Affectation, light-heartedness, and warm home feelings are strangely mixed in all this; and no one of his changing moods is what might be expected in a pilgrim to Jerusalem in search of spiritual light. But this was Disraeli--a character genuine and affectionate, whose fine gifts were veiled in foppery which itself was more than half assumed. His real serious feeling comes out prettily in a passage in which he sums up his Peninsular experiences. 'Spain is the country for adventure. A weak government resolves society into its original elements, and robbery becomes more honourable than war, inasmuch as the robber is paid and the soldier is in arrears. A wonderful ecclesiastical establishment covers the land with a privileged class.... I say nothing of their costume. You are wakened from your slumbers by the _rosario_, the singing procession by which the peasantry congregate to their labours. It is most effective, full of noble chants and melodious responses, that break upon the still fresh air and your ever fresher feelings in a manner truly magical. Oh, wonderful Spain! I thought enthusiasm was dead within me and nothing could be new. I have hit, perhaps, upon the only country which could have upset my theory, a country of which I have read little and thought nothing.' Health was really mending. 'This last fortnight,' he says, 'I have made regular progress, or rather felt, perhaps, the progress which I had already made. It is all the sun--not society or change of scene. This, however agreeable, is too much for me and ever turns me back. It is when I am alone and still that I feel the difference of my system, that I miss the old aches and am conscious of the increased activity and vitality and expansion of the blood.' [Sidenote: MALTA] After Spain Malta was the next halting-place; Malta, with its garrison and military society, was Gibraltar over again, with only this difference, that Disraeli fell in with a London acquaintance there in James Clay, afterwards member for Hull and a figure in the House of Commons.