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 sal............