DISRAELI'S GAIETY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3213, 17 October 1881, Page 4

DISRAELI'S GAIETY.

That there was an immense fund of gaiety in Mr Disraeli's nature, i.9 true. Like old James Carljle of Ecclefechan, he ' never looked back.' He did not indulge in unavailing regrets. He accepted the inevitable with unshaken composure. He would not allow blunders and miscarriages to touch him over keenly. He kept them at arm's length—his spirit was not to be clouded and stifled by the close pressure of calamity. The gaiety wn<* quite spontaneous ; at times it had f,o be held in cheek ; though even in soVmn public tipsemblies, the moc:king spirit of Puck (wi in the assault on Lord Shaftesbury »nd hi« broad phylacteries) would Bonietirries break loose. When in Edinburgh during 1867, he had a great and enthusiastic reception from the democracy. 'We did not go to bed till quite late,' he said next morning. 'Mrs Disraeli and I were so delighted with our meeting, that we danced a -Scotch reel' (or was it an Irish jig ?) ' over it in our bedroom.'

Of the dauntless courage of the man it is unnecessary to speak. He did not know "what timidity or weakness meant, —the careless audacities and surpises of hie policy indeed implying the possession of a temper that was above fear. The speculative interpidity which gives a peculiar charm to his books was thue the native language of a character which in the most absolute sense was eelf-reliant. A great critic has said that Byron was a pure elemental force in English poetry ; in the same sense, we may cay that Disraeli was a pure elemental force

in English politics. No man was less under the sway of current influences. The authority of contemporary opinion did not enslavo him as it does most of us. Of all our politicians he was the only one who dared to be eccentric. He never quailed from first to last. On the night of his death, they say, after a violent spasm of breathlessnes he lay back murrmiring in a low voice, 'I am overwhelmed.' Yet a little later,' he raised himself from the pillows which supported him, threw back his arms, his chest, and his lips were seen to more as if he was about to speak.' To the friends who were at his side, the gesture was familiar— it was thus that he rose in the House of Commons to reply to Gladstone, to Bright, to Ruseell, to Palmerston, to Peel. The action certainly was highly characteristic. He was not beaten—he whould not give in— he was still eager for the fray.—Contemporary Review.