Such, then, were for him the equipments of career. Of its arts in attaining what it designs to exercise for the good of others, much will have been gleaned from many citations as to tact and temper. There is one other maxim of worldly wisdom which is worth recording: “If you wish a man to be your friend, allow him to confute you.” His idea of power was that it was “a divine trust,” but it was also a cumulative fund. “The very exercise of power only teaches me that it may be wielded for a greater purpose.” Mrs. Disraeli said, when her husband had, in his own words, “climbed to the top of the greasy pole at last,” “You don’t know my Dizzy, what great plans he has long matured for the good and greatness of England. But they have made him wait and drudge so long--and now time is against him.” It is not here my province to track the details of his own career. This book deals with his ideas. But with the interesting psychology of his early temperament I mean to deal, for it concerns his ideas. I might, had his career been within my scope, have cleared some doubts, and explained many misunderstandings. I could have shown, as I have shown elsewhere, the real truth about the Peel letter, and the events of 1851-52. I should have pointed out the dividing lines in his campaign and the halting-places in his march, the Eastern tour, his marriage, his estrangement from Peel, the Crimean War, his steady progress in social improvements, his Reform Bills of 1859 and 1867, the strong effect on his outlook of events of magnitude, and the last act of the drama--his imperialism. I might also have explained the moot points connected with the years 1833, 1835, 1837, 1846, 1851, and 1860.[184] I might, perhaps, have been able to shed light on the delayed Malmesbury despatches in 1859. Nor should I have shirked his mistakes, notably the motion of censure on Lord Palmerston. And I would have dwelt on the striking influences which his sister and his wife exercised over him. But one brief topic I shall skim before I finally trace something of his own peculiar development.