Vivian GreyDisraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
ReligionIslamic
Vivian Grey
Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield
Bildungsromans; British -- Europe -- Fiction; Political fiction; Politicians -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
Fredrick Cleveland was educated at Eton and at Cambridge; and after
having proved, both at the school and the University, that he possessed
talents of a high order, he had the courage, in order to perfect them,
to immure himself for three years in a German University. It was
impossible, therefore, for two minds to have been cultivated on more
contrary systems than those of Frederick Cleveland and Vivian Grey. The
systems on which they had been educated were not, however, more
discordant than the respective tempers of the pupils. With that of
Vivian Grey the reader is now somewhat acquainted. It has been shown
that he was one precociously convinced of the necessity of managing
mankind, by studying their tempers and humouring their weaknesses.
Cleveland turned from the Book of Nature with contempt, and although his
was a mind of extraordinary acuteness, he was, at three-and-thirty, as
ignorant of the workings of the human heart as when, in the innocence of
boyhood, he first reached Eton.
Although possessed of no fortune, from his connections and the
reputation of his abilities, he entered Parliament at an early age. His
success was eminent. It was at this period that he formed a great
intimacy with the present Marquess of Carabas, then Under Secretary of
State. His exertions for the party to which Mr. Under Secretary Lorraine
belonged were unremitting; and it was mainly through their influence
that a great promotion took place in the official appointments of the
party. When the hour of reward came, Mr. Lorraine and his friends
unfortunately forgot their youthful champion. He remonstrated, and they
smiled: he reminded them of private friendship, and they answered him
with political expediency. Mr. Cleveland went down to the House, and
attacked his old comates in a spirit of unexampled bitterness. He
examined in review the various members of the party that had deserted
him. They trembled on their seats, while they writhed beneath the
keenness of his satire: but when the orator came to Mr. President
Lorraine, he flourished the tomahawk on high like a wild Indian
chieftain; and the attack was so awfully severe, so overpowering, so
annihilating, that even this hackneyed and hardened official trembled,
turned pale, and quitted the House. Cleveland’s triumph was splendid,
but it was only for a night. Disgusted with mankind, he scouted the
thousand offers of political connections which crowded upon him; and
having succeeded in making an arrangement with his creditors, he
accepted the Chiltern Hundreds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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