f there were any. Disraeli had, long
before 1867, seen deeper, and though his youthful fancies that the
monarchy might be revived as an effective force, and that "the
peasantry" would follow with mediaeval reverence the lead of the landed
gentry, proved illusory, he was right in discerning that wealth and
social influence would in parliamentary elections count for more among
the masses than the traditions of constitutional Whiggism or the
dogmas of abstract Radicalism.

In estimating his statesmanship as a whole, one must give due weight
to the fact that it impressed many publicists abroad. No English
minister had for a long time past so fascinated observers in Germany
and Austria. Supposing that under the long reign of Liberalism
Englishmen had ceased to care for foreign politics, they looked on him
as the man who had given back to Britain her old European position,
and attributed to him a breadth of design, a grasp and a foresight
such as men had revered in Lord Chatham, greatest in the short list of
ministers who have raised the fame of England abroad. I remember
seeing in a Conservative club, about 1880, a large photograph of Lord
Beaconsfield, wearing the well-known look of mysterious fixity, under
which is inscribed the line of Homer: "He alone is wise: the rest are
fleeting shadows."[13] It was a happy idea to go for a motto to the
favourite poet of his rival, as it was an unhappy chance to associate
the wisdom ascribed to Disraeli with his policy in the Turkish East
and in Afghanistan, a policy now universally admitted to have been
unwise and unfortunate.[14] But whatever may be thought of the
appropriateness of the motto, the fact remains that this was the
belief he succeeded in inspiring. He did it by virtue of those very
gifts which sometimes brought him into trouble--his taste for large
and imposing theories, his power of clothing them in vague and solemn
language, his persistent faith in them. He came, by long posing, to
impose upon himself and to believe in his own profundity. Few people
could judge whether his ideas of imperial policy were sound and
feasible; but every one saw that he had theories, and many fell under
the spell which a grandiose imagination can exercise. It is chiefly
this gift, coupled with his indomitable tenacity, which lifts him out
of the line of mere party leaders. If he failed to see how much the
English are sometimes moved by compassion, he did see that it may be
worth while to p