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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Lady Deloraine, prepared for the great result, was calm: Lady St. Julians, who had not anticipated it, was in a wild flutter of distracted triumph. A vague yet dreadful sensation came over her in the midst of her joy that Lady Deloraine had been beforehand with her; had made her combinations with the new Minister; perhaps even sounded the Court. At the same time that in this agitating vision the great offices of the palace which she had apportioned to herself and her husband seemed to elude her grasp; the claims and hopes and interests of her various children haunted her perplexed consciousness. What if Charles Egremont were to get the place which she had projected for Frederick or Augustus? What if Lord Marney became master of the horse? Or Lord Deloraine went again to Ireland? In her nervous excitement she credited all these catastrophes; seized upon “the Duke” in order that Lady Deloraine might not gain his ear, and resolved to get home as soon as possible, in order that she might write without a moment’s loss of time to Sir Robert.
“They will hardly go out without making some peers,” said Sir Vavasour Firebrace to Mr. Jermyn.
“Why, they have made enough.”
“Hem! I know Tubbe Swete has a promise, and so has Cockawhoop. I don’t think Cockawhoop could show again at Boodle’s without a coronet.”
“I don’t see why these fellows should go out,” said Mr. Ormsby. “What does it signify whether ministers have a majority of five, or ten or twenty? In my time, a proper majority was a third of the House. That was Lord Liverpool’s majority. Lord Monmouth used to say that there were ten families in this country who, if they could only agree, could always share the government. Ah! those were the good old times! We never had adjourned debates then; but sat it out like gentlemen who had been used all their lives to be up all night, and then supped at Watier’s afterwards.”
“Ah! my dear Ormsby,” said Mr. Berners, “do not mention Watier’s; you make my mouth water.”
“Shall you stand for Birmingham, Ormsby, if there be a dissolution?” said Lord Fitz-Heron.
“I have been asked,” said Mr. Ormsby; “but the House of Commons is not the House of Commons of my time, and I have no wish to re-enter it. If I had a taste for business, I might be a member of the Marylebone vestry.”
“All I repeat,” said Lord Marney to his mother, as he rose from the sofa where he had been some time in conversation with her, “that if there be any idea that I wish Lady Marney should be a lady in waiting, it is an error, Lady Deloraine. I wish that to be understood. I am a domestic man, and I wish Lady Marney to be always with me; and what I want I want for myself. I hope in arranging the household the domestic character of every member of it will be considered. After all that has occurred the country expects that.”
“But my dear George, I think it is really premature—”
“I dare say it is; but I recommend you, my dear mother, to be alive. I heard Lady St. Julians just now in the supper room asking the Duke to promise her that her Augustus should be a Lord of the Admiralty. She said the Treasury would not do, as there was no house, and that with such a fortune as his wife brought him he could not hire a house under a thousand a-year.”
“He will not have the Admiralty,” said Lady Deloraine.
“She looks herself to the Robes.”
“Poor woman!” said Lady Deloraine.
“Is it quite true?” said a great Whig dame to Mr. Egerton, one of her own party.
“Quite,” he said.
“I can endure anything except Lady St. Julian’s glance of triumph,” said the Whig dame. “I really think if it were only to ease her Majesty from such an infliction, they ought to have held on.”
“And must the household be changed?” said Mr. Egerton.
“Do not look so serious,” said the Whig dame, smiling with fascination; “we are surrounded by the enemy.”
“Will you be at home tomorrow early?” said Mr. Egerton.
“As early as you please.”
“Very well, we will talk then. Lady Charlotte has heard something; nous verrons.”
“Courage; we have the Court with us, and the country cares for nothing.”
XII“It is all right,” said Mr. Tadpole. “They are out. Lord Melbourne has been with the Queen and recommended her Majesty to send for the Duke, and the Duke has recommended her Majesty to send for Sir Robert.”
“Are you sure?” said Mr. Taper.
“I tell you Sir Robert is on his road to the palace at this moment; I saw him pass, full-dressed.”
“It is too much,” said Mr. Taper.
“Now what are we to do?” said Mr. Tadpole.
“We must not dissolve,” said Mr. Taper. “We have no cry.”
“As much cry as the other fellows,” said Mr. Tadpole; “but no one of course would think of dissolution before the next registration. No, no; this is a very manageable Parliament, depend upon it. The malcontent radicals who have turned them out are not going to bring them in. That makes us equal. Then we have an important section to work upon—the Sneaks, the men who are afraid of a dissolution. I will be bound we make a good working conservative majority of five-and-twenty out of the Sneaks.”
“With the Treasury patronage,” said Mr. Taper; “fear and favour combined. An impending dissolution, and all the places we refuse our own men, we may count on the Sneaks.”
“Then there are several religious men who have wanted an excuse for a long time to rat,” said Mr. Tadpole. “We must get Sir Robert to make some kind of a religious move, and that will secure Sir Litany Lax and young Mr. Salem.”
“It will never do to throw over the Church Commission,” said Mr. Taper. “Commissions and committees ought always to be supported.”
“Besides it will frighten the saints,” said Mr. Tadpole. “If we could get him to speak at Exeter Hall—were
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