not re-established, and he returned to his family still an invalid.
[Sidenote: BRADENHAM]
The 'law' was postponed, but not yet abandoned. In a letter to his
father, written in 1832, he spoke of his illness as having robbed him of
five years of life; as if this, and this alone, had prevented him from
going on with his profession. Meanwhile there was a complete change in
the outward circumstances of the Disraeli household. Isaac Disraeli, who
had the confirmed habits of a Londoner, whose days had been spent in
libraries and his evenings in literary society, for some reason or other
chose to alter the entire character of his existence. Like Ferrars in
'Endymion,' though not for the same cause, he tore himself away from all
his associations and withdrew with his wife and children to an old manor
house in Buckinghamshire, two miles from High Wycombe. Bradenham, their
new home, is exactly described in the account which Disraeli gives of
the Ferrars's place of retirement; and perhaps their first arrival
there and their gipsy-like encampment in the old hall, the sense,
half-realised, that they were being taken away from all their interests
and associations, may equally have been drawn from memory. The
Disraelis, however, contrived happily enough to fit themselves to their
new existence. Disraeli all through his life delighted in the country
and country scenes. The dilapidated manor house was large and
picturesque. The land round it was open down, or covered thinly with
scrub and woods. They had horses and could gallop where they pleased.
They had their dogs and their farmyard; they made new friends among the
tenantry and the labourers. Disraeli's head continued to trouble him,
but the air and the hills gave him his best chance of recovery. His
father, contented with an occasional lecture, left him to himself. He
was devoted to his mother and passionately attached to his sister.
Altogether nothing could be calmer, nothing more affectionately peaceful
than the two or three years which he passed at Bradenham after this
migration. Though he could not study in London chambers, he could read
and he could write, and over his writing he worked indefatigably, if not
with great success. He added a second part to 'Vivian Grey.' Clever it
could not help being, but it had not the flavour of the first. He wrote
the 'Young Duke,' a flashy picture of high society which might have
passed muster as the ephemeral production of an ordinary novelist.
Neither of these, however, indicated any literary advance, nor did he
himself attach any value to them. In a happier interval, perhaps, when
he had a respite from his headaches, he threw off three light satires,
which, with one exception, are the most brilliant of all his
productions. 'Ixion in Heaven' is taken from the story of the King of
Thessaly who was carried to Olympus and fell in love with the queen of
the gods. Disraeli's classical knowledge probably went no farther than
Lemprière's Dictionary, but Lemprière gave him all that he wanted. The
form and tone are like Lucian's, and the execution almost as good. No
characters in real life are more vivid than those which he draws of the
high-bred divinities at the court of the Father of the gods, while the
Father himself is George IV. Apollo Byron, and the ladies well-known
ornaments of the circles of the Olympians of May Fair.
[Sidenote: POLITICAL SATIRES]
Equally good is the 'Infernal Marriage,' the rape of Proserpine and her
adventures in her dominions below. The wit which we never miss in
Disraeli rises here into humour which is rare with him, and a deeper
current of thought can be traced when the Queen of Hell pays a visit to
Elysium, finding there the few thousand families who spend their time in
the splendid luxury of absolute idleness; high-born, graceful beings
without a duty to perform, supported by the toil of a million gnomes,
and after exhausting every form of amusement ready to perish of ennui.
The third fragment, written in these years, which Lord Beaconsfield
included in his collected works (he probably wrote others which are lost
in the quicksands of keepsakes and annuals) was 'Popanilla,' a satire on
the English Constitution. He has changed his manner from Lucian's to
Swift's. 'Popanilla' might have been another venture of Mr. Lemuel
Gulliver if there had been malice in it. The satire of Swift is inspired
by hatred and scorn of his race. The satire of Disraeli is pleasant,
laughing, and good-humoured. In all his life he never hated anybody or
anything, never bore a grudge or remembered a libel against himself.
