To find the other forth, and by adventuring both
He oft found both.
But one shaft had disappeared after another till he had reached the last in his quiver. He had not been personally extravagant. He had moved in the high circles to which he had been admitted rather as an assured spectator than as an imitator of their costly habits. But his resources were limited to the profits of his writings, and to such sums as he could raise on his own credit. His position was critical in the extreme, and Disraeli’s star might then have set like a planet which becomes visible at twilight on the western horizon, and shows out in its splendour only to set into the sea. The temptation to sell oneself under such circumstances would have been too much for common Parliamentary virtue. But Disraeli was a colt who was not to be driven in a team by a master. Lord Melbourne had asked him once what he wished for. He had answered coolly that he wished to be Prime Minister. The insanity of presumption was in fact the insanity of second sight; but ‘vaulting ambition’ would have ‘fallen on the other side’ if a divinity had not come to his assistance.
MARRIAGE
The heroes of his political novels are usually made to owe their first success to wealthy marriages. Coningsby, Egremont, Endymion, though they deserve their good fortune, yet receive it from a woman’s hand. Mr. Wyndham Lewis, who had brought Disraeli into Parliament, died unexpectedly the year after. His widow, the clever rattling flirt, as he had described her on first acquaintance, after a year’s mourning, became Disraeli’s wife. She was childless. She was left the sole possessor of a house at Grosvenor Gate, and a life income of several thousands a year. She was not beautiful. Disraeli was thirty-five, and she was approaching fifty. But she was a heroine if ever woman deserved the name. She devoted herself to Disraeli with a completeness which left no room in her mind for any other thought. As to him, he had said that he would never marry for love. But if love, in the common sense of the word, did not exist between these two, there was an affection which stood the trials of thirty years, and deepened only as they both declined into age. She was his helpmate, his confidante, his adviser; from the first he felt the extent of his obligations to her, but the sense of obligation, if at first felt as a duty, became a bond of friendship perpetually renewed. The hours spent with his wife in retirement were the happiest that he knew. In defeat or victory he hurried home from the House of Commons to share his vexation or his triumph with his companion, who never believed that he could fail. The moment in his whole life which perhaps gave him greatest delight was that at which he was able to decorate her with a peerage. To her he dedicated ‘Sybil.’
‘I,’ he says, ‘would inscribe this work to one whose noble spirit and gentle nature ever prompt her to sympathise with the suffering; to one whose sweet voice has often encouraged, and whose taste and judgment have ever guided its pages, the most severe of critics, but a “perfect wife.”’ The experience of his own married life he describes in ‘Coningsby’ as the solitary personal gift which nature had not bestowed upon a special favourite of fortune. ‘The lot most precious to man, and which a beneficent Providence has made not the least common—to find in another heart a perfect and profound sympathy, to unite his existence with one who could share all his joys, soften all his sorrows, aid him in all his projects, respond to all his fancies, counsel him in his cares and support him in his perils, make life charming by her charms, interesting by her intelligence, and sweet by the vigilant variety of her tenderness—to find your life blessed by such an influence, and to feel that your influence can bless such a life; the lot the most divine of divine gifts, so perfect that power and even fame can never rival its delights—all this nature had denied to Sidonia.’ It had not been denied to Disraeli himself.
The carriage incident is well known. On an anxious House of Commons night, Mrs. Disraeli drove down with her husband to Palace Yard. Her finger had been caught and crushed in the carriage-door. She did not let him know what had happened, for fear of disturbing him, and was not released from her torture till he had left her. That is perfectly authentic, and there are other stories like it. A husband capable of inspiring and maintaining such an attachment most certainly never ceased to deserve it. Savagely as he was afterwards attacked, his most indignant enemy never ventured to touch his name with scandal. A party of young men once ventured a foolish jest or two at Mrs. Disraeli’s age and appearance, and rallied him on the motives of his marriage. ‘Gentlemen,’ said Disraeli, as he rose and left the room, ‘do none of you know what gratitude means?’ This was the only known instance in which he ever spoke with genuine anger.
‘Gratitude,’ indeed, if deeply felt, was as deeply deserved. His marriage made him what he became. Though never himself a rich man, or endeavouring to make himself such, he was thenceforward superior to fortune. His difficulties were gradually disposed of. He had no longer election agents’ bills to worry him, or debts to usurers running up in compound ratio. More important to him, he was free to take his own line in politics, relieved from the temptation of seeking office.