THE SKETCHES

Otago Witness, Issue 2661, 15 March 1905, Page 74

THE SKETCHES

THE TRANSFORMATION OF DISRAELI.' (T.P.'s Weekly.) VII. I stopped last week at the moment in the careei of young Disraeli when he had made an agreement \vith Mr Powles, the company promoter of the time, to write pamphlets on their behalf. The object of these pamphlets was to "puff" the companies with which Pow les was associated. These pamphlets, it need scarcely be said, weie full of glowing pictures of the resources of South America and) of the virtues of the gentlemen who were exploiting that continent. Such reassuring statements were ■especially [necessary at that moment, because already the voice "of warning had been raised against the wild spirit of speculation which was abroad. Old Lord Kldon had dropped some significant words .vhich were interpreted as a veiled menace to the company promoter ; and there had bee.n a speech in the House of Commons from no less a financial authority than one of the Barings, which thieatenedl the tottering fabric of South American finance. Disraeli, the pamphleteer, is shocked by th.ese signs of scepticism ; he even goes the length of expressing a wish that Mr Powles had been an M.P., so that he might have had an opportunity of exposing the fallacies of the speech of Mr Baring. Jims, it will be seen, young Disraeli went to his work of preliminary puffing with all the energy and enthusiasm of his hopeful and ardent nature ; greedy at once for applause, for financial success, for climbing rapidly up the ladder to fame and power. Here is the passage. It is at once delightfully naive and youthful — the young author goss to his work of puffing his patron with a will. "We regret," he writes, "to observe that Mr Powles's name is not graced by an M.P. Had these manly and satisfactory observations been spoken in the House of Commons immediately after the i statement of Mr Bax-ing they must have produced a great effect." VIII. From dazzling dreams of a big fortune by gambling the idea of rising to an equally powerful position in the world of journalism and politics was but a step. Through his father the young Disraeli had made the acquaintance at an early age of John Murray, the famous publisher. Disraeli was able to boast in "Vivian Grey" of the power of his tongue to persuade people into accepting his projects and his views, and ths history of his youth certainly corroborates this big claim. What a fascinating boy lie must have been when at 21 he was able to come to a famous, a cautious, an experienced publisher like John Murray, and persuade him into embarking on the most perilous and, if unsuccessful,, most disastrous of enterprises — a great daily paper. This brings m.c to the history of the Representative, one of the enterprises in the early lite of Disraeli which caused him most misery and ignominy, and' on which he looked back probably with more regret than any other of the escapades of his stormy youth. It struck his fertile fancy and his brooding soul that the "big financial operations of his friend Powles could be allied with a great journal as well. John Murray, as a publisher, might be got to put up half of the money ; and, at the same time, his influence would bring into the ranks of the contributors all the most famous names •on the side of Conservatism. On the other hand, a gieat daily — in its financial columns especially — might be of equally important assistance to Powles in his various schemes ; and for that reason he also might be ind'aced to supplement the capital of Murray with at least as large an amount of his own. The third party to the transaction — Disraeli himself — saw in flic undertaking the most powerful weapon he could th.en .2nd for cairying out those dreams of ambition which were haunting him by day and harassing him by nignt. He did not ask for any ofiicial position on the new organ ; he was not to be editor or manager, or even contributor ; but he had fashioned to himself a position of greater power and influence, and one much more likely to aid him in his purposes. He wanted to be the unseen inspirer behindi the throne ; the arch intriguer and! wire-puller who was to make all the puppets dance to his tunes ; and all to aid him unconsciously in that big adventure the end of which was to be no less a prize than that of being the chief ruler of the greatest )f Empires. Such was the loud 1 anthem of hope and pride and power which was singing in the ears of young Disraeli. IX. John Murray also had his dreams. He had succeeded so well with the Quarterly Review that he thought he might venture on a. peiiodical appearing more frequently, and of a cheaper and) moie popular type. His id°a was a weekly, but young Disraeli came to him with this far more dazzling and attractive project of a great daily. How eloquently and energetically this astonishing young man urged his project is revealed in a significant and eloquent phrase of John Murray. He spoke of "the unrelenting excitement and importunity" of the young man. One can read between the lines, and reconstitute for oneself what a tornado of energy, impetuosity, and persuasiveness Disraeli must have been when he was trying thus to turn his great dreams into reality by inducing a sober publisher to take up so tremendbus ajicb hazardous a risk. Nothing less would satisfy this youth, in picturing the future of tnis organ, than it was to eclipse, and perhaps annihi- j late, The Times. To Powles, on the other • hand, the prospect of having a great daily j journal to back up his somewhat shaky i fortunes seemed very attractive ; e\fid the [

