Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (book recommendations website TXT) 📕
Description
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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“And what do you propose doing?”
“Has he a wife?”
“I really do not know. I wish Charles would come, perhaps he could tell us.”
“I have no doubt he has,” said Lady St. Julians. “One would have met him, somehow or other in the course of two years, if he had not been married. Well, married or unmarried, with his wife, or without his wife—I shall send him a card for Wednesday.” And Lady St. Julians paused, overwhelmed as it were by the commensurate vastness of her idea and her sacrifice.
“Do not you think it would be rather sudden?” said Lady Deloraine.
“What does that signify? He will understand it; he will have gained his object; and all will be right.”
“But are you sure it is his object? We do not know the man.”
“What else can be his object?” said Lady St. Julians. “People get into Parliament to get on; their aims are indefinite. If they have indulged in hallucinations about place before they enter the House, they are soon freed from such distempered fancies; they find they have no more talent than other people, and if they had, they learn that power, patronage and pay are reserved for us and our friends. Well then like practical men, they look to some result, and they get it. They are asked out to dinner more than they would be; they move rigmarole resolutions at nonsensical public meetings; and they get invited with their women to assemblies at their leader’s where they see stars and blue ribbons, and above all, us, whom they little think in appearing on such occasions, make the greatest conceivable sacrifice. Well then, of course such people are entirely in one’s power, if one only had time and inclination to notice them. You can do anything with them. Ask them to a ball, and they will give you their votes; invite them to dinner and if necessary they will rescind them; but cultivate them, remember their wives at assemblies and call their daughters, if possible, by their right names; and they will not only change their principles or desert their party for you; but subscribe their fortunes if necessary and lay down their lives in your service.”
“You paint them to the life, my dear Lady St. Julians,” said Lady Deloraine laughing; “but with such knowledge and such powers, why did you not save our boroughs?”
“We had lost our heads, then, I must confess,” said Lady St. Julians. “What with the dear King and the dear Duke, we really had brought ourselves to believe that we lived in the days of Versailles or nearly; and I must admit I think we had become a little too exclusive. Out of the cottage circle, there was really no world, and after all we were lost not by insulting the people but by snubbing the aristocracy.”
The servant announced Lady Firebrace. “Oh! my dear Lady Deloraine. Oh! my dear Lady St. Julians!” and she shook her head.
“You have no news, I suppose,” said Lady St. Julians.
“Only about that dreadful Mr. Trenchard; you know the reason why he ratted?”
“No, indeed,” said Lady St. Julians with a sigh.
“An invitation to Lansdowne House, for himself and his wife!”
“Oh! he is married then?”
“Yes; she is at the bottom of it all. Terms regularly settled beforehand. I have a note here—all the facts.” And Lady Firebrace twirled in her hand a bulletin from Mr. Tadpole.
“Lansdowne House is destined to cross me,” said Lady St. Julians with bitterness.
“Well it is very provoking,” said Lady Deloraine, “when you had made up your mind to ask them for Wednesday.”
“Yes, that alone is a sacrifice,” said Lady St. Julians.
“Talking over the division I suppose,” said Egremont as he entered.
“Ah! Mr. Egremont,” said Lady St. Julians. “What a hachis5 you made of it.”
Lady Firebrace shook her head, as it were reproachfully.
“Charles,” said Lady Deloraine, “we were talking of this Mr. Trenchard. Did I not once hear you say you knew something of him?”
“Why, he is one of my intimate acquaintance.”
“Heavens! what a man for a friend!” said Lady St. Julians.
“Heavens!” echoed Lady Firebrace raising her hands.
“And why did you not present him to me, Charles,” said Lady Deloraine.
“I did; at Lady Peel’s.”
“And why did you not ask him here?”
“I did several times; but he would not come.”
“He is going to Lansdowne House, though,” said Lady Firebrace.
“I suppose you wrote the leading article in the Standard which I have just read,” said Egremont smiling. “It announces in large type the secret reasons of Mr. Trenchard’s vote.”
“It is a fact,” said Lady Firebrace.
“That Trenchard is going to Lansdowne House tonight; very likely. I have met him at Lansdowne House half-a-dozen times. He is very intimate with the family and lives in the same county.”
“But his wife,” said Lady Firebrace; “that’s the point: he never could get his wife there before.”
“He has none,” said Egremont very quietly.
“Then we may regain him,” said Lady St. Julians with energy. “You shall make a little dinner to Greenwich, Mr. Egremont, and I will sit next to him.”
“Fortunate Trenchard!” said Egremont. “But do you know I fear he is hardly worthy of his lot. He has a horror of fine ladies; and there is nothing in the world he more avoids than what you call society. At home, as this morning when I breakfasted with him, or in a circle of his intimates, he is the best company in the world; no one so well informed, fuller of rich humour, and more sincerely amiable. He is popular with all who know him—except Taper, Lady St. Julians, and Tadpole, Lady Firebrace.”
“Well, I think I will ask him still for Wednesday,” said Lady St. Julians; “and I will write him a little note. If society is not his object,
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