his obligations to his associates. This
gentleman had drunk a good deal of wine at dinner, and had sat next to
Mrs. Disraeli; when the ladies had left the table he burst out, with
that British brutality which often passes for wit, "I say, Disraeli,
what on earth did you marry that woman for?" All talk was hushed by this
astounding query, and everybody looked at the sallow and grim figure
to whom it was addressed. Disraeli for some moments played with his
wineglass, apparently unmoved; then he slowly lifted his extraordinary
black, glittering eyes to those of his questioner. "Partly for a
reason," he said, measuring his words in the silence, "which you will
never be capable of understanding--gratitude!" The answer meant much for
both of them; it was never forgotten, and it extinguished the clever and
aggressive personage. It was ill crossing swords with Disraeli.

Douglas Jerrold was at the height of his fame and success in this year;
he died, I think, the year following, at the age of fifty-four. He was
very popular during his later lifetime, but he seems to have just missed
those qualities of the humorist which insure immortality; he is little
more than a name to this generation. He was the son of an actor, and
had himself been on the stage; indeed, he had tried several things,
including a short service as midshipman in his Majesty's navy. He wrote
some two-score plays, and was a contributor to Punch from its outset;
there are several books to his credit; and he edited Lloyd's Weekly
Newspaper, which was first called by his own name. But people who
have read or heard of nothing else of his, have heard of or read "Mrs.
Caudle's Curtain Lectures." Douglas Jerrold, however, is by no means
fully pictured by anything which he wrote; his charm and qualities
came out in personal intercourse. Nor does the mere quotation of his
brightnesses do him justice; you had to hear and see him say them in
order to understand them or him. He was rather a short man, with a short
neck and thick shoulders, much bent, and thick, black hair, turning
gray. His features were striking and pleasing; he had large, clear,
prominent, expressive black eyes, and in these eyes, and in his
whimsical, sensitive mouth, he lived and uttered himself. They took all
the bitterness and sting out of whatever he might say. When he was
about to launch one of his witticisms, he fixed his eyes intently on his
interlocutor, as if to call his attention to the good thin