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'--Tours 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 20 CHAPTER IV 'Contarini Fleming'--The poetical life--Paternal advice--A poet, or not a poet?--'Revolutionary Epic'--Disraeli submits to an unfavourable verdict--Success of the novels--Disraeli a new star--London society--Political ambition--Mrs. Wyndham Lewis--Financial embarrassments--Portraits of Disraeli by N. P. Willis--Lady Dufferin and others--Stands for High Wycombe--Speech at the Red Lion--Tory Radicalism--Friendship with Lord Lyndhurst--Self-confidence--Vindication of the British Constitution--Conservative reaction--Taunton election--Crosses swords with O'Connell--The Runnymede Letters--Admitted into the Carlton Club--'Henrietta Temple' and 'Venetia' 45 CHAPTER V Returned to Parliament for Maidstone--Takes his place behind Sir R. Peel--Maiden speech--Silenced by violence--Peel's opinion of it--Advice of Shiel--Second speech on Copyright completely successful--State of politics--England in a state of change--Break-up of ancient institutions--Land and its duties--Political economy and Free Trade--Struggle on the Corn Laws 67 CHAPTER VI Disraeli's beliefs, political and religious--Sympathy with the people--Defends the Chartists--The people, the middle-classes, and the aristocracy--Chartist Riots--Smart passage at arms in the House of Commons--Marriage--Mrs. Wyndham Lewis--Disraeli as a husband 83 CHAPTER VII The enthusiasm of progress--Carlyle and Disraeli--Protection and Free Trade--Sir Robert Peel the Protectionist champion--High Church movement at Oxford--The Church as a Conservative power--Effect of the Reform Bill--Disraeli's personal views--Impossible to realise--Election of 1841--Sir Robert Peel's Ministry--Drift towards Free Trade--Peel's neglect of Disraeli--Tariff of 1842--Young England--Symptoms of revolt--First skirmish with Peel--Remarkable speech on Ireland 91 CHAPTER VIII