The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-05-06

their home felicity. Disraeli purchased Hugh
enden Manor from the Norris family, and Mrs.
Disraeli did with il, while she lived, what
she pleased. The handsome mansion was
more than half hidden by beeches and elms,
and the gardens and coIservatories were ex-
ceedingly beautiful. In little basket car
rage, behind shaggy black pony called Jack,
Mrs. Disraeli was accustomed to ride around
among her husbands neighbors and tenantry.
with smiles Tor her social equals, and an open
hand for those of poorer station. At her in
stance Mr.. Disraeli long since built convent
ent and well appointed school house, in con-
nection with st. Mlchael's Church, where they
were to be seen kneeliDg together every Sun
day when Parliament was not in session.
They both took deep interest in the laborers'
families OH their estate, aud each cottage was
little model of convenience and comfort. It
Is not surprising that this fond couple should
nave been regarded as something more than
common clay by the simple country folks
thereabouts
After having passed through nearly thirty
years together, thirty years in which his politi-
cal career had been wellhigh uIbroken sue
cession of defeats, there came day. in 1868,
when the queen offered him a coronet He
declined it, but asked her majesty to bestow
the honor upon his wife, and she accordingly
became Viscountess Beaconfeld. little over
four years later, i'll December, 1872, she died,
and the world knows that what Carlyle said of
his Jeanie was true of Disraeli alsor-"the light
of my life has gone out" On foot, with un-
covered head, and alone he followed her re-
mains to the crypt of the little church OF st.
Michaefs, which he soon after restored and
beautified in her gracious memory.
SHAKING CARLYLE FROM HIS PEDESTAL.
London Telegraph
Thanks to Mr.. Froude we now know that
Carlyle was too much what The French call
"faux bonhomme"-that he cringed and
fawned, when young, ambitious aud obscure,
upon men and women whom, when successful
and famous, he mercilessly and uDjustly as
sailed and vilifed, although in many cases
they were at least as great as himself; that he
had no sympathy with much that was admra-
BILE in the perhaps pushing but always pro-
gressive civilization by which he was sur
rounded; that he lacked eyes to perceive mer-
its, while his alacrity to discern faults and
weaknesses was singular and abnormal; that
he was insatiably vain and egotistical; that
envy and self complacency perturbed and
made him querulous; that he had little or no
generosity; and that, finally, he was incorrigi-
bly, weak. To this weakness, which rendered
him incapable before he died of destroying the
evidences of spite and spleen with which his
diary and so-called "Reminiscences" teemed,
we now owe it that Mr.. Froude has had an op-
portunity of taking his hero from the exalted
occupied, and of exhibiting him as made Of
very ordinary clay. 1t is a sad and humiliat-
ing revelation. Carlyle, above all other men
who lived in his time, was sun upon which
there ought to have been no spots at all; or, If
that be impossible III q man of mortal mould,
no spots which were to be exposed and held up
In scorn to succeeding generations.
IL is with Mr.. Froude rather than with his
damaged hero that the blame must primarily
rest. We who read Caryles ill-mannered sat.
rl N orla V.at.a IN .lrA1x.
coant of it to think less of ella" so much as
to marvel at the unappreciative lack of gym
pathy disclosed by his reviler. Despite ''the
insuperable, prociivity to- gin in poor old
Lamb" he has been dead for more than GEN.
GRAFTON, yet is still alive.
The tendency of public opinion, outraged BY
the sad disclosures of himself made by Carlyle
in these unfortunate "Reminscences' is at
this moment to pronounce that many of his
works will not long survive their author Our
belief, however, Is that one, certainly, Of Mr.
Carlyle's works will entitle him permanently
to seat among the immortals of literature.
We are of one mind with Charles Dickens,
who, iii the preface to his "Tale of Two Cit
les, speaks of the "French Revolution" as
"Mr. Carlyles wonderful book" Two episodes
in this wonderful book the march of the
Menads to Versailles and the assassination Of
Marat by Charlotte Corday-are composed of
such stuff as men "will not willingly let de-"
and once read they are stamped indelibly upon
the memory.
The truth is that in one department of liter
ary duty, anu that the highest, Mr.. Carlyle has
had few, If any, suDeriors in English literature,
and that in other departments he was not 80
remarkable. AS fierce denouncer OF shams
and hypocrisies, as voice earnestly warning
his fellows, in season and out of season, "to do
their little stroke OF work fearessly and man.
fully, and not to fancy that it can ever be q
great stroke" he is above all praise but, as a
commentator upon the literary merits Of 9TH
ers, faster of their works, an appraiser of
their gifts and qualities, he is utterly ungifted,
and the only wonder is that this defect in his
hero should have escaped Mr.. Froude. These
sad and painful "reminiscences" excite the
same feeling which was aroused by q perusal
OF Mr.. Charies Greville's "Memoirs"-the feel
ing in each case being that the editors were
wofully unequal to the office committed to
their charge. To shoot from behind the safe
screen OF the grave poisoned arrows which
grievously wound and pain many of the living
Is, OF course, an i'll service to the dead man by
whose hands these arrows were fashioned. But
1t has long been, and, so long as human nature
remains what it now is, it will always be, the
custom with writers OF memoirs and keepers Of
diaries to be published after death to leave to
their literary executors the largest discretion
as to the employment of the materials confided
to their trust, and as to the time when these
materials are to see the light, There are those
who still maintain that Moore did we'll to dc.
stroy the private memoirs of Byron relating to
certain passages of his life. 1t may be that
some will regret that Mr.. Froude did not do
the same with a large portion of the reminis-
cences of Thomas Carlyle.