Popanilla is a native of an unknown island in an unknown part of the
Pacific, an island where modern civilisation had never penetrated and
life was a round of ignorant and innocent enjoyment. In an evil hour a
strange ship is wrecked upon the shore. A box of books is flung up upon
the sands, books of useful knowledge intended for the amelioration of
mankind, spiritual, social, moral, and political. Popanilla finds it,
opens it, and with the help of these moral lights sets to work to
regenerate his countrymen. He makes himself a nuisance, and is sent
floating in a canoe which carries him to Vray Bleusia, or modern
England. Being a novelty, he is enthusiastically welcomed, becomes a
lion, and is introduced to the charms and wonders of complicated
artificial society. The interest is in the light which is thrown on
Disraeli's studies of English politics. The chapter on 'Fruit' is a
humorously correct sketch of the Anglican Church. Mr. Flummery Flum
represents political economy, and the picture of him betrays Disraeli's
contempt for that once celebrated science, now relegated to the exterior
planets. 'Popanilla' can be still read with pleasure as a mere work of
fancy. It has more serious value to the student of Disraeli's character.
As a man of letters he shows at his best in writings of this kind. His
interest in the life which he describes in his early novels was only
superficial, and he could not give to others what he did not feel. In
'Ixion,' in the 'Infernal Marriage,' in 'Popanilla' we have his real
mind, and matter, style, and manner are equally admirable.
His future was still undetermined. His father continued eager to see him
at the Bar, but his health remained delicate and his disinclination more
and more decided. There was a thought of buying an estate for him and
setting him up as a country gentleman. But to be a small squire was a
poor object of ambition. He wished to travel, travel especially in the
East, to which his semi-Asiatic temperament gave him a feeling of
affinity. The Holy Land, as the seat of his own race, affected his
imagination. He had a romantic side in his mind in a passion for
Jerusalem. His intellect had been moulded by the sceptical philosophy of
his fathers; but, let sceptics say what they would, a force which had
gone out from Jerusalem had governed the fate of the modern world.
His desire, when he first made it known, was not encouraged. 'My
wishes,' he said, 'were knocked on the head in a calmer manner than I
could have expected from my somewhat rapid but too indulgent sire.' He
lingered on at Bradenham till even his literary work had to end. He
could not 'write a line without effort,' and he wandered aimlessly about
the woods; 'solitude and silence' not making his existence easy, but at
least tolerable.
[Sidenote: FOREIGN TOUR]
The objection to his travelling had been perhaps financial. If this was
the difficulty it was removed by his friends the Austens, who, we are
briefly told, came to his assistance and enabled him to carry out his
purpose. He found a companion ready to go with him in Mr. William
Meredith, a young man of talent and good fortune who was engaged to be
married to his sister. They started in June 1830, and their adventures
are related in a series of brilliant and charming letters to his family,
letters which show the young Disraeli no longer in the mythological
drapery of 'Vivian Grey' and 'Contarini Fleming,' but under his own hand
as he actually was. Spain was their first object. The Disraelis retained
their pride in their Spanish descent in a dim and distant fashion, and
had not forgotten that in right of blood they were still Spanish nobles.
Steam navigation was in its infancy, but small paddle-wheeled vessels
ran from London to Cork and Dublin, touching at Falmouth, from which
outward-bound ships took their departure. They reached Falmouth with no
worse adventure than a rough passage, and Disraeli was flattered to find
that the family fame had so far preceded him. He met a Dr. Cornish
there, who was full of admiration for 'Vivian Grey,' 'knows my father's
works by heart and thinks our revered sire the greatest man that ever
lived.' From Gibraltar on July 1 he wrote to his father himself:--
'The rock is a wonderful place, with a population infinitely
diversified--Moors with costumes radiant as a rainbow in an Eastern
melodrama, Jews with gabardines and skull caps, Genoese highlanders and
Spaniards whose dress is as picturesque as those of the sons of Ivor....
