blushed or sneered as he wrote. Certainly we find it hard to recognise
the minister who proposed to put down ritualism by an Act of Parliament.
He does his very best to be serious, and anticipates critics by a
passing blow at the utilitarians; but we have a shrewd suspicion that
the blow is mere swagger, to keep up his courage, or perhaps a covert
hint that though he can at times fool his friends, he is not a man to be
trifled with by his enemies. What, we must ask, would Sidonia say to
this dreariest of all shams? When Coningsby meets Sidonia in the forest,
and expresses a wish to see Athens, the mysterious stranger replies,
'The age of ruins is past; have you seen Manchester?' It would, indeed,
be absurd to infer that Disraeli does not see the weak side of
Manchester. After dilating, in 'Tancred,' upon the vitality of Damascus,
he observes, 'As yet the disciples of progress have not been able
exactly to match this instance; but it is said that they have great
faith in the future of Birkenhead.' Perhaps the true sentiment is that
the Semitic races, the unchanging depositaries of eternal principles,
look with equal indifference upon the mushroom growths of Aryan
civilisation, whether an Athens or a Birkenhead be the product, but
admit that the living has so far an advantage over the dead. To find the
moral of 'Coningsby' may be impracticable and is at any rate irrelevant.
The way to enjoy it is to look at the world through the eyes of
Sidonia. The world--at least the Gentile world--is a farce. Ninety-nine
men out of a hundred are fools. Some are prosy and reasoning fools, and
make excellent butts for stinging sarcasms; others are flighty and
imaginative fools, and can best be ridiculed by burlesquing their folly.
As for the hundredth man--the youthful Coningsby or Tancred--his
enthusiasm is refreshing, and his talent undeniable; let us watch his
game, applaud his talents, and always remember that great talent is
almost as necessary for consummate folly as for consummate success.
Adopting such maxims, we can enjoy 'Coningsby' throughout; for we need
not care whether we are laughing at the author or with him. We may
heartily enjoy his admirable flashes of wit, and, when he takes a
serious tone, may oscillate agreeably between the beliefs that he is in
solemn earnest, or in his bitterest humour; only we must not quite
forget that the farce has a touch in it of tragedy, and that there is a
real mystery somewhere. Satire, pure and simple, becomes wearisome. If a
latent sense of humour is necessary to prevent a serious man from
becoming a bore, it is still more true that some serious creed, however
misty and indefinite, is required to raise the mere mocker into a
genuine satirist. That is the use of Sidonia. He is ostensibly but a
subordinate figure, and yet, if we struck him out, the whole composition
would be thrown out of harmony. Looking through his eyes, we can laugh,
but we laugh with that sense of dignity which arises out of the
consciousness of a secret wisdom, shadowy and indefinite in the highest
degree, perilously apt to sound like nonsense if cramped by a definite
utterance, but yet casting over the whole picture a kind of magical
colouring, which may be mere trickery or may be a genuine illumination,
but which, whilst we are not too exacting, brings out pleasant and
perplexing effects. The lights and shadows fluctuate, and solid forms
melt provokingly into mist; but we must learn to enjoy the uncertain
twilight which prevails on the border-land between romance and reality,
if we would enjoy the ambiguities and the ironies and the mysteries of
'Coningsby.'
