I sat, shrinking and timid, in a corner--the girl-wife of a famous
painter. I was, if I was anything at all, more of a curiosity, of a
side-show, than hostess to these distinguished visitors. Mr. Gladstone
seemed to me like a suppressed volcano. His face was pale and calm, but
the calm was the calm of the gray crust of Etna. To look into the
piercing dark eyes was like having a glimpse into the red-hot crater
beneath. Years later, when I met him again at the Lyceum and became
better acquainted with him, this impression of a volcano at rest again
struck me. Of Disraeli I carried away even a scantier impression. I
remember that he wore a blue tie, a brighter blue tie than most men
would dare to wear, and that his straggling curls shook as he walked. He
looked the great Jew before everything. But "there is the noble Jew," as
George Meredith writes somewhere, "as well as the bestial Gentile." When
I first saw Henry Irving made up as Shylock, my thoughts flew back to
the garden-party at Little Holland House, and Disraeli. I know I must
have admired him greatly, for the only other time I ever saw him he was
walking in Piccadilly, and I crossed the road, just to get a good look
at him. I even went the length of bumping into him on purpose.
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