himself, or possibly enjoyed that ambiguous attitude which
might be interpreted according to the taste of his readers and the
development of events. A man who deals in oracular utterances acquires
instinctively a mode of speech which may shift its colour with every
change of light. The texture of Disraeli's writings is so ingeniously
shot with irony and serious sentiment that each tint may predominate by
turns. It is impossible to suppose that the weaver of so cunning a web
should never have intended the effects which he produces; but
frequently, too, they must be the spontaneous and partly unconscious
results of a peculiar intellectual temperament. Delight in blending the
pathetic with the ludicrous is the characteristic of the true humorist.
Disraeli is not exactly a humorist, but something for which the rough
nomenclature of critics has not yet provided a distinctive name. His
pathos is not sufficiently tender, nor his laughter quite genial enough.
The quality which results is homologous to, though not identical with,
genuine humour: for the smile we must substitute a sneer, and the
element which enters into combination with the satire is something more
distantly allied to poetical unction than to glittering rhetoric. The
Disraelian irony thus compounded is hitherto a unique product of
intellectual chemistry.

Most of Disraeli's novels are intended to set forth what, for want of a
better name, must be called a religious or political creed. To grasp its
precise meaning, or to determine the precise amount of earnestness with
which it is set forth, is of course hopeless. Its essence is to be
mysterious, and half the preacher's delight is in tantalising his
disciples. At moments he cannot quite suppress the amusement with which
he mocks their hopeless bewilderment. When Coningsby is on the point of
entering public life, he reads a speech of one of the initiated,
'denouncing the Venetian constitution, to the amazement of several
thousand persons, apparently not a little terrified by this unknown
danger, now first introduced to their notice.' What more amusing than
suddenly to reveal to good easy citizens that what they took for
wholesome food is deadly poison, and to watch their hopeless incapacity
to understand whether you are really announcing a truth or launching an
epigram!

Disraeli, undoubtedly, has certain fixed beliefs which underlie and
which, indeed, explain the superficial versatility of his teaching.
Amongs