has sent me a memorandum from Cairns, which contains all I required. Hardy gives a dinner to the party to-morrow: Cairns to-day to Lords and Commons.

Give my kind regards to your father and sister. I hope every hour to have another telegram that his amendment has become convalescence. I cannot say I agree with

All my friends admire my rooms. them, but things may mend.

Fortunately for Disraeli the political crisis which resulted in Gladstone's abortive resignation immediately supervened. He had something therefore to distract his thoughts; but his loneliness in his hotel weighed heavily upon him, and in his letters to Corry he constantly harped on his miserable state,' his 'melancholy,'' the heaviness and misery' of his life. Corry could not return to him, as the elder Corry's illness became increasingly serious and ended fatally in March. Disraeli said to Malmesbury with tears in his eyes, I hope some of my friends will take notice of me now in my great misfortune, for I have no home, and when I tell my coachman to drive home I feel it is a mockery.' His friends responded to his appeal, and did their best to cheer him up by asking him to dine with them quietly.

To Montagu Corry.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, Feb. 10, 1873.-. . . All yesterday, rumors of a crisis were in the air. At Lionel's 1 where I was asked to a family circle I found, to my annoyance, not merely Charles Villiers and Osborne, whom I look upon as the family, but Lords Cork and Houghton. The political excitement was great, and not favorable to the position of Ministers: but Lionel told me afterwards, that he had seen the Bill (Delane had shown it him). Would you believe it, I was so distrait, and altogether embarrassed, that I never asked him a question about it?

This morning I was obliged to go to Middleton's about the picture, which is virtually finished. He has altered the expression, but not hit the mark. I have made some suggestions, but am not sanguine about them. . . .

1 Baron Lionel de Rothschild.

2 Of Lady Beaconsfield; see Frontispiece.

1873]

QUIET DINNERS WITH FRIENDS

235

Adieu! mon très cher. I never wanted you more, but it is

selfish to say so. Feb. 17.-. I was much pleased with the portrait, and the frame, which is exquisite. He has succeeded in giving to the countenance an expression of sweet gravity, which is characteristic.

Feb. 18.-. . . I dined yesterday at the Carlton: latish and was not annoyed. The John Manners asked me again for tomorrow, but I declined. On Thursday I am to dine with the Cairns and meet the Hardys, and on Friday alone with the Stanhopes: Saturday alone with my Countess: 1 so all my plans of absolute retirement are futile. I regret this, for every visit makes me more melancholy- though hotel life in an evening is a cave of despair.

I was with Brunnow an hour to-day and Madame would come down, and kiss me!

March 1.- Your letter greatly distressed me, and I have been in hopes of receiving a telegram.

I have been dining out every day, but only with my host and hostess alone and sometimes a very friendly fourth. Yesterday, at the John Manners', with Duke of Rutland; and on Thursday at the Stanhopes' with dear Henry,2 who received two despatches from Marlboro' House, during the dinner. I dine with dear Henry to-day to meet B. Osborne alone: and to-morrow with the Malmesburys; it is better than dining here alone, which is intolerable, or at a club, which, even with a book, is not very genial.

March 7.-Your silence, my best and dearest Montagu, was ominous of your impending woe. What can I say to you, but express my infinite affection? Death has tried you hard during the last few months, but you have shown, in the severe proof, admirable qualities, which all must admire and love.

I should be glad to hear some tidings of your sister: as for myself, I am a prisoner, and almost prostrate, with one of those atmospheric attacks which the English persist in calling 'colds,' and, for the first time in my life, am absent from House of Commons in the midst of a pitched battle.

But these are nothings compared to your sorrows. Though I cannot soften, let me share, them.

April 4.-... To-day I went by appointment to New Court, expecting to do business: nothing done. Lionel there, but not well: a terrible luncheon of oysters and turtle prepared, and 1 Apparently Lady Chesterfield, or perhaps Lady Cardigan. 2 Lord Henry Lennox.

still a young heart, it is due to that influence.' With all the women who influenced his life he kept up a constant correspondence of a romantic and sentimental kind, in which he revealed, not merely his doings, but his thoughts and his character. A she-correspondent for my money,' was the exclamation of one of his exuberant youthful heroes; and it is to the fact that he carried on throughout his life a copious correspondence with women that our knowledge of the real Disraeli is largely due.

With Lady Beaconsfield's death the last of the women with whom he had hitherto enjoyed this sympathetic intercourse passed away; and he was left for the time widowed indeed. Few men at his age sixty-eight would have had the freshness of heart to form new attachments, and to resume with others the sentimental and romantic intimacy which had proved so stimulating an influence; and of those who still possessed sufficient youthfulness for the adventure, most would have been prevented, especially if public men, by the fear of incurring censure and ridicule. But Disraeli's affections were still warm, and craved sympathetic understandings; nor was he to be deterred by possible ridicule from following their dictates. He spoke for himself when he wrote a few years earlier in Lothair1: 'Threescore and ten, at the present day, is the period of romantic passions. As for our enamoured sexagenarians, they avenge the theories of our cold-hearted youth.'

Among those who showed him special kindness in his early months of loneliness and desolation were two sisters, whom he had long known in society, Lady Chesterfield and Lady Bradford. Anne Countess of Chesterfield was the eldest, and Selina Countess of Bradford was the youngest, of five sisters, daughters of the first Lord Forester, the head of an ancient Shropshire family. Of the other sisters one married Lord Carrington's eldest son, Robert John Smith, and died young in 1832, before her husband succeeded to the title. She was of course a neighbour of the

1 Ch. 35.

after that nothing settled. This was disgusting. I dine with the Stanhopes to-day. On Wednesday last a rather full party at Grillion's: the last dinner at the bankrupt Clarendon [hotel]. Salisbury was there, and Lowe.

To the Duchess of Abercorn.

12, GEORGE STREET, HANOVER SQUARE, May 18, '73.— It is most kind of you, and of his Grace, to remember me: but I am, really, living in seclusion, so far as general society is concerned, and therefore, I am sure you will permit me to decline your obliging invitation for the 24th.

Your 'boys' deserve kindness and encouragement, because they are clever and, above all, industrious, and perhaps, also, because they inherit the agreeable qualities of their parents.