of state
may be admirable in the domain of literature. It is hardly desirable
that the followers of a political leader should be haunted by an
ever-recurring doubt as to whether his philosophical utterances express
deep convictions, or the extemporised combinations of a fertile fancy,
and be uncertain whether he is really putting their clumsy thoughts into
clearer phrases, or foisting showy nonsense upon them for his own
purposes, or simply laughing at them in his sleeve. But, in a purely
literary sense, this ambiguous hovering between two meanings, this
oscillation between the ironical and the serious, is always amusing, and
sometimes delightful. Some simple-minded people are revolted, even in
literature, by the ironical method; and tell the humorist, with an air
of moral disapproval, that they never know whether he is in jest or in
earnest. To such matter-of-fact persons Disraeli's novels must be a
standing offence; for it is his most characteristic peculiarity that
the passage from one phase to the other is imperceptible. He has moments
of obvious seriousness; at frequent intervals comes a flash of downright
sarcasm, as unmistakable in its meaning as the cut of a whip across your
face; and elsewhere we have passages which aim unmistakably, and
sometimes with unmistakable success, at rhetorical excellence. But,
between the two, there is a wide field where we may interpret his
meaning as we please. The philosophical theory may imply a genuine
belief, or may be a mere bit of conventional filling in, or perhaps a
parody of his friends or himself. The gorgeous passages may be
intentionally over-coloured, or may really represent his most sincere
taste. His homage may be genuine or a biting mockery. His extravagances
are kept precisely at such a pitch that it is equally fair to argue that
a satirist must have meant them to be absurd, or to argue only that he
would have seen their absurdity in anybody else. The unfortunate critic
feels himself in a position analogous to that of the suitors in the
'Merchant of Venice.' He may blunder grievously, whatever alternative he
selects. If he pronounces a passage to be pure gold, it may turn out to
be merely the mask of a bitter sneer; or he may declare it to be
ingenious burlesque when put forward in the most serious earnest; or may
ridicule it as overstrained bombast, and find that it was never meant to
be anything else. It is wiser to admit that perhaps the author was not
very clear