The late Sir William Fraser was not, I have been told, a popular
person in that society about which he thought so much, and his book,
_Disraeli and His Day_, did not succeed in attracting much of the
notice of the general reader, and failed, so I, at least, have been
made to understand, to win a verdict of approval from the really well
informed.
I consider the book a very good one, in the sense of being valuable.
Whatever your mood may be, that of the moralist, cynic, satirist,
humourist, whether you love, pity, or despise your fellow-man, here is
grist for your mill. It feeds the mind.
Although in form the book is but a stringing together of stories,
incidents, and aphorisms, still the whole produces a distinct effect.
To state what that effect is would be, I suppose, the higher
criticism. It is not altogether disagreeable; it is decidedly amusing;
it is clever and somewhat contemptible. Sir William Fraser was a
baronet who thought well of his order. He desiderated a tribunal to
determine the right to the title, and he opined that the courtesy
prefix of 'Honourable,' which once, it appears, belonged to baronets,
should be restored to them. Apart from these opinions, ridiculous and
peculiar, Sir William Fraser stands revealed in this volume as cast in
a familiar mould. The words 'gentleman,' 'White's,' 'Society,' often
flow from his pen, and we may be sure were engraven on his heart. He
had seen a world wrecked. When he was young, so he tells his readers,
the world consisted of at least three, and certainly not more than
five, hundred persons who were accustomed night after night during the
season to make their appearance at a certain number of houses, which
are affectionately enumerated. A new face at any one of these
gatherings immediately attracted attention, as, indeed, it is easy to
believe it would. 'Anything for a change,' as somebody observes in
_Pickwick_.
This is the atmosphere of the book, and Sir William breathes in it
very pleasantly. Endowed by Nature with a retentive memory and a
literary taste, active if singular, he may be discovered in his own
pages moving up and down, in and out of society, supplying and
correcting quotations, and gratifying the vanity of distinguished
authors by remembering their own writings better than they did
themselves. The book makes one clearly comprehend what a monstrous
clever fellow the rank and file of the Tory party must have felt Sir
William Fraser to be. This, however, is only background. In the front
of the picture we have the mysterious outlines, the strange
personality, struggling between the bizarre and the romantic, of 'the
Jew,' as big George Bentinck was ever accustomed to denominate his
leader. Sir William Fraser's Disraeli is a very different figure from
Sir Stafford Northcote's. The myth about the pocket Sophocles is
rudely exploded. Sir William is certain that Disraeli could not have
construed a chapter of the Greek Testament. He found such mythology
as he required where many an honest fellow has found it before him--in
Lemprière's Dictionary. His French accent, as Sir William records it,
was most satisfactory, and a conclusive proof of his _bonâ-fides_.
Disraeli, it is clear, cared as little for literature as he did for
art. He admired Gray, as every man with a sense for epithet must; he
studied Junius, whose style, so Sir William Fraser believes, he
surpassed in his 'Runnymede' letters. Sir William Fraser kindly
explains the etymology of this strange word 'Runnymede,' as he also
does that of 'Parliament,' which he says is '_Parliamo mente_' (Let us
speak our minds). Sir William clearly possessed the learning denied to
his chief.
Beyond apparently imposing upon Sir Stafford Northcote, Disraeli
himself never made any vain pretensions to be devoted to pursuits for
which he did not care a rap. He once dreamt of an epic poem, and his
early ambition urged him a step or two in that direction, but his
critical faculty, which, despite all his monstrosities of taste, was
vital, restrained him from making a fool of himself, and he forswore
the muse, puffed the prostitute away, and carried his very saleable
wares to another market, where his efforts were crowned with
prodigious success. Sir William Fraser introduces his great man to us
as observing, in reply to a question, that revenge was the passion
which gives pleasure the latest. A man, he continued, will enjoy that
when even avarice has ceased to please. As a matter of fact, Disraeli
himself was neither avaricious nor revengeful, and, as far as one can
judge, was never tempted to be either. This is the fatal defect of
almost all Disraeli's aphorisms: they are dead words, whilst the
words of a true aphorism have veins filled with the life of their
utterer. Nothing of this sort ever escaped the lips of our modern
Sphinx. If he had any faiths, any deep convictions, any rooted
principles, he held his tongue about them. He was, Sir William tells
us, an indolent man. It is doubtful whether he ever did, apart from
the preparation and delivery of his speeches, what would be called by
a professional man a hard day's work in his life. He had courage, wit,
insight, instinct, prevision, and a thorough persuasion that he
perfectly understood the materials he had to work upon and the tools
within his reach. Perhaps no man ever gauged more accurately or more
profoundly despised that 'world' Sir William Fraser so pathetically
laments. For folly, egotism, vanity, conceit, and stupidity, he had an
amazing eye. He could not, owing to his short sight, read men's faces
across the floor of the House, but he did not require the aid of any
optic nerve to see the petty secrets of their souls. His best sayings
have men's weaknesses for their text. Sir William's book gives many
excellent examples. One laughs throughout.
