Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (book recommendations website TXT) 📕
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Benjamin Disraeli was a remarkable historical figure. Born into a Jewish family, he converted to Anglican Christianity as a child. He is now almost certainly most famous for his political career. Becoming a member of the British Parliament at the age of 33, he initially rose to prominence within the Conservative (“Tory”) party because of his clashes with the then Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel. Rising to lead the Conservative Party, Disraeli became Prime Minister for a short period in 1868, and then for an extended period between 1874 and 1880. He became friendly with Queen Victoria and was appointed Earl of Beaconsfield by her in 1876.
However, Disraeli was much more than a politician. He wrote both political treatises and no less than seventeen novels during his lifetime, of which Sybil, or The Two Nations is now among the best regarded. The “Two Nations” of the subtitle refer to the divisions in Britain between the rich and the poor, each of whom might as well be living in a different country from the other. In the novel, Disraeli highlights the terrible living conditions of the poor and the shocking injustices of how they were treated by most employers and land-owners. He contrasts this with the frivolous, pampered lifestyles of the aristocracy. He covers the rise of the Chartist movement, which was demanding universal manhood suffrage—the right for all adult men to vote, regardless of whether they owned property—and other reforms to enable working men a voice in the government of the country. (Female suffrage was to come much later). The upheavals of the time led to the development of the People’s Charter and a massive petition with millions of signatures being presented to Parliament. However the Parliament of the time refused to even consider the petition, triggering violent protests in Birmingham and elsewhere. All of this is well covered and explained in the novel.
Sybil is rather disjointed in structure as it ranges over these different topics, but the main plot revolves around Egremont, the younger son of a nobleman, who encounters some of the leaders of the workers’ movement and in particular Walter Gerard, one of the most respected of these leaders, whom Egremont befriends while concealing his real name and social position. During visits to Gerard under an assumed name, Egremont falls for the beautiful and saintly Sybil, Gerard’s daughter, but she rejects him when his true identity is exposed. Sybil subsequently undergoes many difficult trials as the people’s movement develops and comes into conflict with the authorities.
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- Author: Benjamin Disraeli
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“I begin to think it’s the machines,” said Mrs. Trotman.
“Nonsense,” said Mr. Trotman; “it’s the corn laws. The town of Mowbray ought to clothe the world with our resources. Why Shuffle and Screw can turn out forty mile of calico per day; but where’s the returns? That’s the point. As the American gentleman said who left his bill unpaid, ‘Take my breadstuffs and I’ll give you a cheque at sight on the Pennsylvanian Bank.’ ”
“It’s very true,” said Mrs. Trotman. “Who’s there?”
“Nothing in my way?” said a woman with a basket of black cherries with a pair of tin scales thrown upon their top.
“Ah! Mrs. Carey,” said Chaffing Jack, “is that you?”
“My mortal self, Mr. Trotman, tho’ I be sure I feel more like a ghost than flesh and blood.”
“You may well say that Mrs. Carey; you and I have known Mowbray as long I should think as any in this quarter—”
“And never see such times as these Mr. Trotman, nor the like of such. But I always thought it would come to this; everything turned topsy-turvy as it were, the children getting all the wages, and decent folk turned adrift to pick up a living as they could. It’s something of a judgment in my mind, Mr. Trotman.”
“It’s the trade leaving the county, widow, and no mistake.”
“And how shall we bring it back again?” said the widow; “the police ought to interfere.”
“We must have cheap bread,” said Mr. Trotman.
“So they tell me,” said the widow; “but whether bread be cheap or dear don’t much signify, if we have nothing to buy it with. You don’t want anything in my way, neighbour? It’s not very tempting I fear,” said the good widow, in a rather mournful tone: “but a little fresh fruit cools the mouth in this sultry time, and at any rate it takes me into the world. It seems like business, tho’ very hard to turn a penny by; but one’s neighbours are very kind, and a little chat about the dreadful times always puts me in spirits.”
