tly relied upon. To his wife, a warm-hearted woman older than
himself, and inferior to him in education, he was uniformly
affectionate and indeed devoted. The first use he made of his
power as Prime Minister was to procure for her the title of
viscountess. Being once asked point blank by a lady what he thought
of his life-long opponent, Mr. Gladstone answered that two things
had always struck him as very admirable in Lord Beaconsfield's
character--his perfect loyalty to his wife, and his perfect
loyalty to his own race. A story used to be told how, in Disraeli's
earlier days, when his political position was still far from
assured, he and his wife happened to be the guests of the chief of
the party, and that chief so far forgot good manners as to quiz Mrs.
Disraeli at the dinner-table. Next morning Disraeli, whose visit
was to have lasted for some days longer, announced that he must
leave immediately. The host besought him to stay, and made all
possible apologies. But Disraeli was inexorable, and carried off his
wife forthwith. To literary men, whatever their opinions, he was
ready to give a helping hand, representing himself as one of their
profession. In paying compliments he was singularly expert, and few
used the art so well to win friends and disarm enemies. He knew
how to please Englishmen, and especially the young, by showing
interest in their tastes and pleasures, and, without being what
would be called genial, was never wanting in _bonhomie_. In
society he was a perfect man of the world--told his anecdote apropos,
wound up a discussion by some epigrammatic phrase, talked to the
guest next him, if he thought that guest's position made him worth
talking to, as he would to an old acquaintance. But he had few
intimates; nor did his apparent frankness unveil his real thoughts.

He was not of those who complicate political opposition with private
hatreds. Looking on politics as a game, he liked, when he took off his
armour, to feel himself on friendly terms with his antagonists, and
often seemed surprised to find that they remembered as personal
affronts the blows which he had dealt in the tournament. Two or three
years before his death, a friend asked him whether there was in London
any one with whom he would not shake hands. Reflecting for a moment,
he answered, "Only one," and named Robert Lowe, who had said hard
things of him, and to whom, when Lowe was on one occasion in his
power, he had behaved with cruelty. Y