It was in connection with the opening of the New Gallery in the year 1888 that a little incident recurs to my memory that bears witness to the constant alertness of his powers of observation. After completing a survey of one of the larger rooms, he was about to take leave of me with the remark that he had seen as much as he could reasonably enjoy upon a single visit, and that he would return another day to complete his study of the remaining galleries. It happened that year that we had rather a remarkable piece of sculpture by a young artist who had suddenly died after the work had been sent in for exhibition, and I was anxious before he went to ascertain Mr. Gladstone’s opinion of the statue. “Before you go, Mr. Gladstone,” I said, “I should like to show you one of the sculptured works in the central hall which seems to me more than remarkable.” “Stay!” he cried. “Let me first show it to you,” and then without a moment’s hesitation he set himself in front of the work I had in my mind. “Is it this?” he said; and on my replying in the affirmative, “I was surprised,” he added, “when we passed through the hall that you did not direct my attention to so remarkable a work.” It happened at the Grosvenor Gallery that it also fell to my lot to conduct Lord Beaconsfield round the exhibition of drawings by the old masters then arranged upon the walls. The contrast between the two men showed itself characteristically enough on the occasion to which I refer. With sphinx-like face, and with hardly a spoken word, Lord Beaconsfield passed from the work of one great master to another, raising his eye-glass as he went, but displaying by no change of expression either criticism or appreciation, and at the finish he gracefully took his leave with a sentence that seemed to me, as he uttered it, to have been made ready for ultimate use even before he had entered the Gallery. The drawings of Titian and Giorgione, of Michael Angelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, had apparently left him cold. “I thank you,” he said, “for having been so good as to point out to me the examples of the great masters you admire, but I think for my part I prefer the eclectic school of the Caracci.” In that one sentence he seemed to bring back the atmosphere of his earlier novels, and to image the taste of England at a time when connoisseurs made the grand tour. His preference for the fashion of an earlier date in all matters appertaining to taste was, I suppose, deeply implanted in Disraeli’s nature, and I remember a story told me by Sir William Harcourt, which illustrates with what quiet and restrained sarcasm he could sometimes receive the announcement of a more modern development of thought.