end of it all was that an agreement was entered into between the three parties — between John Murray on the one hand, and Powles and Disraeli on the other : John Mm ray was to find half the capital, the two associates the other half, for the new paper. This is the foundation in real life for the political intrigue which forms the basis of th.°. story of "Vivian Grey."' Murray and Powles are the counterparts in real life of the Carabas, the Courtown, the Beaconsfield, ami! the other pupi>ets who in the work of fiction are the puppets of Vivian G ivy's dexterous handling and unscrupulous ambition. "The scheme," comments Mr Wolf, "was not a little unscrupulous, but in justice it must be said that it did not altogether commend itself to his finer f eelings. It must, indeed, have lacerated th^ni somewhat seriously, to judge by the magnitude of the consolation he sought — nothing less than 'the ancient tales of Jupiter's visits j to the earth.' " I And then Mr Wolf Quot.^ the well-known passage in "Vivian Grey'" in which that yoi;ngstcr proclaims his cynical gospel for I getting on. I will quote the passage too, i because I regard it now, as I did more thnn I a quarter ot a century a^o, when I wrote my "Biography oi Disiaeli," as affording the tru.? key of the nature and the career of the mar. — a point in which, as will be seen presently, Mr Wolf and I are at issue : "In these fanciful adventures*, the god bore no indication of the Thunderei's glory ; but was a man of low estate, a herdsman, or other hind ; and often even an animal. A mighty spirit has in Tradition, Time's great moralist, perused 'the wisdom of the ancients.' Even in the same spirit, I would explain Jove's terrestrial visitings. For, to govern man, even thr- god appeared to feel as a man ; and, sometimes as a beast, was apparently influenced b} 1 - their vi!°st passions. Mankind, then, is my great game." I hold now, as I held when I was first analysing the character of this extraordinary man, that the one key to his nature and" his acts, and also to his marvellous success, is that from first to last he rej garded mankind as his "great game" ; that I ironi fiist to last he was not concerned I about the political parties or the political principles which he advocated until in his maturity he got an opportunity of realising some of his grandiose dreams ; and that from that point of view, however much one must acknire his extraordinary brilliancy, courage, and tenacity, his career is not one that can be given whole-hearted admiration. However, this is getting dangerously near * polemics, and political polemics, too ; and I am engaged for the moment in drawing a personal and not a political portrait. X. Let me go on, then, to tell how, given : at last his credentials, young Disraeli set j to work to realise the project of his great daily. John Murray gave him a first fascinating glimpse of what might com.c in the shape of illustrious association from such a newspaper by taking him to Gloucester Lodge to see Canning. From this illustrious man Disraeli was carried to minor, but still to him — obscure and poor — effulgent shapes in the persons of undersecretaries; in short, the young boy — lie was but 20 at the time — might well be elated by the feeling that he was already at the very centre and heart of that small body of human beings who sway the destini.es of the world. He characteristically described the rasults of his interviews with these mighty personages as placing them "distinctly in our poAver." I don't quite like the phrase ; it smacks a little of the successful adventurer ; and yet, perhaps, it ought to be interpreted with some charity as the outpourings of a young man — youth often desires to appear much more cynical than it is. From political celebrities Disraeli passed on to literary. It was he who was chosen by Murray to go to Scotland to try and secure the assistance of Lockhart, the well-known son-in-law of Walter Scott, as editor ; and also the patronage of the great Walter Scott himself. It speaks highly of the confidence which young Disraoli was able to inspire that he should have been chosen for a mission at once so delicate and so important at an age so immature. Disraeli must often in later years have looked back to this epoch in his career with wistful feelings. For a whole week he had the joy of walking beside the Tweed with the then greatest literary figure in romance ; he met, maybe, many of the eminent people who were then crowded in Edinburgh — it was before the northern capital had become so provincial as it is to-day ; and he had also the satisfaction of succeeding in one of his enterprises — he secured Lockhart as editor of the Quarterly Heview. There were two visits ; this is what happened ultimately from them. By this time the great new enteiprise was so far under weigh that Disraeli was in a position to make the real preparations for the starting of the Representative. ''During one crowded month he organised offices in George street, Westminster, of which his cousin, George Basevi, jun., was the architect, instructed correspondents abroad and in the city, engaged sub-editors and reporters, and finally christened the newspaper 'The Representative,' a title which delighted) everybody concerned in it." XI. This was the end of the dream, while it seemed but tho beginning; for then, as Mr Wolf says, "the crash came." "Strange to say," writes Dr Smiles in his "Life of John Murray," "fi>om this time nothing more is heard of Mr Benjamin Disraeli in connection with 'The Representative.'" There is a great deal of bitterness between the lines of this statement. What they mean is that Disraeli proved false to his contract — that is to say, that he did not supply, and, as it is suggested, did not even attempt to supply, that portion of the capital which he had contracted to find 1 in conjunction with Powles.. The

