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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“Eight shillings a week!” said Mr. St. Lys. “Can a labouring man with a family, perhaps of eight children, live on eight shillings a week!”
“Oh! as for that,” said Lord Marney; “they get more than that, because there is beer-money allowed, at least to a great extent among us, though I for one do not approve of the practice, and that makes nearly a shilling per week additional; and then some of them have potato grounds, though I am entirely opposed to that system.”
“And yet,” said Mr. St. Lys, “how they contrive to live is to me marvellous.”
“Oh! as for that,” said Lord Marney, “I have generally found the higher the wages the worse the workman. They only spend their money in the beer-shops. They are the curse of this country.”
“But what is a poor man to do,” said Mr. St. Lys; “after his day’s work if he returns to his own roof and finds no home: his fire extinguished, his food unprepared; the partner of his life, wearied with labour in the field or the factory, still absent, or perhaps in bed from exhaustion, or because she has returned wet to the skin, and has no change of raiment for her relief. We have removed woman from her sphere; we may have reduced wages by her introduction into the market of labour; but under these circumstances what we call domestic life is a condition impossible to be realized for the people of this country; and we must not therefore be surprised that they seek solace or rather refuge in the beer-shop.”
Lord Marney looked up at Mr. St. Lys, with a stare of high-bred impertinence, and then carelessly observed, without directing his words to him, “They may say what they like, but it is all an affair of population.”
“I would rather believe that it is an affair of resources,” said Mr. St. Lys; “not what is the amount of our population, but what is the amount of our resources for their maintenance.”
“It comes to the same thing,” said Lord Marney. “Nothing can put this country right but emigration on a great scale; and as the government do not choose to undertake it, I have commenced it for my own defence on a small scale. I will take care that the population of my parishes is not increased. I build no cottages and I destroy all I can; and I am not ashamed or afraid to say so.”
“You have declared war to the cottage, then,” said Mr. St. Lys, smiling. “It is not at the first sound so startling a cry as war to the castle.”
“But you think it may lead to it?” said Lord Mowbray.
“I love not to be a prophet of evil,” said Mr. St. Lys.
Lord Marney rose from his seat and addressed Lady Firebrace, whose husband in another part of the room had caught Mr. Jermyn, and was opening his mind on “the question of the day;” Lady Maud, followed by Egremont, approached Mr. St. Lys, and said, “Mr. Egremont has a great feeling for Christian architecture, Mr. St. Lys, and wishes particularly to visit our church of which we are so proud.” And in a few moments they were seated together and engaged in conversation.
Lord Mowbray placed himself by the side of Lady Marney, who was seated by his countess.
“Oh! how I envy you at Marney,” he exclaimed. “No manufactures, no smoke; living in the midst of a beautiful park and surrounded by a contented peasantry!”
“It is very delightful,” said Lady Marney, “but then we are so very dull; we have really no neighbourhood.”
“I think that such a great advantage,” said Lady Mowbray: “I must say I like my friends from London. I never know what to say to the people here. Excellent people, the very best people in the world; the way they behaved to poor dear Fitz-Warene, when they wanted him to stand for the county, I never can forget; but then they do not know the people we know, or do the things we do; and when you have gone through the routine of county questions, and exhausted the weather and all the winds, I am positively, my dear Lady Marney, aux abois, and then they think you are proud, when really one is only stupid.”
“I am very fond of work,” said Lady Marney, “and I talk to them always about it.”
“Ah! you are fortunate, I never could work; and Joan and Maud, they neither of them work. Maud did embroider a banner once for her brother; it is in the hail. I think it beautiful; but somehow or other she never cultivated her talent.”
“For all that has occurred or may occur,” said Mr. St. Lys to Egremont, “I blame only the Church. The church deserted the people; and from that moment the church has been in danger and the people degraded. Formerly religion undertook to satisfy the noble wants of human nature, and by its festivals relieved the painful weariness of toil. The day of rest was consecrated, if not always to elevated thought, at least to sweet and noble sentiments. The church convened to its solemnities under its splendid and almost celestial roofs amid the finest monuments of art that human hands have raised, the whole Christian population; for there, in the presence of God, all were brethren. It shared equally among all its prayer, its incense, and its music; its sacred instructions, and the highest enjoyments that the arts could afford.”
“You believe then in the efficacy of forms and ceremonies?”
“What you call forms and ceremonies represent the divinest instincts of our nature. Push your aversion to forms and ceremonies to a legitimate conclusion, and you would prefer kneeling in a barn rather than in a cathedral. Your tenets would strike at the very existence of all art, which is essentially spiritual.”
“I am not speaking abstractedly,” said Egremont, “but rather with reference to the indirect connection of these forms and ceremonies with another church. The people of this country associate them with an
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