In the garrison are all your works, in the merchants' library the
greater part. Each possesses the copy of another book supposed to be
written by a member of our family which is looked upon at Gibraltar as
one of the masterpieces of the nineteenth century. At first I apologised
and talked of youthful blunders and all that, really being ashamed, but
finding them, to my astonishment, sincere, and fearing they were stupid
enough to adopt my last opinion, I shifted my position just in time,
looked very grand, and passed myself off for a child of the sun, like
the Spaniards in Peru.'
Government House opened its hospitalities. Sir George D----, a proud,
aristocratic, but vigorous old man, was not a person likely to find such
a pair of travellers particularly welcome to him. Disraeli's
affectations of dress and manner approached vulgarity, and Meredith,
though a superior person, was equally absurd in this respect. But
Disraeli, at any rate where he cared to please, never failed to make
himself liked. Sir George was polite, Lady D. more than polite. Though
she was old and infirm, 'her eyes were so brilliant and so full of
_moquerie_ that you forgot her wrinkles.' Of course they were welcome
guests in the regimental mess-rooms, clever young civilians who could
talk and were men of the world being an agreeable change in the
professional monotony, though perhaps the visitors mistook to some
extent the impression which they produced.
'Tell my mother,' Disraeli wrote, 'that as it is the fashion among the
dandies of this place (that is, the officers, for there are no others)
not to wear waistcoats in the morning, her new studs come into fine play
and maintain my reputation for being a great judge of costume, to the
admiration and envy of many subalterns. I have also the fame of being
the first who ever passed the Straits with two canes, a morning and an
evening cane. I change my cane on the gun-fire and hope to carry them
both on to Cairo. It is wonderful the effect those magical wands
produce. I owe to them even more attention than to being the supposed
author of--what is it? I forget.'
[Sidenote: ADVENTURES IN SPAIN]
With Gibraltar for head-quarters they made excursions into the Spanish
territory; the first through the Sierra Nevada, on a route arranged for
them by the governor. Travelling was dangerous, and accommodation no
better than at Don Quixote's enchanted castle. The banditti were
everywhere. Two Englishmen had just arrived from Cadiz whom José Maria
had stopped and rifled on the way. The danger was exciting. They set out
in the long hot days of July, taking a model valet with them. Brunet had
been all over the world and spoke all languages except English. Their
baggage was of the slightest, not to tempt José Maria, Disraeli
confining himself to 'the red bag' which his mother had made for his
pistols.
'We were picturesque enough in our appearance,' he wrote. 'Imagine M.
and myself on two little Andalusian mountain horses with long tails and
jennet necks, followed by a large beast of burden, with Brunet in white
hat and slippers, lively, shrivelled, and noisy as a pea dancing upon
tin; our Spanish guide, tall and with a dress excessively _brodé_ and
covered with brilliant buttons, walking by the side. The air of the
mountains, the rising sun, the rising appetite, the variety of
picturesque persons and things we met, and the impending danger made a
delightful life, and had it not been for the great enemy I should have
given myself up entirely to the magic of the life. But that spoiled all.
It is not worse. Sometimes I think it lighter about the head, but the
palpitation about the heart greatly increases; otherwise my health is
wonderful. Never have I been better. But what use is this when the end
of all existence is debarred me? I say no more upon this melancholy
subject, by which I am ever and infinitely depressed, and often most so
when the world least imagines it. To complain is useless and to endure
almost impossible.'
José Maria was in everyone's mouth, but the travellers did not fall in
with him. After a week they were again enjoying the hospitalities of
Gibraltar. The climate, the exercise, the novelty were all delightful.
Disraeli was a child of the sun, as he often said of himself. His health
mended and his spirits rose. He wore his hair in long curls. The women,
he said, mistook it for a wig, and 'I was obliged to let them pull it to
satisfy their curiosity.' The Judge Advocate buttonholed him. 'I found
him a bore and vulgar. Consequently I gave him a lecture upon canes,
which made him stare, and he has avoided me ever since.' But everyone
liked Disraeli. 'Wherever I go,' he said, 'I find plenty of friends and
plenty of attention.' He had not come to Spain to linger in a garrison
town. The two friends were soon off again for a ride through Andalusia.
