Essayists From England

"Walk with Pender... His own friends, strong Liberals up to the present date...believe that Gladstone, half out of ambition and half out of sentimental sympathy, is ready to throw all the influence of the state into the scale against the employer. But while they dislike Gladstone, they are equally suspicious and afraid of Disraeli: they think him the enemy of the capitalist class."

"Lady Augusta Stanley, who is an authority on Court matters, told me that Dizzy writes daily letters to the Queen in his best novel style, telling her every scrap of political news dressed up to serve his own purpose, and every scrap of social gossip cooked to amuse her. She declares that she has never had such letters in her life, which is probably true, and that she never before knew everything!"

"Lord Beaconsfield was the great enemy of Mr. Gladstone, and everybody called him 'Dizzy.' However, this time [1880] 'Dizzy' had been thoroughly beaten by Mr. Gladstone, so we were all flung out into Opposition and the country began to be ruined very rapidly. Everyone said it was 'going to the dogs.' And then on top of all this Lord Beaconsfield got very ill. He had a long illness; and as he was also very old, it killed him. I followed his illness from day to day with great anxiety, because everyone said what a loss he would be to his country and how no one else could stop Mr. Gladstone from working his wicked will upon us all. I was always sure Lord Beaconsfield was going to die, and at last the day came when all the people I saw went about with very sad faces because, as they said, a great and splendid Statesman, who loved our country and defied the Russians, had died of a broken heart because of the ingratitude with which he had been treated by the Radicals."

"I think I could not offer a greater offence to my Conservative friends here or anywhere than to tell them that they are not a progressive party. They may not have agreed to the demand for revolutionary changes in the past, but they have been in a special sense—and it cannot be denied by any fair critic—the great apostles of social reform. And who was their teacher? Who was their leader? It was Mr. Disraeli, who laid the seeds of his doctrine in his great novel Sybil. Though he found his party slow to educate, they made such progress under his guidance, and under the subsequent guidance of Lord Randolph Churchill and others, that they have now arrived at a position in which they may fairly claim that it is to their efforts and to their legislation that the great social reforms now impressed upon the Statute-book of this country are due."

"The great European figures of the later nineteenth century were Disraeli and Bismarck, who strove to weld together the "two nations" into one through the agencies of the social service state, popular education and imperialism, refuted the taunt that "the worker has no country", and paved the way for "national labour", "national socialism" and even "national communism"."

"[T]his was the anniversary of the death of one of the most remarkable of English statesmen, who passed away amid the genuine sorrow of untold thousands. It had been his duty and his privilege to act with Lord Beaconsfield ... and he wished Lord Beaconsfield could be recalled from his grave now to lend his counsel and the experience of his long life to a country harassed and vexed and storm-tossed as ours was now. Lord Beaconsfield's great quality was a genuine and ardent love of his country, love of its greatness, and jealously for its ancient honour. In him there was no preference for foreign practices and cosmopolitan ideas."

"What strikes me most singular in you is, that you are fonder of Power than of Fame."

"He was deeply imbued with the spirit of England’s history and institutions... At the back of Disraeli’s mind lay always certain ancient English ideals—the one Tudor and the other medieval—of a united nation and of a continuing community composed of men and women possessing inalienable privileges and rights secured by a stronger tenure than that of their own lives. His conception of society was essentially religious and humane—an ordered hierarchy based on a universal recognition of human needs and rights. He wished to restore dignity, romance and personal influence to the throne, responsibility to the nobility and gentry, moral authority to the Church, above all, status, pride of craft and security to the peasant and worker."

"The idea of private wealth not based on the fulfilment of social duty was repugnant to him because it was contrary to nature. The vice of the laissez-faire economists was that they regarded capital as an economic commodity divorced from political and social activity. They treated its use as a purely private affair. Disraeli saw capital not as a commodity of value but as political and social power: as something to be used as a trust. He therefore wished to see its possession permanently associated with social obligations. The ownership of land was capable of giving such association. That of stocks and shares was not. In all this Disraeli was a Socialist before Socialism became a political force."

"Benjamin Disraeli was a great man. Alone among statesmen of his generation he perceived the fallacy of the Manchester School and of the departure in national policy which it had initiated. The immediate interests of the factory owner, the worker and the investor might be served by a free trade policy. But in the long run he knew that the policy must leave the nation at the mercy of world-wide forces beyond its control."

"Disraeli has been possessed by a devouring ambition, not to preach and act the truth, but to distinguish himself. "We come here for fame!" he said to me many years ago, and he has distinguished himself, but on a low field, and with no results which can be looked back upon with satisfaction."

