im that there was a lively desire in the
opposing party to hear him, but they were hindered by a coterie over
whom they had no control. In describing the scene, in a letter to his
sister that night, with great frankness, as disastrous, Disraeli signed
himself, "Yours in very good spirits." When he spoke, a week afterward,
he commanded the attention of the House.

Disraeli had always declared that no government should have his support
which did not seek to improve the condition of the poor; and as he
looked at the British constitution and social construction, he believed
that the Conservatives were the best able to accomplish this end.
Because he was a Jew he was none the less an Englishman, and he had the
true interests of the United Kingdom at heart. He held that the strength
of England lay in the land, and he supported the corn laws from stern
principle. "It will be an exception to the principles which seem
hitherto to have ruled society," he exclaimed, "if you can maintain the
success at which you aim, without the possession of that permanence and
stability which the territorial principle alone can afford. Although you
may for a moment flourish after their destruction, although your ports
may be filled with shipping, your factories smoke on every plain, and
your forges flame in every city, I see no reason why you should form an
exception to that which the page of history has mournfully recorded,
that you should not fade like Tyrian dye, and moulder like the Venetian
palaces."

He was already, in 1839, to a certain extent, a power in Parliament,
launching the shafts of his sarcasm alike at the Chancellor of the
Exchequer or an Under Secretary; and in this year he published his
tragedy of "Count Alarcos," and married Mrs. Wyndham Lewis, the wealthy
widow of his friend and colleague, several years his senior, but through
thirty years his invaluable friend and _confidante_. In dedicating
"Sybil" to her, he said, "I would inscribe this work to one whose noble
spirit and gentle nature ever prompt her to sympathize 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." Her devotion to him was illustrated by her behavior one
night when, on the eve of an exciting session, she drove with him to
Palace Yard, and her hand being crushed in the carriage-door, she gave
no sign, lest it should disturb his train of th