“A great mind that thinks and feels is never inconsistent and never insincere.... Insincerity is the vice of a fool, and inconsistency the blunder of a knave.... Let us not forget an influence too much underrated in this age of bustling mediocrity--the influence of individual character. Great spirits may yet arise to guide the groaning helm through the world of troubled waters--spirits whose proud destiny it may still be at the same time to maintain the glory of the Empire and to secure the happiness of the people.” So wrote “Disraeli the Younger” during the perplexed crisis of 1833 in his rare pamphlet, _What is he?_[11] which embodies his own large attitude. The sentence is characteristic and prophetic. Its last words were repeated more than forty years afterwards in the message of farewell to his constituents, when he quitted the lively scene of his triumphs for that grave assemblage, of which he once said that its aptitudes were best rehearsed among the tombstones. In my last three chapters I shall touch on some unique phases of his boyhood, and outline several of his relations to his home, to society, to literature, to character, and to career. But here I shall attempt a less detailed account of his individuality and of the main ideas which flowed from it. And first let me venture on two glimpses--one of his youth, the other of his age. It is not difficult to collect from many scattered presentments some likeness of “The wondrous boy That wrote _Alroy_.”