“I shall have to refer you to Mr. Disraeli. I know that to have been a very happy marriage. I met Mr. Disraeli and his wife at Munich, when they were on their wedding tour. At the principal hotel we met at the breakfast table. Mr. Disraeli sat by the side of his newly made wife. He might have been, or at least looked, about 30 years old. His intensely black hair smoothed to perfection. At that time he had become famous as an author. Everything seemed noticeably new about him. Mrs. Disraeli appeared like a kind-hearted, middle-aged English woman, and Disraeli seemed the one to carry the idea that he had drawn the prize. Time has shown how devoted they were to each other. In the last few months we hear of his walking by her side and supporting her tenderly. She must have been nearly, if not quite, 80. In my opinion Disraeli is one of the most remarkable men of this age when we remember the obstacles he had to overcome to reach the position he occupies in England. The prejudice which exists there against his Jewish faith alone is enough to chill the most ambitious.” A book was drawn from a side table which had been printed in 1460. It was in the German language, and, with one exception, it is as perfect as a book published yesterday. Its binding would shame our best modern work. “This,” said the man in gray, “reminds me of a conversation I once had with Macaulay, as well as an incident of my school-boy days. The master once said to the scholars, ‘Can any of you tell me in which year printing was invented?’ No answer. ‘Remember, children, it was the year which contains the figure 4 three times.’ The small brains were greatly puzzled. At last one little fellow answers ‘1444’. When I grew older I tried to ascertain the proof of this; but I have never been able to find which year printing was invented. It was somewhere about 1450, and, from all I can learn, I am inclined at times to think the Dutch instead of the Germans made this discovery. I remember a long talk I had with Macaulay on this subject. I was on the side of the Dutch; he was for the Germans. At last he proposed that we should adjourn to the British Museum and search the authorities, and have this weighty matter decided. I did not go, but I have always regretted it. We all remember Macaulay’s Essay on Milton. I think it ranks with the best of his writings; yet he told me that he regretted nothing so much as its publication; and this proves the incompetency of authors to judge their own works.” We spoke about the changing seasons of human life, and the writer asked the statesman a question which lies very near to every woman’s soul. “Is beauty confined to one period of our existence? Infancy and childhood are only promises; the summer is something more; but give me the golden reality of October or the bracing chill of a December landscape if the intellectual powers are not on the wane.”