. . • Av. Disratli *tavb at joUic

I would have said that the most modern of all nineteenth-century figures . . . was un- doubtedly Disraeli.—Mr. Macmillan.

There is something infinitely moving about the way in which Disraeli spent his Christmases during his last Government: alone . . . the the most modern of nineteenth-century figures.

To Lady Bradford

2, Whitehall Gardens, Xmas Day, 1876.— [Queen Victoria had refused him permission to leave London during the Near Eastern crisis.]. . . We had some other offerings yester- day.. . . In the evening came a Xmas card from the Faery, and signed V.R. & I. (Regina et Imperatrix), the first time I have received that signature. And an enormous packet. Un- folded, it took the shape of large folio volume —Faust, illustrated with a weird and romantic pencil, by a German artist. . . The binding of this volume exceeds in work and splendor all the treasures wh. Dr. Schliemann has disin- terred at Mycenae. . . .

This is Xmas Day and I dine quite

a lone. . .

I can give you no absolute information as to affairs; 99 out of a 100 will tell you that war is certain between Russia] and T[urkey]. But when everybody wishes for peace, and, most of all, Russia, I cannot help hoping that some golden bridge may be constructed, even if it be gilded, to extricate R. from its false position. Today when we were to have heard so much, nothing has yet arrived, which makes me wildly think that, at the last, something has been devised.

Modern, then, in some, if not in all, respects. To Lady Bradford

10, Downing Street, Xmas Day, 1877.— [This time, it was a Cabinet disagreement which kept him in London.] I wear my new muffetees today, wh. I believe is etiquette, tho' I discard, for a moment, another pair, which served me pleasantly, tho' they have not been with me very long. I change my colors according to the season, like a ritualist priest.

The 3rd vol. of the Prince's Life is one of the most important and one of the most interesting works that has appeared for a long time. Its predecessors did not, and could not, prepare us for anything so striking and excellent. All the incidents and characters are great, and won- derfully apposite to the present hour. I am delighted that you delight in it. . . . The main subject of course at this moment is invested with peculiar interest, but the book has charms irrespective of the main subject. . . .

Tomorrow I go to Windsor, and remain till the next day, when 1 come up to a Cabinet.

The muffetees, the political history, the journey to Windsor: it is, indeed, all recognisable enough.

To Lady Bradford

Hughenden Manor, Xmas Day, 1878.---[He was again alone, and ate a solitary dinner.) . . . It is not my throat that ails, it is my breast; and one always feels, with complaints of this kind, that we are in dangerous vicinage of the lungs. Hitherto I have escaped in that department, but my present attack is a severe one, and out of door life is almost impos- sible. . . .

The snow is falling fast and thick on a crust of a dozen inches. There only want snow balls to recall one's youth.

I have two secretaries in London. Mr. Tumor, my hunting secretary, is frostbound. He has seven hunters! Private secretaries are different from what they were in my days, when I was Lord Lyndhurst's, and hunted in Vale of Aylesbury on one horse! at the hazard of my life! I cd. afford no more. Exactly thirty years afterwards, when Lord Lonsdale was leaving the field, but did not like breaking uP his stable at Tring, he offered me the complete control and management of his stud there—as long as I liked. But it was too late. Everything, they say, comes too late. It is something if it conies. However, I can't complain of life. I have had a good innings, and cannot at all agree with the great King that all is vanity.

He was in better spirits again a year later, when he wrote to thank the Queen for her annual present :

t o Queen Victoria

Ilughenden Manor, Xmas Day, j879',11, . . . Your Majesty has again added 10 chamber where [Lord Beaconsfield) will pron. ably pass the greater part of future days, tha.r may yet await him, a beautiful volume, fa'r alike in form and subject, one of those books' which one may recur to, again and again. Lord Beaconsfield is infinitely touched by this act. It is not merely that the sight of rutthi, beautiful volumes in his library will remind him, that he has had the honor of being the confidant and counsellor of a great Sovereign, and that too at a critical period of her Empire; but that the gracious Mistress, to whom he was thus bound by the highest sense of duty. was a being, who deigned to acknowledge, bet"ecn herself and her servant, other sources of q"._- pathy than the cares of Empire, and found them in that mutual love of the fine arts, of id).0 yr. Majesty is instinctively appreciative, and which yr. Majesty's tastes were trained as developed by one, who in that, and alma

,:d

in every department requiring intelligence sensibility, was himself consummate. Lord Beaconsfield ventures to send, this home which yr. Majesty has honored,his earnest wishes for yr. Majesty's private IlaPPI." ness, and for the fame and glory of your reign" We can leave him, a year later, alone again and in these two cards I have in- k.

last

bowed by cares, on what was to be his

Christmas.

Somewhere,

scribed for him, the most modern of twentieth" century Prime Ministers should find the con- solations I wish him at this season.