Lord Beaconsfield Viewed Psychologically
265 Art. X.
Very considerable difficulty must always be experienced in attempting to analyse the character of any individual in whom, at times, widely different types of intellectual fitness for great works have made themselves evident. The labour of accurately apportioning the degree and importance of varying attributes of mind is ever one of considerable magnitude, and the danger associated with the undertaking is of that twofold kind from which the object of the attempt, and the one who makes it, will both be likely to suffer. Just as sympathy is engendered with efforts directed to personal exaltation, so is there a possibility of diminished interest being excited on behalf of those higher and nobler aspirations that are directed towards attainment of wider benefits than can be those of immediate advantage to the designer of them ; and it is, perhaps, a detraction from the best qualities the late Earl of Eeaconsfield undoubtedly possessed in perfection, that, throughout his public career, self was a conspicuous factor in his creed. Whether we are justified, however, in regarding the proofs he has himself adduced of this predominant feeling as an indication, as some have not failed to urge, of psychical inferiority, may be advanced as a valid argument for discussion. It would be difficult to select any single historical name, and to say of its owner that his impulses were purely extra-personal; or that even the most admirable of them had been directed with the sole aim of securing advantages for the enjoyment of others rather than himself. Judged from a standpoint of pure intellectualism, Lord Beaconsfield, no less than any who are worthy to rank with him, commands the utmost homage in our power to bestow, and homage, too, that is almost involuntarily tendered on account of a disposition which, if not invariably self-sacrificing, was, at least, at all times patriotic in the most inclusive sense of the word. Patriotism was, in all that he did or said, a foremost consideration with him ; his acts all tended to the fulfilment of desires that had for their first aim the advancement and consolidation of national greatness; and how, with this fact before us, it may be asked, can we hesitate in bestowing frank and honest admiration for the determination which shone out in every attempt of his political life ? We do not intend in this place to pursue the consequences of any of these efforts, but to view them only as indicating the lines on which his active mind proceeded, and as tending to show the motives actuating him. They are sufficiently a matter of common knowledge to render any recapitulation of them unnecessary, but it is worth while spending a few moments in striving to dissect the feelings and motives to which they were primarily due.
In pursuing this attempt we must reflect for a moment on what were the salient features that marked the mental character of young Disraeli5 and forgetting the aspersions that have been so plentifully bestowed on him, it is not impossible to gather from his own words a good deal of enlightenment on the point. Ambitious he certainly was, but the ambition he displayed may not unjustly be taken as suggestive of his intense appreciation of the need for temporal power as a means towards performing works of general utility. He had a keen perception of the truth of this statement, and his earliest achievements exhibit him as one possessed of the idea inseparably connected with it. Moreover, he was speedily convinced that his devotion to mere business pursuits, however laudable in themselves, was little calculated to advance the aims even then held in view by him. Hence his speedy determination to eschew the limited field he thus early entered on for the wider arena of politics; and hence, too, the opportunity for hastily misjudging his ruling motives on the part of those who have striven to put a base construction on his endeavours. Except in the novels of young Benjamin Disraeli, we possess no means of estimating his thoughts at this period ; but in these works there is abundant proof that he was fired with desires that ought to exact an unfailing tribute of respect. The high-flown expressions of youthful genius, it is true, cloak and obscure many of the nobler fancies the pages picture forth, but there is no blinding ourselves to the fact that high desirings are embodied therein. It was the author’s belief that the world’s work could be accomplished through the world’s help, and this assistance he resolved to gain in order to fulfil the lofty mission defined in his own mind for himself. The mode of gaining that aid lay clear before him, and that mode was to command it. He must have seen the difficulties that beset his path?indeed, we know they presented themselves in full force to him?but it is honourable .to him that we can now declare they availed nothing to deter him from opposing them. But though he failed again and again, and yet again, to realise success at first, he never quailed before the appearance of impregnability presented by the obstacles he encountered. Mere hopes and personal aggrandisement would never have carried him so far in an apparently hopeless struggle, and though he might perhaps himself have sanctioned the explanation that amour propre incited him to renew his efforts, yet we are able at this time to afford a more exalted and a more fitting reason for the continued battle. It is undoubtedly dangerous to venture on the ascription of noble impulses to one who figures after all as more or less of an adventurer, but the proceeding is eminently justified in the case of Lord Beaconsrield. By a multiplicity of golden deeds he has repeatedly shown that mere self-desirings were never properly attributable to him; even in those positions where he had most the appearance of seeking his own individual advancement, careful examination of the motives guiding his conduct reveals that this was the outcome of suggestions prompted by other than personal aims. And so entirely throughout his life can this be said of him, that it will be profitable to inquire in what particular his special intellectual constitution contributed to bring about the result. As we have hinted, the patriotic sentiment largely influenced him ; but it is necessary to somewhat qualify the word as here employed, that it may include, outside and beyond love of country as being the home of adoption, an absorbing desire also to demonstrate the wisdom of that country’s trust in an alien race. Moral consciousness of his position, and inherent national desires, combined to make young Disraeli supremely anxious to vindicate at once the claim of his people to respect, and his individual claim to be the exponent ot’ its deserts. Accepting this view of his motive, we can trace its action on all the notable performances of his life, and everyone must also admire the persistence with which he ever held it before him. The taint of greed can have 110 right of association with the qualities which distinguished him, nor have we any means of showing that such an ill-feeling ever animated his endeavours, either publicly or privately, to advance the views he entertained. Thankless though the course may be, and is, to refute indefinite charges of this kind, the freedom with which they have from time to time been cast abroad, calls for some defence of their object. In many ways might he on frequent occasions have pandered to a craving for temporalities, had it existed. Disraeli’s mind, however, could not bring together two ideas so different as are those of mere personal gain and national progress. In forwarding the one he pursued his life’s ambition; of necessity he advanced along with it, and it is the triumph of his life that we can say of him his own glory was a reflection of that shed through his influence on the country he so devoteoly served.
