Vivian Grey (Classic Reprint), Disraeli Benjamin

Critics have been hitherto content to assume that, because the author of Vivian Grey was con fronted with somewhat the same difficulties and problems as his hero, his plans for surmounting them were identical. Mr. T. P. Oconnor in his Biograplzy of Disraeli, following the lines of an earlier work by a Mr. Macknight, has represented with malicious cleverness, but with an obviously conscious lack of discrimination, that in Vivian Greys scheme of his career, and in its early steps we may see an exposition of Disraelis own scheme and a forecast of his early political fortunes. No interpretation could be less probable, and few forecasts could be less consonant with the facts. A clever young man does not represent himself as entering on a course which he proceeds to trace to its inevitable failure, nor does the early political history of Disraeli in any way agree with that of Vivian Grey. On the basis of his own character and abilities, Disraeli has constructed a personality and a story which his imagination, in conjunction with his self-study, told him were possible. It is thus, as we shall see later, that he built up his principal characters from living originals; and this is why detailed keys to the so called portraits of distinguished men of the time are as misleading as the autobiographical assumption.

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