The other two parts of the trilogy show the same qualities, but in
different proportions. 'Sybil' is chiefly devoted to what its author
calls 'an accurate and never-exaggerated picture of a remarkable period
in our social history.' We need not inquire into the accuracy. It is
enough to say that in this particular department Disraeli shows himself
capable of rivalling in force and vivacity the best of those novelists
who have tried to turn blue-books upon the condition of the people into
sparkling fiction. If he is distinctly below the few novelists of truer
purpose who have put into an artistic shape a profound and first-hand
impression of those social conditions which statisticians try to
tabulate in blue-books,--if he does not know Yorkshiremen in the sense
in which Miss Brontë knew them, and still less in the sense in which
Scott knew the Borderers--he can write a disguised pamphlet upon the
effects of trades' unions in Sheffield with a brilliancy which might
excite the envy of Mr. Charles Reade. But in 'Tancred' we again come
upon the true vein of mystery in which is Disraeli's special
idiosyncrasy; and the effect is still more bewildering than in
'Coningsby.' Giving our hands to our singular guide, we are to be led
into the most secret place, and be initiated into the very heart of the
mystery. Tancred is Coningsby once more, but Coningsby no longer
satisfied with the profound political teaching of Bolingbroke, and eager
to know the very last word of that riddle which, once solved, all
theological and social and political difficulties will become plain. He
is exalted to the pitch of enthusiasm at which even supernatural
machinery may be introduced without a sense of discord. And yet,
intentionally or from the inevitable conditions of the scheme, the
satire deepens with the mystery; and the more solemn become the words
and gestures of our high priest, the more marked becomes his ambiguous
air of irony. Good, innocent Tancred fancies that his doubts may be
solved by an English bishop; and Disraeli revels in the ludicrous
picture of a young man of genius taking a bishop seriously. Yet it must
be admitted that Tancred's own theory sounds to the vulgar Saxon even
more nonsensical than the episcopal doctrine. His notion is that
'inspiration is not only a divine but a local quality,' and that God can
only speak to man upon the soil of Palestine--a theory which has
afterwards to be amended by the hypothesis, that even in Palestine, God
can only speak to a man of Semitic race. Lest we should fancy that this
belief contains an element of irony, it is approved by the great
Sidonia; but even Sidonia is not worthy of the deep mysteries before us.
He intimates to Tancred that there is one from whose lips even he
himself has derived the sacred knowledge. The Spanish priest, Alonzo
Lara, Jewish by race, but, as a Catholic prelate, imbued with all the
later learning--a member of that Church which was founded by a Hebrew,
and still retains some of the 'magnetic influence'--this great man, in
whom all influences thus centre, is the only worthy hierophant. And
thus, after a few irresistible blows at London society, we find
ourselves fairly on the road to Palestine, and listen for the great
revelation. We scorn the remark of the simple Lord Milford, that there
is 'absolutely no sport of any kind' near Jerusalem; and follow Tancred
where his ancestors have gone before him. We bend in reverence before
the empty tomb of the Divine Prince of the house of David, and fall into
ecstasies in the garden of Bethany. Solace comes, but no inspiration.
Though the marvellous Lara is briefly introduced, and though a beautiful
young woman comes straight out of the 'Arabian Nights,' and asks the
insoluble question, What would have become of the Atonement, if the Jews
had not persuaded the Romans to crucify Jesus? we are still tantalised
by the promised revelation, which melts before us like a mirage. Once,
indeed, on the sacred mountain of Sinai, a vision greets the weary
pilgrim, in which a guardian angel talks in the best style of Sidonia or
Disraeli. But we are constantly distracted by our guide's irresistible
propensity for a little political satire. A Syrian Vivian Grey is
introduced to us, whose intrigues are as audacious and futile as those
of his English parallel, but whose office seems to be the purely
satirical one of interpreting Tancred's lofty dreams into political
intrigues suited to a shrewd but ignorant Oriental. Once we are
convinced that the promise is to be fulfilled. Tancred reaches the
strange tribe of the Ansarey, shrouded in a more than Chinese seclusion.
Can they be the guardians of the 'Asian mystery'? To our amazement it
turns out that they are of the faith of Mr. Phoebus of 'Lothair.' They
have preserved the old gods of paganism; and their hopes, which surely
cannot be those of Disraeli, are that the world will again fall
prostrate before Apollo (who has a striking likeness to Tancred) or
Astarte. What does it all mean? or does it all mean anything? The most
solemn revelation has been given by that mysterious figure which
appeared in Sinai, in 'the semblance of one who, though not young, was
still untouched by time; a countenance like an Oriental night, dark yet
lustrous, mystical yet clear. Thought, rather than melancholy, spoke
from the pensive passion of his eyes; while on his lofty forehead
glittered a star that threw a solemn radiance on the repose of his
majestic forehead.' After explaining that he was the Angel of Arabia,
this person told Tancred to 'announce the sublime and solacing doctrine
of Theocratic Equality.' But when Tancred, after his startling
adventures, got back to Jerusalem, he found his anxious parents, the
Duke and Duchess of Bellamont, accompanied by the triumvirate of
bear-leaders which their solicitude had appointed to look after
him--Colonel Brace, the Rev. Mr. Bernard, and Dr. Roby. And thus the
novel ends like the address of Miss Hominy. 'Out laughs the stern
philosopher,' or, shall we say, the incarnation of commonplace, 'What,
ho! arrest me that wandering agency; and so, the vision fadeth.'