Lord Beaconsfield was essentially a man of extreme intellectual activity. In some respects he thus bore resemblance to his illustrious political opponent, the present Prime Minister; bat in all that emanated from his mind there was the stamp of a philosophic spirit rather than the mark of laborious production, which distinguishes the mental character of Mr. Gladstone. Even in the most trivial utterances Disraeli always succeeded in concealing a thought or an idea, examination of which repaid the time spent in it; and in his finished pictures we all recognise, and unfailingly admire, the skill and subtlety of the man of genius, and the philosopher of social life. In his own analysis of character and aims, such, for instance, as are to be found in ‘ Coningsby,’ in ‘ Lothair,’ and, though less, certainly, perhaps in his last work, ‘ Endymion,’ we can discern most easily the sympathies uppermost in himself. Honest ambition he always defends, and the higher the goal the more surely is the aspirant favoured ; while for the inferior spirits who seek to ascend only to justify a paltry desire for personal advancement, no denunciation is too strong or too severe. Political opponents in the heat of controversy cannot be expected to weigh the difference between apparent and actual avarice. From this misfortune no one, possibly, ever suffered more than the late Earl; but when the heat of party passion had subsided, and a calm survey of the well-spent life was in the power of all, it is satisfactory to remember the generous enthusiasm with which all parties alike united in recognition of the dead man’s real worth.
The psychologist’s study of Lord Beaconsfield’s character is necessarily confined to a simple estimate of the powers he possessed, and the way in which their evolution was influenced by the circumstances surrounding his existence. The speciality of these lies in the fact that they were to a great extent moulded by himself, and were in many cases turned to sacrifice in behalf of aims in the fulfilment of whi^h he by no means was the first one interested, and in securing which nothing was left to chance which he conceived it in his capacity to accomplish. The men whose autobiographies make up the history of an age are all more or less spirits akin to this; and it is no uncertain test of the value of any individual person’s achievements that is afforded by the immediate appreciation in which they are held. In this particular respect Lord Beaconsfield is not likely to suffer by comparison with any who were his contemporaries, and in the one point of absolute intellectuality he can be compared with no one, since he was himself incomparable. Not that it is easy or perhaps possible to gauge the depths of his mentalism, so to speak, but we can form a fair estimate by admiration, of the diversified genius that was at once philosopher, romancist, psychologist, and politician. Lord Beaconsfield undoubtedly was a psychologist of a high order. Each one of his works exhibits him in this light; and every character he has drawn is a careful study of a type more or less familiar to every reader. Nor are the lessons taught by him in any way less than those a rigid moralist would deem advisable in the interests of common weal. Although he is careful to avoid exaggerations such as many lesser novelists have been guilty of, and which they have been led into under the impression that so only could they hope to point the sins against which their protest is raised, yet the influence of Disraeli’s novels in forming the character of the young who make a study of them, is now and will always be a potent factor in developing the minds of English youth. Very possibly they, alone, might not have so powerful a force, but they must ever possess the distinguishing feature that they are really an exposition in more or less precise terms of the conditions and motives under which the life of their author assumed its special shape. Apart from their literary excellence, they have a living interest, deathless as the monuments raised by the genius ot’ him they continually enshadow, and, like himself, the outcome of an age that made him while itself was made by him.
In his personal relations Lord Beaconsfield was especially happy. Homage he received spontaneously; there was no occasion to exact it; and the kindling story of his defiance of defeat, his steady perseverance in pursuit of the end set before himself, and his ultimate triumphant vindication of every lofty aspiration with which he commenced his career, failed not to attract to him the devoted friendship of those whose friendship was an act of grace. His wit was of a kind to serve him well; keen, and cruel even, when occasion called for its employment, it was never directed against the helpless, or invoked in vain on behalf of deserving objects. It never failed to hurt; it never hurt unfairly, or in an unjust cause. They can recall it who suffered by it; but even the most severely stung would probably now be the first to admit the justice of the rebuke conveyed by the punishment. More exhaustive memoirs must be consulted for the detailed history of Lord Beaconsfield’s life; we have sought here only to indicate a few of the points connected with his psychological development. :
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