"Now, Mr. Disraeli is a man who does what may be called the conjuring for his party. He is what, amongst a tribe of Red Indians, would be called "the mystery man." He invents phrases for them... Mr. Disraeli is a man of brains, of genius, of great capacity for action, of a wonderful tenacity of purpose, and of a rare courage. He would have been a statesman if his powers had been directed by any noble principle or idea."

"Disraeli was in many ways a very "unVictorian" figure... [His] scepticism makes Disraeli a less "dated" figure than almost any contemporary politician. Morally and intellectually Gladstone was his superior... But he was, far more than Disraeli, a man of his times. It is hard to imagine him living in any other period, whereas it is quite easy to envisage Disraeli living either today or in the era of Lord North. It is this timelessness that gives his best novels their lasting fascination, and makes his wit as good now as it was a hundred years ago. There is a champagne-like sparkle about him which has scarcely been equalled and never surpassed among statesmen."

"Where Disraeli excelled was in the art of presentation. He was an impresario and an actor manager. He was a superb parliamentarian, one of the half dozen greatest in our history. He knew how much depends upon impression, style, colour; and how small a part is played in politics by logic, cool reason, calm appraisal of alternatives. This is why politicians appreciate him."

"Disraeli added certain features peculiarly his own to the pattern with which he was to stamp the Conservative party, and these enhanced the contrast with Gladstonian liberalism: belief in empire; adoption of a tough, "no nonsense", foreign policy; assertion of Britain's...greatness in the world. Disraeli was unsympathetic to all forms of nationalism except English nationalism – this was quite compatible with being most unEnglish himself – and he saw no reason, whether in Ireland or the Balkans or elsewhere, to allow what he considered English interests to be overridden by the supposedly higher moral law that encourages the emancipation of nations "rightly struggling to be free". ... His attitude decisively orientated the Conservative party for many years to come, and the tradition which he started was probably a bigger electoral asset in winning working-class support during the last quarter of the century than anything else."

"Time and time again the stories we read about Disraeli's demeanour, dress and conversation remind us not so much of the grave sedate bourgeois England that he was destined to govern as of the England which flourished ten years after his death – the England of the Yellow Book and Oscar Wilde. Wilde acknowledged his debt. It was no accident that he chose the title of Dorian Gray for one of his most extravagant books, and his own famous epigrams might well, without incongruity, have appeared in the pages of a Disraeli novel."

"Der alte Jude, das ist der Mann!"

"Toryism, as we know it, was illuminated, expounded, and made a gospel for a large portion of this country by the genius of Benjamin Disraeli. Most of us who have worked for our great party have founded our beliefs on, and derived our inspiration from that statesman."

"He was quite remarkable enough to fill a volume of Éloge. Someone wrote to me yesterday that no Jew for 1800 years has played so great a part in the world. That would be no Jew since St. Paul; and it is very startling."

"Whenever we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize."

"The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation."

"The art of governing mankind by deceiving them."

"Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation."

"Mediocrity can talk; but it is for genius to observe."

"Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm."

"Candour is the brightest gem of criticism."

"The more extensive an author's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do."

"Under this roof are the heads of the family of Rothschild a name famous in every capital of Europe and every division of the globe. If you like, we shall divide the United States into two parts, one for you, James, and one for you, Lionel. Napoleon will do exactly and all that I shall advise him to do; and to Bismark will be suggested such an intoxicating programme as to make him our abject slave."

"John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich: "Foote, I have often wondered what catastrophe would bring you to your end; but I think, that you must either die of the pox, or the halter." Samuel Foote: "My lord, that will depend upon one of two contingencies; -- whether I embrace your lordship's mistress, or your lordship's principles.""

"They that touch pitch will be defiled."

"The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation."

"Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most."

"Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning."

"Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit."

"Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it: he that fears otherwise, gives advantage to the danger."

"If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change."

"Diligence is the mother of good fortune."

"There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics."

"The young Prince Leopold has the nose of a fairytale prince who has been enchanted by an evil witch."

"Everyone likes flattery, and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel."

"Where knowledge ends, religion begins."

"He has not a single redeeming defect."

"No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married."

"If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that, I suppose, would be a calamity."

"He told Lord Esher that, in talking with the Queen, he observed a simple rule: "I never deny; I never contradict; I sometimes forget.""

"Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones."

"We are the children of the gods, and are never more the slaves of circumstance than when we deem ourselves their masters. What may next happen in the dazzling farce of life, the Fates only know."

"Miss Sands told me that Queen Victoria, who was latterly éprise with Disraeli, one day asked him what was his real religion. "Madam," he replied, "I am the blank page between the Old Testament and the New.""

"You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public men."

"The sweet simplicity of the three per cents."