This was one side of him in those early years; another was equally remarkable. He intended to excel among his fellow-creatures, and to understand what men and women were like was as important to him as to understand books. The reputation of Vivian Grey's father--in other words, his own father--had always made him an honoured guest in the great world. For this reason he had been anxious that his son should be as little at home as possible, for he feared for a youth the fascination of London society. This particular society was what Disraeli was most anxious to study, and was in less danger from it than his father fancied. He was handsome, audacious, and readily made his way into the circle of the family acquaintances. 'Contarini was a graceful, lively lad, with enough of dandyism to prevent him from committing _gaucheries_, and with a devil of a tongue.' 'He was never at a loss for a compliment or a repartee,' and 'was absolutely unchecked by foolish modesty.' 'The nervous vapidity of my first rattle,' says the _alter ego_ Vivian, 'soon subsided into a continuous flow of easy nonsense. Impertinent and flippant, I was universally hailed as an original and a wit. I became one of the most affected, conceited, and intolerable atoms that ever peopled the sunbeam of society.' The purpose which lay behind Disraeli's frivolous outside was as little suspected by those who saw him in the world as the energy with which he was always working in his laborious hours. The stripling of seventeen was the same person as the statesman of seventy, with this difference only, that the affectation which was natural in the boy was itself affected in the matured politician, whom it served well as a mask or as a suit of impenetrable armour. CHAPTER III The Austen Family--Choice of a Profession--Restlessness--Enters a Solicitor's Office--'Vivian Grey'--Illness--Travels Abroad--Migration of the Disraelis to Bradenham--Literary Satires--'Popanilla'--Tour in the East--Gibraltar--Cadiz--Seville--Mountain Adventures--Improved Health--Malta--James Clay--Greece--Yanina--Redshid Pasha--Athens--Constantinople--Plains of Troy and Revolutionary Epic--Jaffa--Jerusalem--Egypt--Home Letters--Death of William Meredith--Return to England. [Sidenote: DREAMS AND AMBITIONS]