I prefer the picturesque name of Disraeli which he contrived out of the
tribal designation of "D'Israeli." Had it been possible he would have
transmuted Benjamin into a Gentile name. Disraeli is far preferable to
the sickly title of Beaconsfield, by which association he sought to be
taken as the Burke of the Tories, for which his genius was too thin.
Disraeli is a fossilised bygone to this generation; though in the
political arena he was the most glittering performer of his day. Men
admired him as the Blondin of Parliament, who could keep his feet on
a tight-rope at any elevation. Others looked upon him as a music-hall
Sandow who could snap into two a thicker bar of bovine ignorance than
any other athlete of the "country party." He was capable of serving
any party, but preferred the party who could best serve him. He was an
example how a man, conscious of power and unhampered by scruples, could
advance himself by strenuous devices of making himself necessary to
those he served.
The showy waistcoat and dazzling jewellery in which he first presented
himself to the House of Commons, betrayed the primitive taste of a
Jew of the Minories, and foreshadowed that trinket statesmanship which
captivated his party, who thought sober, honest principles dull and
unentertaining.
Germany and England contemporaneously produced the two greatest
adventurers of the century--Ferdinand Lassalle and Benjamin Disraeli.
Both were Jews. Both had dark locks and faith in jewellery. Both were
Sybarites in their pleasures; and personal ambition was the master
passion of each. Both were consummate speakers. Both sought distinction
in literature as a prelude to influence. Both professed devotion to
the interests of the people by promulgating doctrines which would
consolidate the power of the governing classes. Lassalle counselled war
against Liberalism, Disraeli against the Whigs. Lassalle adjusted
his views to Bismarck, as Disraeli did to Lord Derby. Both owed their
fortunes to rich ladies of maturity. Both challenged adversaries to a
duel, but Disraeli had the prudence to challenge Daniel O'Connell, who,
he knew, was under a vow not to fight one, while Lassalle challenged
Count Racowitza, and was killed.
It was a triumph without parallel to bring to pass that the proud
aristocracy of England should accept a Jew for its master. Not
approaching erect, like a human thing, Disraeli stealthily crept,
lizard-like, through the crevices of Parliament, to the front of the
nation, and with the sting that nature had given him he kept his enemies
at bay. No estimate of him can explain him, which does not take into
account his race. An alien in the nation, he believed himself to belong
to the sole race that God has recognised. The Jew has an industrial
daintiness which is an affront to mankind. He, as a rule, stands
by while the Gentile puts his hand to labour. Isolated by Christian
ostracism, the Jew tills no ground; he follows no handicraft--a Spinoza
here and there excepted. The Jew, as a rule, lives by wit and thrift.
He is of every nation, but of no nationality, save his own. He takes no
perilous initiation; he leads no forlorn hope; he neither conspires for
freedom, nor fights for it. He profits by it, and acquiesces in it; but
generally gives you the impression that he will aid either despotism
or liberty, as a matter of business--as many do who are not Jews. There
are, nevertheless, men of noble qualities among them, and as a class
they are as good or better than Christians would be had they been
treated for nineteen centuries as badly as Jews have been.
Derision and persecution inspire a strong spirit with retaliation, and
absolve him from scrupulous methods of compassing it. Two things the Jew
pursues with an unappeasable passion--distinction and authority among
believers, before whom his race has been compelled to cringe. An ancient
people which subsists by subtlety and courage, has the heroic sense
of high tradition, still looks forward to efface, not the indignity of
days, but of centuries--which imparts to the Jew a lofty implacableness
of aim, which never pauses in its purpose. How else came Mr. Disraeli
by that form of assegai sentences, of which one thrust needed no
repetition, and by that art which enabled him to climb on phrases to
power?
A critic, who had taken pains to inform himself, brought charges against
D'Israeli the Elder to the effect that he had taken passages of mark
from the books of Continental sceptics and had incorporated them as his
own. At the same time he denounced the authors, so as to disincline the
reader to look into their pages for the D'Israelian plagiaries. In the
novels of D'Israeli the Younger I have come upon passages which I
have met with elsewhere in another form. As the reader knows, Disraeli
delivered in Parliament, as his own, a fine passage from Thiers. So
that when Daniel O'Connell described Disraeli as "the heir-at-law of the
impenitent thief who died on the cross," he was nearer the truth than he
knew, for there was petty larceny in the Disraelian family.
When Sir James Stansfeld entered Parliament he had that moral distrust
of Disraeli, which Lord Salisbury, in his Cranborne days, published
a _Review_ to warn his party against. Sir James (then Mr. Stansfeld)
expressed a similar sentiment of distrust. Disraeli said to a friend in
the lobby immediately after, "I will do for that educated mechanic" The
vitriolic spite in the phrase was worthy of Vivian Grey. He kept his
word, and caused Mr. Stansfeld's retirement from the Ministry. It was
the nature of Disraeli to destroy any one who withstood him. At the same
time he could be courteous and even kind to literary Chartists who, like
Thomas Cooper and Ernest Jones, helped to frustrate the Whigs at the
poll, which served the purpose of Tory ascendency, which was Disraeli's
chance.