Theocratic equality has not yet taken its place as an electioneering
cry.
Has our guide been merely blowing bubbles for our infantile amusement?
Surely he has been too solemn. We could have sworn that some of the
passages were written, if not with tears in his eyes, at least with a
genuine sensibility to the solemn and romantic elements of life. Or was
he carried away for a time into real mysticism for which he seeks to
apologise by adopting the tone of the man of the world? Surely his
satire is too keen, even when it causes the collapse of his own fancies.
Even Coningsby and Lord Marney, the heroes of the former novels, appear
in 'Tancred' as shrewd politicians, and obviously Tancred will accept
the family seat when he gets back to his paternal mansion. We can only
solve the problem, if we are prosaic enough to insist upon a solution,
by accepting the theory of a double consciousness, and resolving to
pray with the mystic, and sneer with the politician, as the fit takes
us. It is an equal proof of intellectual dulness to be dead to either
aspect of things. Let us agree that a brief sojourn in the world of
fancy or in the world of blue-books is a qualification for a keener
enjoyment of the other, and not brutally attempt to sever them by fixed
lines. Each is best seen in the light reflected from the other, and we
had best admit the fact without asking awkward questions; but they are
blended after a perfectly original fashion in the strange phantasmagoria
of 'Tancred.' Let the images of crusaders and modern sportsmen, Hebrew
doctors and classical artists, mediæval monks and Anglican bishops,
perform their strange antics before us, and the scenery shift from
Manchester to Damascus, or Pall Mall to Bethany, in obedience to laws
dictated by the fancy instead of the reason; let each of the motley
actors be alternately the sham and the reality, and our moods shift as
arbitrarily from grave to gay, from high-strung enthusiasm to mocking
cynicism, and we shall witness a performance which is always amusing and
original, and sometimes even poetical, and of which only the harshest
realist will venture to whisper that, after all, it is a mere
mystification.
But it is time to leave stories in which the critic, however anxious to
observe the purely literary aspect, is constantly tempted to diverge
into the political or theological theories suggested. The 'trilogy' was
composed after Disraeli had become a force in politics, and the didactic
tendency is constantly obtruding itself. In the period between 'Vivian
Grey' (1826-7) and 'Coningsby' (1844) he had published several novels in
which the prophet is lost, or nearly lost, in the artist. Of the
'Wondrous Tale of Alroy' it is enough to say that it is a very spirited
attempt to execute an impossible task. All historical novels--except
Scott's and Kingsley's--are a weariness to the flesh, and when the
history is so remote from any association with modern feeling, even Mr.
Disraeli's vivacity is not able to convert shadows into substances. An
opposite error disturbs one's appreciation of 'Venetia.' Byron and
Shelley were altogether too near to the writer to be made into heroes of
fiction. The portraits are pale beside the originals; and though Lord
Cadurcis and Marmion Herbert may have been happier men than their
prototypes, they are certainly not so interesting. 'Henrietta Temple'
and 'Contarini Fleming' may count as Mr. Disraeli's most satisfactory
performances. He has worked without any secondary political purpose, and
has, therefore, produced more harmonious results. The aim is ambitious,
but consistent. 'Contarini Fleming' is the record of the development of
a poetic nature--a theme, as we are told, 'virgin in the imaginative
literature of every country.' The praises of Goethe, of Beckford, and of
Heine gave a legitimate satisfaction to its author. 'Henrietta Temple'
professes to be a love-story pure and simple. Love and poetry are
certainly themes worthy of the highest art; and if Disraeli's art be not
the highest, it is more effective when freed from the old alloy. The
same intellectual temperament is indeed perceptible, though in this
different field it does not produce quite the same results. One
prominent tendency connects all his stories. When 'Lothair' made its
appearance, critics were puzzled, not only by the old problem as to the
seriousness of the writer, but by the extraordinary love of glitter.