Sir William would have us believe that in later life Disraeli clung
affectionately to dulness--to gentle dulness. He did not want to be
surrounded by wits. He had been one himself in his youth, and he
questioned their sincerity. It would almost appear from passages in
the book that Disraeli found even Sir William Fraser too pungent for
him. Once, we are told, the impenetrable Prime Minister quailed before
Sir William's reproachful oratory. The story is not of a cock and a
bull, but of a question put in the House of Commons by Sir William,
who was snubbed by the Home Secretary, who was cheered by Disraeli.
This was intolerable, and accordingly next day, being, as good luck
would have it, a Friday, when, as all men and members know, 'it is in
the power of any member to bring forward any topic he may choose,' Sir
William naturally chose the topic nearest to his heart, and 'said a
few words on my wrongs.'
'During my performance I watched Disraeli narrowly. I could not see
his face, but I noticed that whenever I became in any way
disagreeable--in short, whenever my words really bit--they were
invariably followed by one movement. Sitting as he always did with
his right knee over his left, whenever the words touched him he
moved the pendant leg twice or three times, then curved his foot
upwards. I could observe no other sign of emotion, but this was
distinct. Some years afterwards, on a somewhat more important
occasion at the Conference at Berlin, a great German philosopher,
Herr ----, went to Berlin on purpose to study Disraeli's character.
He said afterwards that he was most struck by the more than Indian
stoicism which Disraeli showed. To this there was one exception.
"Like all men of his race, he has one sign of emotion which never
fails to show itself--the movement of the leg that is crossed over
the other, and of the foot!" The person who told me this had never
heard me hint, nor had anyone, that I had observed this peculiar
symptom on the earlier occasion to which I have referred.'
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. Most remarkable men
have some predominant feature of character round which you can build
your general conception of them, or, at all events, there has been
some great incident in their lives for ever connected with their
names, and your imagination mixes the man and the event together. Who
can think of Peel without remembering the Corn Laws and the
reverberating sentence: 'I shall leave a name execrated by every
monopolist who, for less honourable motives, clamours for Protection
because it conduces to his own individual benefit; but it may be that
I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of
good-will in the abode of those whose lot it is to labour and to earn
their daily bread with the sweat of their brow, when they shall
recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the
sweeter because it is no longer leavened with a sense of injustice.'
But round what are our memories of Disraeli to cluster? Sir William
Fraser speaks rapturously of his wondrous mind and of his intellect,
but where is posterity to look for evidences of either? Certainly not
in Sir William's book, which shows us a wearied wit and nothing more.
Carlyle once asked, 'How long will John Bull permit this absurd
monkey'--meaning Mr. Disraeli--'to dance upon his stomach?' The
question was coarsely put, but there is nothing in Sir William's book
to make one wonder it should have been asked. Mr. Disraeli lived to
offer Carlyle the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and that, in
Sir William's opinion, is enough to dispose of Carlyle's vituperation;
but, after all, the Grand Cross is no answer to anything except an
application for it.
A great many other people are made to cross Sir William Fraser's
stage. His comments upon them are lively, independent, and original.
He liked Cobden and hated Bright. The reason for this he makes quite
plain. He thinks he detected in Cobden a deprecatory manner--a
recognition of the sublime truth that he, Richard Cobden, had not been
half so well educated as the mob of Tories he was addressing. Bright,
on the other band, was fat and rude, and thought that most country
gentlemen and town-bred wits were either fools or fribbles. This was
intolerable. Here was a man who not only could not have belonged to
the 'world,' but honestly did not wish to, and was persuaded--the
gross fellow--that he and his world were better in every respect than
the exclusive circles which listened to Sir William Fraser's _bon
mots_ and tags from the poets. Certainly there was nothing deprecatory
about John Bright. He could be quite as insolent in his way as any
aristocrat in his. He had a habit, we are told, of slowly getting up
and walking out of the House in the middle of Mr. Disraeli's speeches,
and just when that ingenious orator was leading up to a carefully
prepared point, and then immediately returning behind the Speaker's
chair. If this is true, it was perhaps rude, but nobody can deny that
it is a Tory dodge of indicating disdain. What was really irritating
about Mr. Bright was that his disdain was genuine. He did think very
little of the Tory party, and he did not care one straw for the
opinion of society. He positively would not have cared to have been
made a baronet. Sir William Fraser seems to have been really fond of
Disraeli, and the very last time he met his great man in the Carlton
Club he told him a story too broad to be printed. The great man
pronounced it admirable, and passed on his weary way.