Cadiz was enchanting with its white houses and green _jalousies_
sparkling in the sun; 'Figaro in every street and Rosina in every
balcony.' He saw a bull-fight; he was introduced to the Spanish
authorities, and conducted himself with Vivian Grey-like impudence.
'Fleuriz, the governor of Cadiz,' he wrote, 'is a singular brute. The
English complain that when they are presented to him he bows and says
nothing. The consul announced me to him as the son of the greatest
author in England; the usual reception, however, only greeted me. But I,
being prepared for the savage, was by no means silent, and made him
stare for half an hour in a most extraordinary manner. He was sitting
over some prints just arrived from England--a view of Algiers and--the
fashions for June. The question was whether the place was Algiers, for
it had no title. I ventured to inform his Excellency that it was, and
that a group of gentlemen displaying their extraordinary coats and
countenances were personages no less eminent than the Dey and his
principal councillors of State. The dull Fleuriz, after due examination,
insinuated scepticism, whereupon I offered renewed arguments to prove
the dress to be Moorish. Fleuriz calls a young lady to translate the
inscription, which proves only that they are fashions for June. I add at
Algiers. Fleuriz, unable to comprehend badinage, gives a Mashallah look
of pious resignation, and has bowed to the ground every night since that
he has met me.'
After Cadiz Seville, and then Malaga. Brigands everywhere, but not
caring to meddle with travellers who had so little with them worth
plundering. Once only there was alarm. 'We saved ourselves by a
moonlight scamper and a change of road.' An adventure, however, they had
at Malaga which recalls Washington Irving's story of the inn at
Terracina, with this difference, that Disraeli and his companion did not
show the gallantry of Irving's English hero.
'I was invited,' he says, 'by a grand lady of Madrid to join her escort
to Granada, twenty foot-soldiers armed, and _tirailleurs_ in the shape
of a dozen muleteers. We refused, for reasons too long to detail, and
set off alone two hours before, expecting an assault. I should tell you
we dined previously with her and her husband, having agreed to meet to
discuss matters. It was a truly Gil Blas scene. My lord, in an undress
uniform, slightly imposing in appearance, greeted us with dignity; the
señora young and really very pretty, with infinite vivacity and grace. A
French valet leant on his chair, and a dueña such as Staphenaff would
draw, broad and supercilious, with jet eyes, mahogany complexion, and a
cocked up nose, stood by my lady bearing a large fan. She was most
complaisant, as she evidently had more confidence in two thick-headed
Englishmen with their Purdeys and Mantons than in her specimens of the
once famous Spanish infantry. She did not know that we were cowards upon
principle. I could screw up my courage to a duel in a battle--but----'
In short, in spite of the lady's charms and their united eloquence,
Disraeli and Meredith determined to start alone. They had learnt that a
strong band of brigands were lying in wait for the noble pair. They took
a cross road, lost their way, and slept with pack-saddles for pillows,
but reached Granada without an interview with José. A fine description
of Granada and Saracenic architecture was sent home from the spot.
In return Disraeli requires his sister to 'tell him all about
Bradenham--about dogs and horses, orchards, gardens; who calls, where
you go, who my father sees in London, what is said.' 'This is what I
want,' he writes; 'never mind public news. There is no place like
Bradenham, and each moment I feel better I want to come back.'
Affectation, light-heartedness, and warm home feelings are strangely
mixed in all this; and no one of his changing moods is what might be
expected in a pilgrim to Jerusalem in search of spiritual light. But
this was Disraeli--a character genuine and affectionate, whose fine
gifts were veiled in foppery which itself was more than half assumed.
His real serious feeling comes out prettily in a passage in which he
sums up his Peninsular experiences. 'Spain is the country for adventure.
A weak government resolves society into its original elements, and
robbery becomes more honourable than war, inasmuch as the robber is paid
and the soldier is in arrears. A wonderful ecclesiastical establishment
covers the land with a privileged class.... I say nothing of their
costume. You are wakened from your slumbers by the _rosario_, the
singing procession by which the peasantry congregate to their labours.
