"Tun Lerrers op Distagut to Lapy BxAorono AND LADY. CiIESTENPiELD, "london: Ernest Bonn Ltd Hecnet. Shanghai: Kelly Disraeli was some seventy years of age at the period dealt with in the two volumes of letters now edited by the Marquis of Zetland. They form the strangest love-letters extant,—if not. in substance, certainly in their circumstances-—and the Foreword essays a psychological study of Disraeli in the light of these hasty snatches of correspon dence which were dashed off incontinently in the midst of debates, between debates, and occasionally scribbled. off on' the crown of his top-hat, One feels instinctively, however, that the theory there ad-vaneed, that Disraeli had a heart that refused to grow old, and was hence prepared for further gallant tty, most be qualified.
Mary Anne Disraeli, Viscountess Beaconsfield, at the opening of the present correspondence, had_ been dead some few months, bringing to end a long and devoted companionship, and leaving " man, far advanced in years, loaded with honours, flattered by Sovereigns, muttering to" himsclf—"All " too Tate; has all come too. late." 'This pathetic " picture takes' its place as a background to the events. of the Inst ten years of his lif and incidentally assists ordinary mortals to share with him somewhat approximate sentiments as to the values of things. He first fled to the bleak comforts of a hotel, and found it a "cave of despair" while on the other hand the vulture of loneliness that gnawed his heat Deeame voracious in the airy flippant conversation of circles who would divert him. At this juneture he decided to divert his) own ind in his own way, and he flew at the throat of Gladstone, slinging flame, like a winged and spurred Fury. In between whiles he furnished posterity with this series of letters to two Ladies, past their prime, in vain, endeavour to recapture among the fading stars some semblance of the sympathy once had known, To the elder sister he went so far as to offer marriage, but she, sensing in the proposal something of a. lesser!
liamentary subterfuge, of which his Lordship was so great an adept, refused it. In so doing cluded him from stronger claim upon the companionship of the younger married sister, which she correctly surmised was the old Prime Minister's motive. 'The quick perception of women in these matters, with an intuition equal his own, no donot accounts for radi's regard for them. "I dislike male society," was one' of hhis sayings. Anyhow, his gallant attempt at self-sacrifice at Lady Chesterfield's Altar, in order to' sense more fully the incense at Lady Bradford's, will remain 9 lassie instance of the lengths to which an old lover will go. deception. Happily. the—correspondence' continued without flag-but it is hard to get away fron: the notion that the two sisters were after all the unsubstantial shadows, and that the memories of the coparted Mary Anne stil filled the stage. In spite of garlands and orange blossoms, the house 'a house of battered dreams, and the deep-bordered note-paper, of which many specime given, encircles the whole fabric with a persistent and unfading wreath.
As for the volumes themselves, they are elegant—elegant in matte elegant in style, elegant in binding, and so also in design. The flash of wit, the bright intelligence, are there and to the fore. He has a thousand things to say, he is. old, and allows himself to be garrutous,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.