Were the palaces and priceless jewels and vast landed estates,
distributed with such reckless profusion amongst the characters,
intended as a covert satire upon the vulgar English worship of wealth,
or did they imply a genuine instinct for the sumptuous? Disraeli would
apparently parody the old epitaph, and write upon the monument of every
ducal millionaire, 'Of such are the kingdom of heaven.' Vast landed
estates and the Christian virtues, according to him, naturally go
together; and he never dismisses a hero without giving him such a letter
of credit as Sidonia bestowed upon Tancred. 'If the youth who bears this
requires advances, let him have as much gold as would make the
right-hand lion, on the first step of the throne of Solomon the king;
and if he wants more, let him have as much as would form the lion that
is on the left; and so on through every stair of the royal seat.' The
theory that so keen a satirist of human follies must have been more or
less ironical in his professed admiration for boundless wealth, though
no doubt tempting, is probably erroneous. The simplest explanation is
most likely to be the truest. Disraeli has a real, unfeigned delight in
simple splendour, in 'ropes of pearls,' in priceless diamonds, gorgeous
clothing, and magnificent furniture. The phenomenon is curious, but not
uncommon. One may sometimes find an epicure who stills retains an
infantile taste for sweetmeats, and is not afraid to avow it. Experience
of the world taught Disraeli the hollowness of some objects of his early
admiration, but it never so dulled his palate as to make pure splendour
insipid to his taste. It is as easy to call this love of glitter vulgar,
as to call his admiration for dukes snobbish; but the passion is too
sincere to deserve any harsh name. Why should not a man have a taste for
the society of dukes, or take a child's pleasure in bright colours for
their own sake? There is nothing intrinsically virtuous in preferring a
dinner of herbs to the best French cookery. So long as the taste is
thoroughly genuine, and is not gratified at the cost of unworthy
concessions, it ought not to be offensive.
Disraeli's pictures may be, or rather they certainly are, too gaudy in
their colouring, but his lavish splendour is evidently prompted by a
frank artistic impulse, and certainly implies no grovelling before the
ordinary British duke. It is this love of splendour, it may be said
parenthetically, combined with his admiration for the non-scientific
type of intellect, which makes the Roman Catholic Church so strangely
fascinating for Disraeli. His most virtuous heroes and heroines are
members of old and enormously rich Catholic families. His poet,
Contarini Fleming, falls prostrate before the splendid shrines of a
Catholic chapel, all his senses intoxicated by solemn music and sweet
incense and perfect pictures. Lothair, wanting a Sidonia, only escaped
by a kind of miracle from the attractions of Rome. The sensibility to
such influences has a singular effect upon Disraeli's modes of
representing passion. He has frankly explained his theory. The
peasant-noble of Wordsworth had learnt to know love 'in huts where poor
men lie,' and a long catena of poetical authorities might be adduced in
support of the principle. That is not Disraeli's view. 'Love,' he says,
'that can illumine the dark hovel and the dismal garret, that sheds a
ray of enchanting light over the close and busy city, seems to mount
with a lighter and more glittering pinion in an atmosphere as bright as
its own plumes. Fortunate the youth, the romance of whose existence is
placed in a scene befitting its fair and marvellous career; fortunate
the passion that is breathed in palaces, amid the ennobling creations
of surrounding art, and quits the object of its fond solicitude amidst
perfumed gardens and in the shade of green and silent woods'--woods,
that is, which ornament the stately parks of the aforesaid palaces. All
Disraeli's passionate lovers--and they are very passionate--are provided
with fitting scenery. The exquisite Sybil is allowed, by way of
exception, to present herself for a moment in the graceful character of
a sister of charity relieving a poor family in their garret; but we can
detect at once the stamp of noble blood in every gesture, and a coronet
is ready to descend upon her celestial brow. Everywhere else we make
love in gilded palaces, to born princesses in gorgeous apparel; terraced
gardens, with springing fountains and antique statues, are in the
background; or at least an ancestral castle, with long galleries filled
with the armour borne by our ancestors to the Holy Land, rises in cheery
state, waiting to be restored on a scale of unprecedented magnificence
by the dower of our affianced brides. And, of course, the passion is
suitable to such accessories. 'There is no love but at first sight,'[5]
says Disraeli; and, indeed, love at first sight is alone natural to such
beings, on whom beauty and talent have been poured out as lavishly as
wealth, and who need never condescend to thoughts of their natural
needs. It is the love of Romeo and Juliet amidst the gardens of Verona;
or rather the love of Aladdin of the wondrous lamp for some incomparable
beauty, deserving to be enshrined in a palace erected by the hands of
genii. The passion of the lover must be vivid and splendid enough to
stand out worthily against so gorgeous a background; and it must flash
and glitter, and dazzle our commonplace intellects.
