‘Mundus Vult Decipi’
A famous socialist who was also a close if not acute observer of men and events, Henry Mayers Hyndham, wrote: “Why Mr Gladstone, who changed his opinions whenever it suited his convenience, after turning from the extremest Toryism to advanced Liberalism, should have been credited with the highest political morality, while Disraeli, who, having once chosen his party, stuck to it all his life without the faintest shadow of turning, was regarded as a man of few scruples, I am at a loss to understand.” The explanation is simple. Apart from the fact that Englishmen instinctively distrust anyone and anything alien to themselves, Gladstone was the mouthpiece of his race and period. Everything that is impulsive, irrational, incoherent, and hysterical in the English people found expression in that Englishman, who also contained within himself the peculiar qualities of an age that exhibited self-righteousness, moral indignation, democratic enthusiasm and religious emotionalism; everything in short that Disraeli could not endure.
Hesketh Pearson : Dizzy
