"general circle" at the Drawing-room or Levee. In his second
Administration he looked extraordinarily old. His form was shrunk, and
his face of a death-like pallor. Ever since an illness in early manhood
he had always dyed his hair, and the contrast between the artificial
blackness and the natural paleness was extremely startling. The one sign
of vitality which his appearance presented was the brilliancy of his
dark eyes, which still flashed with penetrating lustre.

The immense powers of conversation of which we read so much in his
early days, when he "talked like a racehorse approaching the winning
post," and held the whole company spellbound by his tropical eloquence,
had utterly vanished. He seemed, as he was, habitually oppressed by
illness or discomfort. He sat for hours together in moody silence. When
he opened his lips it was to pay an elaborate (and sometimes misplaced)
compliment to a lady, or to utter an epigrammatic judgment on men or
books, which recalled the conversational triumphs of his prime. Skill in
phrase-making was perhaps the literary gift which he most admired. In a
conversation with Mr. Matthew Arnold shortly before his death he said,
with a touch of pathos, "You are a fortunate man. The young men read
you; they no longer read me. And you have invented phrases which every
one quotes--such as 'Philistinism' and 'Sweetness and Light.'" It was a
characteristic compliment, for he dearly loved a good phrase. From the
necessities of his position as a fighting politician, his own best
performances in that line were sarcasms; and indeed sarcasm was the gift
in which from first to last, in public and in private, in writing and in
speaking, he peculiarly excelled. To recall the instances would be to
rewrite his political novels and to transcribe those attacks on Sir
Robert Peel which made his fame and fortune.

It was my good fortune when quite a boy to be present at the debates in
the House of Commons on the Tory Reform Bill of 1867. Never were Mr.
Disraeli's gifts of sarcasm, satire, and ridicule so richly displayed,
and never did they find so responsive a subject as Mr. Gladstone. As
schoolboys say, "he rose freely." The Bill was read a second time
without a division, but in Committee the fun waxed fast and furious, and
was marked by the liveliest encounters between the Leader of the House
and the Leader of the Opposition. At the conclusion of one of these
passages of arms Mr. Disraeli gravely congrat