It is most effective, full of noble chants and melodious responses, that
break upon the still fresh air and your ever fresher feelings in a
manner truly magical. Oh, wonderful Spain! I thought enthusiasm was dead
within me and nothing could be new. I have hit, perhaps, upon the only
country which could have upset my theory, a country of which I have read
little and thought nothing.'
Health was really mending. 'This last fortnight,' he says, 'I have made
regular progress, or rather felt, perhaps, the progress which I had
already made. It is all the sun--not society or change of scene. This,
however agreeable, is too much for me and ever turns me back. It is when
I am alone and still that I feel the difference of my system, that I
miss the old aches and am conscious of the increased activity and
vitality and expansion of the blood.'
[Sidenote: MALTA]
After Spain Malta was the next halting-place; Malta, with its garrison
and military society, was Gibraltar over again, with only this
difference, that Disraeli fell in with a London acquaintance there in
James Clay, afterwards member for Hull and a figure in the House of
Commons.
The arrival of a notoriety was an incident in the uniformity of Maltese
existence. 'They have been long expecting your worship's offspring,' he
tells his father, 'so I was received with branches of palm.' He accepted
his honours with easy superiority. 'To govern men,' he said, 'you must
either excel them in their accomplishments or despise them. Clay does
one, I do the other, and we are both equally popular. Affectation here
tells better than wit. Yesterday at the racket court, sitting in the
gallery among strangers, the ball entered and lightly struck me and fell
at my feet. I picked it up, and observing a young rifleman excessively
stiff, I humbly requested him to forward its passage into the court, as
I really had never thrown a ball in my life.... I called on the
Governor, and he was fortunately at home. I flatter myself that he
passed through the most extraordinary quarter of an hour of his
existence. I gave him no quarter, and at last made our nonchalant
Governor roll on the sofa from his risible convulsions. Clay confesses
my triumph is complete and unrivalled.'
'I continue much the same,' he reported of himself--'still infirm but
no longer destitute of hope. I wander in pursuit of health like the
immortal exile in pursuit of that lost shore which is now almost
glittering in my sight. Five years of my life have been already wasted,
and sometimes I think my pilgrimage may be as long as that of Ulysses.'
Like the Greek he was exposed to temptations from the Circes and the
Sirens, but he understood the symptoms and knew where to look for
safety. 'There is a Mrs. ---- here in Malta,' he writes to Ralph
Disraeli, 'with a pretty daughter, _cum multis aliis_; I am sorry to
say, among them a beauty very dangerous to the peace of your unhappy
brother. But no more of that. In a few weeks I shall be bounding, and
perhaps sea-sick, upon the Egean, and then all will be over. Nothing
like an emetic in these cases.'
[Sidenote: ALBANIAN RIDE]
James Clay was rich, and had provided a yacht in which, with the Byronic
fever on him, he professed to intend to turn corsair. He invited
Disraeli and Meredith to join him, and they sailed for Corfu in October
equipped for enterprise. 'You should see me,' he said, 'in the costume
of a Greek pirate--a blood-red shirt with silver studs as big as
shillings, an immense scarf for girdle, full of pistols and daggers, red
cap, red slippers, broad blue-striped jacket and trowsers.' 'Adventures
are to the adventurous;' so Ixion had written in Athene's album. Albania
was in insurrection. Unlike Byron, whom he was supposed to imitate,
Disraeli preferred the Turks to the Greeks whom he despised, and thought
for a moment of joining Redshid's army as a volunteer, to see what war
was like. When they reached Corfu the rebellion was already crushed, but
Redshid was still at Yanina, the Albanian capital, and he decided at
least to pay the Grand Vizier a visit. The yacht took them to Salora.
