"One can depart."

The ministers of Sainte Guillotin are robed and ready. Crash!--and the
women who sit with their knitting in front of the guillotine count one.
Crash!--and the women count two.

The supposed Evremonde descends with the seamstress from the tumbril,
and joins the fast-thinning throng of victims before the crashing engine
that constantly whirrs up and falls. The spare hand does not tremble as
he grasps it. She goes next before him--is gone. The knitting women
count twenty-two.

The murmuring of many voices, the pressing on of many footsteps in the
outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward like one great heave
of water, all flashes away. Twenty-three.

They said of him about the city that night that it was the peacefulest
man's face ever beheld there. Had he given utterance to his thoughts at
the foot of the scaffold, they would have been these:

"I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful,
prosperous, and happy in that England which I shall see no more. I see
her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see that I hold a
sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants,
generations hence.

"It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a
far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

* * * * *

BENJAMIN DISRAELI

Coningsby

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, was not only a great
figure in English politics in the nineteenth century; he was
also a novelist of brilliant powers. Born in London on
December 21, 1804, the son of Isaac D'Israeli, the future
Prime Minister of England was first articled to a solicitor;
but he quickly turned from this to politics. Disraeli was
leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons in
1847; he was twice Prime Minister. In 1876 he was created Earl
of Beaconsfield. Disraeli's novels--especially the famous
trilogy of "Coningsby," 1844, "Sybil," 1845, and "Tancred,"
1846--are remarkable chiefly for the view they give of
contemporary political life, and for the definite political
philosophy of their author. Neither the earlier
novels--"Vivian Grey", 1826, "Contarini Fleming," "Alroy,"
1832, "Henrietta Temple" and "Venetia," 1837--nor the later
ones--"Lothair," 1870, and "Endymion," 1874--are to be ranked
with "Coningsby" and "Sybil."