“Well, we will take a pound for the sake of trade, widow,” said Mrs. Trotman.
“And here’s a glass of gin and water, widow,” said Mr. Trotman, “and when Mowbray rallies you shall come and pay for it.”
“Thank you both very kindly,” said the widow, “a good neighbour as our minister says, is the pool of Bethesda; and as you say, Mowbray will rally.”
“I never said so,” exclaimed Chaffing Jack interrupting her. “Don’t go about for to say that I said Mowbray would rally. My words have some weight in this quarter widow; Mowbray rally! Why should it rally? Where’s the elements?”
“Where indeed?” said Devilsdust as he entered the Cat and Fiddle with Dandy Mick, “there is not the spirit of a louse in Mowbray.”
“That’s a true bill,” said Mick.
“Is there another white-livered town in the whole realm where the operatives are all working halftime, and thanking the capitalists for keeping the mills going, and only starving them by inches?” said Devilsdust in a tone of scorn.
“That’s your time of day,” said Mick.
“Very glad to see you, gentlemen,” said Mr. Trotman, “pray be seated. There’s a little baccy left yet in Mowbray, and a glass of twist at your service.”
“Nothing exciseable for me,” said Devilsdust.
“Well it ayn’t exactly the right ticket, Mrs. Trotman, I believe,” said Mick, bowing gallantly to the lady; “but ’pon my soul I am so thirsty, that I’ll take Chaffing Jack at his word;” and so saying Mick and Devilsdust ensconced themselves in the bar, while good-hearted Mrs. Carey, sipped her glass of gin and water, which she frequently protested was a pool of Bethesda.
“Well Jack,” said Devilsdust, “I suppose you have heard the news?”
“If it be anything that has happened at Mowbray, especially in this quarter, I should think I had. Times must be very bad indeed that someone does not drop in to tell me anything that has happened and to ask my advice.”
“It’s nothing to do with Mowbray.”
“Thank you kindly, Mrs. Trotman,” said Mick, “and here’s your very good health.”
“Then I am in the dark,” said Chaffing Jack, replying to the previous observation of Devilsdust, “for I never see a newspaper now except a week old, and that lent by a friend, I who used to take my Sun regular, to say nothing of the Dispatch, and Bell’s Life. Times is changed, Mr. Radley.”
“You speak like a book, Mr. Trotman,” said Mick, “and here’s your very good health. But as for newspapers, I’m all in the dark myself, for the Literary and Scientific is shut up, and no subscribers left, except the honorary ones, and not a journal to be had except the Moral World and that’s gratis.”
“As bad as the Temple,” said Chaffing Jack, “it’s all up with the institutions of the country. And what then is the news?”
“Labour is triumphant in Lancashire,” said Devilsdust with bitter solemnity.
“The deuce it is,” said Chaffing Jack. “What, have they raised wages?”
“No,” said Devilsdust, “but they have stopped the mills.”
“That won’t mend matters much,” said Jack with a puff.
“Won’t it?”
“The working classes will have less to spend than ever.”
“And what will the capitalists have to spend?” said Devilsdust.
“Worse and worse,” said Mr. Trotman, “you will never get institutions like the Temple reopened on this system.”
“Don’t you be afraid, Jack,” said Mick, tossing off his tumbler; “if we only get our rights, won’t we have a blowout!”
“We must have a struggle,” said Devilsdust, “and teach the capitalists on whom they depend, so that in future they are not to have the lion’s share, and then all will be right.”
“A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,” said Mick; “that’s your time of day.”
“It began at Staleybridge,” said Devilsdust, “and they have stopped them all; and now they have marched into Manchester ten thousand strong. They pelted the police—”
“And cheered the redcoats like blazes,” said Mick.
“The soldiers will fraternise,” said Devilsdust.
“Do what?” said Mrs. Trotman.
“Stick their bayonets into the capitalists who have hired them to
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