In Easter, 1872, I was in Manchester when Disraeli had the greatest
pantomime day of his life--when he played the Oriental Potentate in the
Pomona Gardens. All the real and imaginary Tory societies that could be
got together from surrounding counties were paraded in procession before
him. To each he made audacious little speeches, which astonished them
and, when made known, caused jubilancy in the city.
The deputation from Chorley reminded him of Mr. Charley, member for
Salford. He exclaimed, "Chorley and Charley are good names!" When a Tory
sick and burial society came up he said "he hoped they were doing a good
business, and that their future would be prosperous!" When the night
came for his speech, the Free Trade Hall was crowded. It was said that
2,000 persons paid a guinea each for their seats.
Mr. Callander, his host, had taken, at Mr. Disraeli's request, some
brandy to the meeting. It was he who poured some into a glass of water.
Mr. Disraeli, on tasting it, turned to him and said in an undertone,
"There's nothing in it." This wounded the pride of his host, who took it
as an imputation of stinginess on his part, and he filled the next glass
plentifully. This was the beginning of the orator's trouble. For the
first fifteen minutes he spoke in his customary resonant voice. Then
husky, sibilant and explosive sentences were unmistakable. Apprehensive
reporters, sitting below him, moved aside lest the orator should fall
upon them. Suspicious gestures set in. An umbrella was laid near the
edge of the platform, that the speaker might keep within the umbrella
range. For this there was a good reason, as the speaker's habit of
raising himself on his toes endangered his balance. All the meeting
understood the case. The orator soon lost all sense of time. He, who
knew so well how to suit performance to occasion, was incapable of
stopping himself. The audience had come from distant parts. At nine
o'clock they could hear the railway bell, calling some to the trains.
Ten o'clock came, when a larger portion of the audience was again
perturbed by railway warnings. Disraeli was still speaking. Eleven
o'clock came; the audience had further decreased then, but Disraeli was
still declaiming hoarse sentences. It was a quarter-past eleven before
his peroration came to an end; and many, who wished to have their
guinea's worth of Parliamentary oratory, had to sleep in Manchester that
night Everybody knew the speaker would have ceased two hours earlier if
he could. His host in the chair was much disquieted. His house was some
distance from the city, and he had invited a large party of gentlemen to
meet the great Conservative leader at supper, which had long been
ready. Besides, he was afraid his guest would be unable to appear at it.
Arriving at the house Disraeli asked his host to give him champagne--"a
bottle of fizz" was the phrase he used--which he drank with zest, when,
to the astonishment of his host, he joined the party and was at his
best. He delighted every one with his sallies and his satire.
The next morning the city Conservatives were unwilling to speak of the
protracted disappointment of the evening before. The Manchester papers
gave good reports of the long speech, which contained some passages
worthy of the speaker at any time--as when he compared the occupants
of the front bench of the Government in the House of Commons to so many
extinct volcanoes. As some members of Her Majesty's Government were
known friends of Mazzini and Garibaldi, the aptitude of the simile lives
in political memory to this day. When the _Times_ report arrived it
was found that a considerable portion of the speech was devoted to the
laudation of certain county families, which were not mentioned in the
Manchester reports, and it was said that Disraeli had dictated his
speech to Mr. Delane before he came down. But though he lost his voice
and his memory, he never lost his wit, for he praised another set of
families that came into his head.
Only in two instances has Mr. Disraeli been publicly charged with errors
of vintage. In his time I heard members manifestly inebriated, address
the House of Commons. On a memorable night Mr. Gladstone said Disraeli
had access to sources of inspiration not open to Her Majesty's
Ministers.
In the _Morning Star_ there appeared next day a passage from Disraeli's
speech, reported in vinous forms of sibilant expression. On that
occasion Lord John Manners carried to him, from time to time during his
oration, five glasses of brandy and water. I saw them brought in. There
was the great table between the two front benches, which Mr. Disraeli
said was fortunate, as he feared Mr. Gladstone might spring upon him.
All the while it was not protection Mr. Disraeli wanted from the table,
but support, for he clutched it as he spoke. Sir John Macdonald, Premier
of Canada, whom I had the honour to visit at Ottawa, not only resembled
Disraeli in features, in the curl of his hair, but in his wit. One
night Sir John made an extraordinary after-dinner speech, which had the
flavour of a whole vintage in it. When Sir John found he had astonished
the whole Dominion, he sent for the reporter, who appeared, trembling
with apprehension. "Young man," said Sir John, "with your talent for
reporting you have a great future before you. But take my advice--never
report a speech in future when you are drunk."
Connoisseurs in art who went to the sale of his effects at Disraelis
Mayfair house were astonished at the Houndsditch quality of what they
found there. Not a ray of taste was to be seen, not an article worth
buying. The glamour of the Oriental had lain in phrases, not in art.
