at time an opposition without
hope. I went into the country, and had mentally postponed all
further action to the opening of the next session, when I learned
from the announcement of a popular meeting to be held in Hyde Park
that the question was alive.(339) So I at once wrote and published
on the Bulgarian case. From that time forward, till the final
consummation in 1879-80, I made the eastern question the main
business of my life. I acted under a strong sense of individual
duty without a thought of leadership; nevertheless it made me
again leader whether I would or no. The nation nobly responded to
the call of justice, and recognised the brotherhood of man. But it
was the nation, not the classes. When, at the close of the session
of 1876, there was the usual dispersion in pursuit of recreation,
I thought the occasion was bad. It was good, for the nation did
not disperse and the human heart was beating. When the clubs
refilled in October, the Turkish cause began again to make head.
Then came a chequered period, and I do not recollect to have
received much assistance from the "front bench." Even Granville
had been a little startled at my proceedings, and wished me to
leave out the "bag and baggage" from my pamphlet.

Before the end of the session of 1876 Mr. Disraeli quitted the House of
Commons and became the Earl of Beaconsfield. Lord Granville informed Mr.
Gladstone, on the authority of a high personage, that Disraeli had said to
the Queen he must resign; "that the peerage was then suggested; that at
first he said, 'Yes, but accompanied with resignation,' but was told that
in the present state of Europe that was impossible." In reporting to Sir
Arthur Gordon, then abroad, what was not merely a piece of news but an
event, Mr. Gladstone says (Aug. 16):--

Disraeli assumes his earldom amidst loud acclaims. I had better be
mute about him and his influence generally, except as to a full
acknowledgment of his genius and his good points of character. His
government is supposed now to stand mainly upon its recent foreign
policy: the most selfish and least worthy I have ever known.
Whatever was open to any degree of exception in Palmerston, has
this year received a tenfold development in Disraeli. Derby's
influence, I think, has been for good; but too little of it.

To the Duke of Argyll a couple of days before,