bitterness of John Munay, left to bear nil the burden cf a hazaidous and gigantic undertaking — the still greater bitterness when the undertaking failed and entailed a loss of £26,000 — might well excuse Murray for always resenting this episode. For when Murray afeked for the money from Disraeli, Disraeli had no money to give ; when Powles was applied to, lie answered with a cool repudiation of the whole business. Murray showed his anger against Disraeli by icily refusing to receive that poor youngster when he offered to come and explain all ; and Murray added to the rebuke by sending to the unfortunate boy a bill for the piinting and publication, of "the pamphlets which had been written at the instigation of Powles and in his interest ; and, in short, poor Disraeli was cast down from his pinnacle to a very abyss of humiliation and defeat, and also misunderstanding. For what had happened was this;' "When Disraeli," writes Mr Wolf, "was being feted at Abbotsford, Messrs Powles were fighting Barclays in the Law Courts over the Guatemala repudiation. On December 17 the bubble burst. Dismay and ruin spread through the country, and although Messrs Powles seemed to be weathering the storm they were scarcely, prepared to listen sympathetically to Disraeli when, a few days later, he called afc Freeman's Court to announce to them that the moment for paying over some thousand'; of pounds into "The Representative' exchequer had arrived."' And thus at the very moment when Disraeli was about to start the paper hn own power of taking part in it was destroyed. Murray was justified in thinking thai he had been duped ; as a matter of fact, he had only allowed himself to be talked into a disastrous project by the eloquent tongue of an over-sanguine, ambitious young man, and if he suffered in pocket, that young man suffered even more bitterly in feeling. Of the two, the youth was. perhaps, therefore the more to be pitied. "On his side." writes Mr Wolf, "the ardent Benjamin saw his gorgeous dreams vanish as by the withering spell of some maleficent necromancer. In one short day the glittering votary of the 'Empire of the Intellect,' the curled oracle of Albemarle Street, the hope of the money market, the flattered associate of statesmen, the unseen power which had made even Printing House Square tremble became once more a simple lawyer's- clerk, mocked at in Cornhill and cut in Piccadilly." XII. This was Disraeli's first experience of what he afterwards called "the hell of failui'e." He was for a time immensely dejected; for, as Mr Wolf very justly remarks, this m-sn, who was so remarkably rbove all other men of his time in his maturity for his perfect control of his nerves and his expression, was "then an abnormally sensitive and excitable boy." It is "doubtful," as Mr Wolf says, "whether among the thousands who were driven into penury by that financial convulsion, there were many to whom it brought a blacker sense of disaster than to the brilliant Bloomsbury boy whose overvaulting ambition it shattered so ignominiously." But ?fter a psriol of despair the natural courage and energy of Disraeli's character asserted themselves. He found also in that home, whose head was so benignant and unworldly a creature, solace for his wounds; and he bad a further and even more potent and useful console* in Mrs Austen, one of the earliest and the best friends of his youth. It was she who al c io helped him to get over what was the worst relic of his adventure into the unknown and, perilous regions of speculative finance. The bill of Murray for the printing of the terrible pamphlets was £150, and at the moment £150 was a huge sum to the poor young man. She urged him to try his pen on a novel, and she was able to give some assurance that if he did so she could find a publisher. For not only was Colburne — then one of the giants of the. publishing trade — a friend of hers, but he owed to her his introduction to Mr Robert Ward, the friend of Canning, the author of "Tremaine," a fashionable novel which had taken the town by storm and had made a considerable sum for both the author and the publisher. These are the circumstances under which "Vivian Grey" was written. XIII. I must at once confess that the origin of the novel, as set forth so clearly and eloquently by Mr Wolf, was not known to me — was not even guessed by me — when I was writing about the book and its author so many years ago-. I accept willingly the correction which Mr Wolf makes • the book, as he says, was wr/tten as "a retrospect and not an anticipation, and it was written in a. moment of depression and not of high hop?." But when Mr Wolf chides me for reading into the book the morality and' puiposes of the author, he and I must part company. It is true, as he argues — • the argument is classic — that it is a mistake to take the author and his character as thinking the same things, holding the same morality. T t is tru.o that Disraeli himself made solemn denial of the right o£ anybody to identify him or his ideas with, those of his hero. But no man can well write a novel, largely autobiographical, without making the hero a bit of himself. And looking in retrospect on Disraeli's caieer, I see at every step resemblance between him and) Vivian Grey. But, after all, this is again polemics ; let m? end the aitkle by again thanking Mr Wolf for the additional light he has thrown on an obscure and picturesque passage in one of the greatest and most interesting of careers. — T. P.