There they landed, and proceeded through the mountains with a handful
of horse for an escort. They halted the first night at Arta, 'a
beautiful town now in ruins.' 'Here,' he said, 'for the first time I
reposed upon a divan, and for the first time heard a muezzin from a
minaret.' In the morning they waited on the Turkish governor. 'I cannot
describe to you,' he wrote in a humorous description of his interview,
'the awe with which I first entered the divan of a great Turk, and the
curious feeling with which I found myself squatting on the right hand of
a bey, smoking an amber-mouthed chibouque, drinking coffee, and paying
him compliments through an interpreter.'
The Turks had been kind to his own race at a time when Jews had no other
friends, and from the first Disraeli had an evident liking for them.
They set out again after a few hours. 'We journeyed over a wild mountain
pass,' the diary continues, 'a range of ancient Pindus, and before
sunset we found ourselves at a vast but dilapidated khan as big as a
Gothic castle, situated on a high range, built as a sort of half-way
house for travellers by Ali Pasha, now turned into a military post.'
They were received by a bey, who provided quarters for them. They were
ravenously hungry; but the bey could not understand their language, nor
they his. He offered them wine; they produced brandy, and communication
was thus established. 'The bey drank all the brandy; the room turned
round; the wild attendants who sat at our feet seemed dancing in strange
and fantastic whirls. The bey shook hands with me; he shouted English, I
Greek. "Very good," he had caught up from us. "Kalo, kalo," was my
rejoinder. He roared; I smacked him on the back. I remember no more. In
the middle of the night I woke, found a flagon of water, and drank a
gallon at a draught. I looked at the wood fire and thought of the
blazing blocks in the hall at Bradenham; asked myself whether I was
indeed in the mountain fortress of an Albanian chief, and shrugging my
shoulders went to bed and woke without a headache. We left our jolly
host with regret. I gave him my pipe as a memorial of our having got
tipsy together.'
[Sidenote: YANINA]
At Yanina they found the Turkish army quartered in the ruins of the
town. The Grand Vizier occupied the castle with the double dignity of a
prince and a general. He was surrounded with state, and they were made
to wait ten minutes before they could be admitted to his presence.
'Suddenly we are summoned to the awful presence of the pillar of the
Turkish Empire, the renowned Redshid; an approved warrior, a consummate
politician, unrivalled as a dissembler in a country where dissimulation
is part of the moral culture.... The hall was vast, covered with gilding
and arabesques.... Here, squatted up in a corner of a large divan, I
bowed with all the nonchalance of St. James's Street to a little
ferocious-looking, shrivelled, careworn man, plainly dressed, with a
brow covered with wrinkles and a countenance clouded with anxiety and
thought.... I seated myself on the divan of the Grand Vizier, who, the
Austrian consul observed, "had destroyed in the course of the last three
months, not in war, upwards of 4,000 of my acquaintance," with the
self-possession of a morning call. Some compliments passed between us.
Pipes and coffee were brought. Then his Highness waved his hand, and in
an instant the chambers were cleared. Our conversation I need not
repeat. We congratulated him on the pacification of Albania. He rejoined
that the peace of the world was his only object and the happiness of
mankind his only wish. This went on for the usual time. He asked us no
questions about ourselves or our country, as the other Turks did, but
seemed quite overwhelmed with business, moody and anxious. While we were
with him three separate Tartars arrived with despatches. What a life!...
I forgot to tell you that with the united assistance of my English,
Spanish, and fancy wardrobe I sported a costume in Yanina which produced
a most extraordinary effect on that costume-loving people. A great many
Turks called on purpose to see it. "Questo vestito Inglese, o di
fantasia?" asked a little Greek physician. I oracularly replied,
"Inglese e fantastico."'
Had the Greek physician enquired not about the _vestito_, but about the
wearer of it, the answer might have been the same.
