'Why so? Representation is not necessarily, or even in a principal sense, Parliamentary. Parliament is not sitting at this moment: and yet the nation is represented in its highest as well as in its most minute interests. Not a grievance escapes notice and redress. I see in the newspapers this morning that a pedagogue has brutally chastised his pupil. It is a fact known over all England--opinion is now supreme, and opinion speaks in print. The representation of the Press is far more complete than the representation of Parliament. Parliamentary representation was the happy device of a ruder age, to which it was admirably adapted. But it exhibits many symptoms of desuetude. It is controlled by a system of representation more vigorous and comprehensive, which absorbs its duties and fulfils them more efficiently.... Before a royal authority, supported by such a national opinion, the sectional anomalies of our country would disappear. Under such a system even statesmen would be educated. We should have no more diplomatists who could not speak French, no more bishops ignorant of theology, no more generals-in-chief who never saw a field. There is a polity adapted to our laws, our institutions, our feelings, our manners, our traditions: a polity capable of great ends, and appealing to high sentiments: a polity which, in my opinion, would render government an object of national affection, would terminate sectional anomalies, and extinguish Chartism.' Disraeli was singularly regardless of the common arts of party popularity. He had spoken in defence of the Chartists when he was supposed to be bidding for a place under Sir Robert Peel; he had used language about Ireland, sweeping, peremptory, going to the heart of the problem, which Whig and Tory must have alike resented; and he had risked his seat by his daring. He was now telling the country, in language as plain as Carlyle's, that Parliament was an effete institution--and the House of Commons which he treated so disdainfully was in a few years to choose him for its leader. The anomalies in Disraeli's life grow more astonishing the deeper we look into them. [Sidenote: 'SYBIL']