Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/188

WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS moiety of existence." He used to say how in thirty-three years of married life she had never given him a dull moment. To Gathorne Hardy he wrote: "To lose such a friend is to lose half one's existence." The marriage had been the making of Disraeli, and he fully recognised the fact. Replying in 1867 to the toast of his wife's health, he had said:

"I do owe to that lady all, I think, that I have ever accomplished, because she has supported me by her counsel, and consoled me by the sweetness of her mind and disposition."

Another time he said of her:

"There was no care which she could not mitigate, and no difficulty which she could not face. She was the most cheerful and the most courageous woman I ever knew."

She brought Disraeli unclouded domestic happiness. She loved him and believed in him. Her oddities were more superficial than people thought, for although she was so voluble and so indiscreet a talker, and absolutely in her husband's confidence, she never betrayed it. She was no social leader as Lady Palmerston was; what influence she had was passive rather than active, yet without her single-minded devotion, 154