The account of this visit to Yanina was composed after the return of the
party to the yacht. Here is a description in Disraeli's other manner:--
'I write you this from that Ambracian gulf where the soft triumvir
gained more glory by defeat than attends the victory of harsher
warriors. The site is not unworthy of the beauty of Cleopatra. From the
summit of the land the gulf appears like a vast lake walled in on all
sides by mountains more or less distant. The dying glory of a Grecian
eve bathes with warm light promontories and gentle bays and infinite
modulation of purple outline. Before me is Olympus, whose austere peak
glitters yet in the sun. A bend in the land alone hides from me the
islands of Ulysses and Sappho. When I gaze upon this scene, and remember
the barbaric splendour and turbulent existence which I have just quitted
with disgust, I recur to the feelings in the indulgence of which I can
alone find happiness and from which an inexorable destiny seems
resolved to shut me out.'
In a sketch like the present the tour cannot be followed minutely.
Athens is finely painted, but Disraeli's classical education had been
too imperfect to enable him to fill with figures and incidents the
scenes which he was looking upon. The golden city was more after his
heart. 'It is near sunset,' he wrote on November 20, 'and Constantinople
is in full sight. It baffles description, though so often described. I
feel an excitement which I thought dead.' He did describe, however,
and drew magnificent pictures of the towns and palaces, and the
motley-coloured crowd which thronged the bazaars. Lytton Bulwer was one
of his London acquaintances. To him he wrote from Constantinople--
'I confess to you that my Turkish prejudices are very much confirmed by
my residence in Turkey. The life of this people greatly accords with my
taste. To repose on voluptuous divans and smoke superb pipes, daily to
indulge in the luxury of a bath which requires half a dozen attendants
for its perfection, to court the air in a carved caique by shores which
are a perpetual scene, and to find no exertion greater than a canter on
a barb, this I think a more sensible life than the bustle of clubs, the
boring of drawing-rooms, and the coarse vulgarity of our political
controversies.'
[Sidenote: THE PLAIN OF TROY]
Disraeli's English contemporaries who were aspiring to Parliamentary
fame, and with whom in a few years he was to cross swords, were already
learning the ways of the House of Commons, or training in subordinate
official harness. Little would any of those who saw him lounging on
divans, with a turban on his head and smoking cherry sticks longer than
himself, have dreamt that here was the man who was to rise above them
all and be Prime Minister of England. He too was forming himself for
something, though as yet he could not tell for what. Ambitious visions
haunted his imagination, even grander than he was ever to realise. On
their way back through the Dardanelles the party paused for a sight of
the Plain of Troy. As Disraeli stood on the sacred soil and gazed on the
grass mound which was called the tomb of Patroclus, the thought passed
through him that as the heroic age had produced its Homer, the Augustan
era its Virgil, the Renaissance its Dante, the Reformation its Milton,
why should not the revolutionary epoch produce its representative poet?
Why should not that poet be himself? Why not but for two reasons? that
the modern European revolution is disintegration and not growth, the
product of man's feebleness, not of his greatness, and therefore no
subject for a poem; and again because Disraeli could never learn to
detach himself from his work and forget the fame with which success was
to reward him; and therefore to be a poet was not among the gifts which
the Fates had in store for him. It was well for him, however, to indulge
the dream. No man ever rises to greatness in this world who does not aim
at objects beyond his powers.
Cyprus followed, and then Jaffa, and from Jaffa they crossed the
mountains to Jerusalem. Disraeli was not given to veneration, but if he
venerated anything it was the genius and destiny of his own race. Even
the Holy City could not transport him out of himself, but it affected
him more than anything which he had ever seen in his life. The elaborate
but artificial account of his impressions, which is to be read in
'Tancred,' is a recollection of what he wrote to his sister about twenty
years before.
'From Jaffa, a party of six, well mounted and armed, we departed for
Jerusalem, and crossed the plain of Ramle, vast and fertile. Ramle--the
ancient Arimathea--is the model of one's idea of a beautiful Syrian
village--all the houses isolated and each surrounded by palm trees; the
meadows and the exterior of the village covered with olive trees, or
divided by rich plantations of Indian fig.... Next day, at length, after
crossing a vast hill, we saw the Holy City. I will describe it to you
from the Mount of Olives. This is a high hill, still partially covered
with the tree which gives it its name. Jerusalem is situated upon an
opposite height which descends as a steep ravine and forms, with the
assistance of the Mount of Olives, the narrow valley of Jehosaphat.
