Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-04-19
Aancdster ftlteIltgetlrer.
TUESDAY EVENING. APRIL 10. 1881


TUESDAY EVENING. APRIL 10. 1881.
"The Glery, Jest and Riddle"
1t was indeed marvellous career that
had been run by the cratic genius whose
light went out this morning just as the
sun, which never sets on England's do
main, walked the sea-girt kingdom to the
life and light of day. The whole secret
and handspring of Benjamin Disraeli's
career is expressed in his threat that
time when he sat down in the House of
Commons, after his first discontinue
and amid the gibes Of the opposition.
He said " I have begun many times sew
eral things and I have often succeeded at
last. Aye, sir, and though 1 sit down
now the time will come when this House
shall listen to me-" And he kept his
word. They heard him at last. And
the whole world heard him, and up to
his latest breath waited with keen eager
ness for everything he should say and
write.
He had all the infirmities of genius
and more than beset most men of genius
who accomplish anything like the sue
cess which he attained. For whatever
view others may take of his career it was
crowned with what he deemed success.
He gained what he undertook when he
set out, and 50 long as the race develops
individuality of character, success for
each man will be gauged by the approach
which he makes to the complete fulfill
ment of his undertakings. Beaconsfield
was by no means the first man of his
age, not even in England but no career
of the Victorian reign has been invested
with so much of melodramatic interest.
His career has been almost cOntempora-
neous with that Of his gracious lady SOW
ereign, and in the course of nature the
one cannot be long extended beyond the
end uf the other. There were many men,
however, in the Victorian regime, who
have left deeper impress upon England
and her institutions than the strange
character who has SO long survived them.
Disraeli turned even his il,iirmities to
account and his eccentricities-natura
or affected-were large part of his
stock in trade. His trade was "Jingo-
ism" in literature and politics. The
grotesque raiment of "a bottle green
frock coat, white waist coat of Dick
Swiveller cut and dimensions, breast
glittering with chains rs thick as the
frogging of an Austrian hussar, trousers
of large pattern and loud color, swing
ing like petticoats in the amplitude Of
their dimensions, - in which he made
his appearance in Parliament, only made
the rhetorical failure of this fantastic
figure the more conspicuous. This was
no reason for him to abandon it and he
never did. His descent from a long
prescribed race only made his rise the
more interesting and his race for the
premiership gained for him public SYM
pathy all the more because the Jew was
SO long excluded from political opportu-
nifty in England; O'Connell's taunt at
1.-the lineal descendant of the impeni-
tent thief :" might have withered the
budding career of a smaller man.
An apostate in religion, a renegade in
politics, cynic in morals, an adventurer
in society, a flash i'm literature, a mere
tricious orator, now exalted to the
highest pitch of popularity by his tri-
umph at Berlin, a broken idol after the
popular verdict Oh his Eastern policy,
his career is an anomaly in English his
tory. 1t has in it so little of the sincerity
and consistency which have been char
acteristic Of most great Englishmen,
and which are the enduring qualities of
his rival Gladstone. In its bizarre
character it is rather of the French type
of success, and that this "apotheosis of
sham should have at any time been the
most commanding figure in England, is
the proof of the exalted genius of the
man.
He set out to apotheOsize sham and
adhered steadily to his purpose until sue
cess crowned it. Whatever be thought
Of the loftiness Of his aim, there can be
no dispute about the commanding gen
ius which adopted the means and forced
the results that he did. He will take a
second place in history, but in that other
science of biography, which is rapidly
coming into Importance in the study Of
human character, Disraeli's will long be
the most curious and romantic of mod
ern times. Comets have an inferior
place in the celestial economy ::to planets
and fixed stars, but they add much en-
tertainment to the study Of astronomy.
ONE of our Oldest, best established
and most reliable local business firms,
which had long declined to fall into the
excellent habit of advertising, at last
yields to the prevailing idea and recog-
nizes the substantial results of such en-
terprise. Far-sighted and successful