In the 'Arabian Nights' the lover repeats a passage of poetry and then
faints from emotion, and Disraeli's lovers are apt to be as
demonstrative and ungovernable in their behaviour. Their happy audacity
makes us forget some little defects in their conduct. Take, for example,
the model love-story in 'Henrietta Temple.' Told by a cold and
unimaginative person, it would run to the following effect:--Ferdinand
Armine was the heir of a decayed Catholic family. Going into the army,
he raised great sums, like other thoughtless young men, on the strength
of his expectations from his maternal grandfather, a rich nobleman. The
grandfather, dying, left his property to Armine's cousin, Katherine
Grandison. Armine instantly made up his mind to marry his cousin and the
property, and his creditors were quieted by news of his engagement.
Meanwhile he met Henrietta Temple, and fell in love with her at first
sight. In spite of his judicious reticence, Miss Temple heard of his
engagement to Miss Grandison, and naturally broke off the match. She
fell into a consumption, and he into a brain fever. The heroes of novels
are never the worse for a brain fever or two, and young Armine, though
Miss Grandison becomes aware of the Temple episode, has judgment enough
to hide it from everybody else, and the first engagement is not
ostensibly broken off. Nay, Armine still continues to raise loans on the
strength of it--a proceeding which sounds very like obtaining money on
false pretences. His creditors, however, become more pressing, and at
last he gets into a sponging-house. Meanwhile Miss Temple has been cured
of her consumption by the heir to a dukedom, and herself becomes the
greatest heiress in England by an unexpected bequest. She returns from
Italy, engaged to her new lover, and hears of her old lover's
misfortunes. And then a 'happy thought' occurs to the two pairs of
lovers. If Miss Temple's wealth had come earlier, she might have married
Armine at first: why should she not do it now? It only requires an
exchange of lovers, which is instantly effected. The heir to the dukedom
marries the rich Miss Grandison; the rich Miss Temple marries Ferdinand
Armine; and everybody lives in the utmost splendour ever afterwards. The
moral to this edifying narrative appears to be given by the waiter at
the sponging-house. 'It is only poor devils nabbed for their fifties and
their hundreds that are ever done up,' says this keen observer. 'A nob
was never nabbed for the sum you are, sir, and never went to the wall.
Trust my experience, I never knowed such a thing.'
This judicious observation, translated into the language of art, gives
Disraeli's secret. His 'nobs' are so splendid in their surroundings,
such a magical light of wealth, magnificence, and rhetoric is thrown
upon all their doings, that we are cheated into sympathy. Who can be
hard upon a young man whose behaviour to his creditors may be
questionable, but who is swept away in such a torrent of gorgeous hues?
The first sight of Miss Temple is enough to reveal her dazzling
complexion, her violet-tinted eyes, her lofty and pellucid brow, her
dark and lustrous locks. Love for such a being is the 'transcendent and
surpassing offspring of sheer and unpolluted sympathy.' It is a rapture
and a madness; it is to the feelings of the ordinary mortal what
sunlight is to moonlight, or wine to water. What wonder that Armine,
'pale and trembling, withdrew a few paces from the overwhelming
spectacle, and leant against a tree in a chaos of emotion? A delicious
and maddening impulse thrilled his frame; a storm raged in his soul; a
big drop quivered on his brow; and a slight foam played upon his lip.'
But 'the tumult of his mind gradually subsided; the fleeting memories,
the saddening thoughts, that for a moment had coursed about in such wild
order, vanished and melted away, and a feeling of bright serenity
succeeded--a sense of beauty and joy, and of hovering and circumambient
happiness.' In short, he asked the lady in to lunch. That is the love
which can only be produced in palaces. Your Burns may display some
warmth of feeling about a peasant-girl, and Wordsworth cherish the
domestic affections in a cottage; but for the dazzling, brilliant forms
of passion we must enter the world of magic, where diamonds are as
plentiful as blackberries, and all surrounding objects are turned to
gold by the alchemy of an excited imagination. The only difference is
that, while other men assume that the commonest things will take a
splendid colour as seen through a lover's eyes, Disraeli takes care that
whatever his lovers see shall have a splendid colouring.