It was the Liberals who were the champions of the Jews, and who were the
cause of their admission to Parliament. Mr. Disraeli must have had some
generous memory of this. Mr. Bright would cross the floor of the House
sometimes to confer with Disraeli. There must have been elements in
his character in which Mr. Bright had confidence. It was believed to
be owing to his respect for Mr. Blight's judgment that he took no part
against America, when his party did all they could to destroy the cause
of the Union in the great Anti-Slavery War. It ought to be remembered to
Disraeli's credit, that he made what John Stuart Mill called a "splendid
concession" of household suffrage, although he took it back the next
night, by the pernicious creation of the "compound householder." Still,
Liberals owe it to him that household suffrage came to prevail when it
did.
Disraeli's attacks upon Peel were dictated by the policy of
self-advancement. He was capable of admiring Peel, but he admired
himself more. Standing outside English questions and interests, he was
able to treat them with an airiness which was a political relief. Yet he
could see that our Colonies might become "millstones round the neck
of the Empire" if we gave them too much of Downing Street, or maybe of
Highbury.
To say Disraeli had no conscience would be to say more than any man
has knowledge enough to say of another; but he certainly never gave the
public the impression that he had one. He devised the scheme of giving
the Queen the title of "Empress." Mr. Gladstone opposed it as dangerous
to the dynasty, lowering its dignity to the level of Continental
Emperorship, and taking from the Crown the master jewel of law, which
has been more or less its security and glory for a thousand years.
Disraeli seemed to care for the Queen's favour--nothing for the
integrity of the Crown. He declared himself a Christian, and said in the
presence of the Bishop of Oxford, with Voltairean mockery, that he
was "on the side of the angels," and elsewhere described Judas as
an accessory to the crucifixion before the act, and to that ignoble
treachery all Christians were indebted for their salvation--an idea
which could never have entered a Gentile mind. This was pure Voltairean
scorn.
In his last illness he was reported to have had three different kinds
of physicians--allopath, hydropath, homoeopath; and had he chosen the
spiritual ministration of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi,
and Mr. Spurgeon, no one would have been surprised at his sardonic
prudence.
I had admiration, though not respect, for his career. Yet I was for
justice being done to him. When it was thought the Tories would prevent
his accession to the Premiership, which was his right by service, I was
one of those who cheered him in the lobby of the House of Commons, to
show that adversaries of his politics were against his being defrauded
of the dignity he had won.
How was it that Disraeli's standing at Court was never affected by what
would be deemed seditious defamation of the Crown in any other person?
When I mentioned in America the revolutionary license of his tongue in
declaring the Queen to be physically and morally incapable of governing,
the statement was received with incredulity. The reporters who took
down his Aylesbury speech containing the astounding words hesitated to
transcribe them, and one asked permission to read the passage to Mr.
Disraeli, who assented to its correctness, and the words appeared in the
_Standard_ and _Telegraph_ of September 27, 1871. The _Times_ and _Daily
News_ omitted the word "morally," deeming it incredible. But it was
said. His words were: "We cannot conceal from ourselves that Her Majesty
is physically and morally incapacitated from performing her duties."
This meant that Her Majesty was imbecile--a brutal thing to suggest,
considering family traditions.
At a Lord Mayor's banquet Mr. Disraeli gave an insulting and defamatory
account of the Russian Royal Family and Government, and boasted, like
an inebriate Jingo, of England's capacity to sustain three campaigns
against that Power. As the Queen had a daughter-in-law a member of the
Royal House of Russia, this wanton act of international offensiveness
must have produced a sensation of shame and pain in the English Royal
Family. I well remember the consternation and disapproval with which
both speeches were regarded by the people. Whatever even Republicans may
think of the theory of the Crown, they are against any personal outrage
upon it. Yet Mr. Gladstone, who was always forward to sustain, by
graceful and discerning praise, the interest of the Royal Family, and
procure them national grants, to which Mr. Disraeli could never have
reconciled the nation, was simply endured by Her Majesty, while to Mr.
Disraeli ostentatious preference was shown. It was said in explanation
that Mr. Gladstone had no "small talk" with which Mr. Disraeli
entertained his eminent hostess. It was not "small talk," it was Tory
talk, which the Queen rewarded.
I am of Lord Actons opinion, that Mr. Disraeli was morally
insupportable, though otherwise astonishing. The pitiless resentment
of "Vivian Grey" towards whoever stood in his way was the prevailing
characteristic of the triumphant Jew. Like other men of professional
ambition, he had the charm of engaging amity to those who were for the
time being no longer impediment to him. When showing distress at a few
drops of rain falling, news was brought Her Majesty that Mr. Gladstone
had returned from a voyage and addressed a crowd on the beach. Disraeli
exclaimed with pleasant gaiety, "What a wonderful man that Gladstone
is. Had I returned from a voyage I should be glad to go to bed. Mr.
Gladstone leaps on shore and makes a speech."
The moral of this singular career worth remembering, is that genius
and versatility, animated by ambition without scruple, may attain
distinction without principle. It can win national admiration, but not
public affection. All it can accomplish is to leave behind a name of
sinister renown. If we knew all, no doubt Lord Beaconsfield had, apart
from the exigencies of ambition, personal qualities commanding esteem.