Jerusalem is entirely surrounded by an old feudal wall, with towers and
gates of the time of the crusaders, and in perfect preservation. As the
town is built upon a hill you can from the opposite height discern the
roof of almost every house. In the front is the magnificent mosque built
upon the site of the Temple. A variety of domes and towers rise in all
directions. The houses are of bright stone. I was thunderstruck. I saw
before me apparently a gorgeous city. Nothing can be conceived more wild
and terrible and barren than the surrounding scenery, dark, strong, and
severe; but the ground is thrown about in such picturesque undulation
that the mind [being] full of the sublime, not the beautiful, rich and
waving woods and sparkling cultivation would be misplaced.
[Sidenote: JERUSALEM]
'Except Athens I never saw anything more essentially striking, no city
except that whose sight was so pre-eminently impressive. I will not
place it below the city of Minerva. Athens and Jerusalem in their glory
must have been the first representatives of the beautiful and the
sublime. Jerusalem in its present state would make a wonderful subject
for Martin, and a picture from him could alone give you an idea of it.
'This week has been the most delightful of all our travels. We dined
every day on the roof of a house by moonlight; visited the Holy
Sepulchre of course, though avoided the other _coglionerie_. The House
of Loretto is probability to them. But the Easterns will believe
anything. Tombs of the Kings very fine. Weather delicious; mild summer
heat. Made an immense sensation. Received visits from the Vicar-General
of the Pope, two Spanish priors, &c.... Mr. Briggs, the great Egyptian
merchant, has written from England to say that great attention is to be
paid me, because I am the son of the celebrated author.'
The extracts must be cut short. The visit to Jerusalem was in February
1831. In April Disraeli was in Egypt, and ascended the Nile to Thebes.
'Conceive a feverish and tumultuous dream full of triumphial gates,
processions of paintings, interminable walls of heroic sculpture,
granite colossi of gods and kings, prodigious obelisks, avenues of
sphinxes, and halls of a thousand columns thirty feet in girth and of
proportionate height. My eyes and mind yet ache with a grandeur so
little in unison with our own littleness. The landscape was quite
characteristic; mountains of burning sand. Vegetation unnaturally vivid,
groves of cocoa trees, groups of crocodiles, and an ebony population in
a state of nudity armed with spears of reeds.'
Far in the future lay the Suez Canal and the influence which the young
visitor was one day to exercise over the fortunes of Egypt. The tour was
over. His health was recovered. He was to return to England and take to
work again, uncertain as yet whether he was not to go back to his Coke
and Blackstone. His thoughts for the present were turned on Bradenham
and its inmates. A chest of Eastern armour, pipes, and other curiosities
was ready-packed at the end of May, to accompany him home for the
decoration of the hall. On May 28 he wrote in high spirits of his
approaching return: 'I am delighted with my father's progress. How I
long to be with him, dearest of men, flashing our quills together,
standing together in our chivalry as we will do, now that I have got the
use of my brain for the first time in my life.'
These letters from abroad, and the pictures which Disraeli draws of
himself and of his adventures in them, show him as he really was, making
no effort to produce an effect, in the easy undress of family
confidence, not without innocent vanities, but light-hearted and gay at
one moment, at another deeply impressionable with anything which was
interesting or beautiful. The affectations which so strongly
characterised his public appearances were but a dress deliberately
assumed, to be thrown off when he left the stage like a theatrical
wardrobe.
The expedition, which had remained so bright to the end, unhappily had a
tragic close. On the eve of departure William Meredith caught the
small-pox at Alexandria, and died after a few days' illness. His
marriage with Sarah Disraeli was to have taken place immediately after
their arrival in England. The loss to her was too deep for reparation;
she remained single to her own life's close. To Disraeli himself the
shock gave 'inexpressible sorrow,' and 'cast a gloom over him for many
years.'