"I could never do better, sir, than to follow your advice or your example."
"Never betray, then, the least depression at disappointments or reverses, but seize the few joyful occasions of life for the indulgence of any accumulated melancholy and bitterness. By this simple rule you will escape the charge urged against all the ambitious, who are usually as intoxicated by success as they are cowardly in adversity. It delights me to see you in high spirits. Tell me the news, but first give me your opinion of this little paragraph which will appear in to-morrow's _Times_."
He took from his pocket-book a slip of paper on which was written the following in Mrs. Disraeli's hand:--
Mr. Orange, the new Member for Norbet Royal, is the son of a French nobleman of very ancient lineage. It was a condition of his adoption by the late Admiral Bertin that his own name should be dropped, and he has accordingly always borne that of the Orange family. The circumstances of his birth were communicated to the Queen before his naturalisation as a British subject, and his presentation, by Mr. Disraeli, at Court.
"A public man must speak out, and this expedient occurred to me as a slight pull in your favour. The two things in life which are really gratuitous are the grace of God and one's pedigree! The rest depends upon ourselves. Now you can't think how much I am interested in every little detail of your mental experiences. I believe you will be a Jesuit yet. I have never concealed my respect for the Jesuits. When Spain and France expelled the Society of Jesus, they persecuted their truest allies. A terrible price, too, they paid for that crime. You see, then, that I understand staunch Catholics. If I could rouse an Imperial feeling in England which would at all correspond with the feeling of Catholics for their Church! Sometimes I dream this may be possible. Pope, the satirist, remained, in spite of his wit, a loyal son of the Faith, while many dull worthies who shuddered at his epigrams were recanting daily either from fear or for some worldly advantage. In the same way, Robert, men who hate my novels because they contain a few truths, would sell England, if they could, to-morrow. I mentioned the fact about Pope to a gentleman who complains that you are by no means typical of your co-religionists in this country."
