Imagine, then, a romantic figure, a Southern shape in a Northern setting, a kind of Mediterranean Byron; for the stock of the Disraelis hailed from the _Sephardim_--Semites who had never quitted the midland coasts, and were powerful in Spain before the Goths. The form is lithe and slender, with an air of repressed alertness. The stature, above middle height. The head, long and compact; its curls, fantastic. The oval face, pale rather than pallid, with dark almond eyes of unusual depth, size, and lustre under a veil of drooping lashes. The chin, pointed with decision. The expression holds one, by turns keen and pensive; about it hovers a strange sense of inner watchfulness and ambushed irony, half mocking in defiance, half eager with conscious power. A languid reserve marks his bearing; it conceals a smouldering vehemence; its observant silence prepares amazement directly interest excites intercourse. Then indeed the scimitar, as it were, flashes forth unsheathed, and dazzles by its breathless fence of words with ideas. This ardour is not always pleasant; it breathes of storm; it speaks out elemental passions and grates against the smooth edges of civilisation. In the London medley he, like his friend Bulwer, studies a purposed posture. Dandyism and listlessness mask unsleeping energy. But at Bradenham, his constant retreat, the “Hurstley” of his last novel, all is natural and unconstrained. Here at least he is free. Here he “drives the quill” with his famous father, reads and rides, meditates and is mirthful. Here, with that gifted sister “Sa”--“Sa,” a name soon afterwards doubly endeared to him through Lord Lyndhurst’s daughter; “Sa,” who, while others doubt or twit, ever believes in and heartens him--he dreams, improvises, discourses. The rest may treat him as a moonstruck Bombastes,[12] but his lofty visions are real to the gentle insight of affection. In the language of Shakespeare’s fine colloquy:-- “‘Say what thou art that talk’st of Kings and Queens?’-- ‘More than I seem, and less than I was born to.’-- ‘Aye, but thou talk’st as if thou wert a King!’-- ‘Why, so I am in mind, and that’s enough.’” [Illustration: DISRAELI THE YOUNGER _After a water colour by A. E. Chalon_]