ment soon begin to forget that it is not, in the last resort,
Parliament that governs, but the people. Absorbed in the daily
contests of their Chamber, they over-estimate the importance of those
contests. They come to think that Parliament is in fact what it is in
theory, a microcosm of the nation, and that opinion inside is sure to
reflect the opinion outside. When they are in a minority they are
depressed; when they are in a majority they fancy that all is well,
forgetting their masters out-of-doors. This tendency is aggravated by
the fact that the English Parliament meets in the capital, where the
rich and luxurious congregate and give their tone to society. The
House of Commons, though many of its members belong to the middle
class by origin, belongs practically to the upper class by sympathy,
and is prone to believe that what it hears every evening at dinners or
receptions is what the country is thinking. A member of the House of
Commons is, therefore, ill-placed for feeling the pulse of the nation,
and in order to do so must know what is being said over the country,
and must frequently visit or communicate with his constituents. If
this difficulty is experienced by an ordinary private member, it is
greater for a minister whose time is filled by official duties, or for
a leader of Opposition, who has to be constantly thinking of his
tactics in the House. In Disraeli's case there was a keenness of
observation and discernment far beyond the common. But he was under
the disadvantages of not being really an Englishman, and of having
never lived among the people.[10] The detachment I have already
referred to tended to weaken his power of judging popular sentiment,
and appraising at their true value the various tendencies that sway
and divide a nation so complex as the English. Early in life he had
formed theories about the relations of the different classes of
English society--nobility, gentry, capitalists, workmen, peasantry,
and the middle classes--theories which were far from containing the
whole truth; and he adhered to them even when the changes of half a
century had made them less true. He had a great aversion, not to say
contempt, for Puritanism, and for the Dissenters among whom it chiefly
holds its ground, and pleased himself with the notion that the
extension of the suffrage which he carried in 1867 had destroyed their
political power. The Conservative victory at the election of 1874
confirmed him in this belie