Benjamin Disraeli

“ It is only countries blessed with a free press that can be thus favoured. Even a free press is not alone sufficient. Besides a free press, you must have a servile public.
After all, let us be just. The uninitiated world is apt to believe that there is sometimes, in the outskirts of fashion, an eagerness, scarcely consistent with self-respect, to enter the mansions of the great. Not at all: few people really want to go to their grand parties. ”

“ It is not the charms of conversation, the flash of wit or the blaze of beauty, the influential presence of the powerful and celebrated, all the splendour and refinement, which, combined, offer in a polished saloon so much to charm the taste and satisfy the intellect, that the mass of social partisans care anything about. ”

“ The Dreamer Enters Society
AFTER this consultation with Lord Eskdale, the duchess became easier in her mind. She was of a sanguine temper, and with facility believed what she wished. Affairs stood thus: it was agreed by all that Tancred should go to the Holy Land, but he was to go in his own yacht; which yacht was to be of a firstrate burthen, and to be commanded by an officer in H.M.S. ”

“ Roby; and the servants were to be placed entirely under the control of some trusty foreigner accustomed to the East, and who was to be chosen by Lord Eskdale. In the meantime, Tancred had acceded to the wish of his parents, that until his departure he should mix much in society. The duchess calculated that, under any circumstances, three months must elapse before all the arrangements were concluded; and she felt persuaded that, during that period, Tancred must become enamoured of his cousin Katherine, and that the only use of the yacht would be to take them all to Ireland. ”

“ In the meantime, in the room leading to the sculpture gallery where they are dancing, the throng is even excessive. As the two great divisions, those who would enter the gallery and those who are quitting it, encounter each other, they exchange flying phrases as they pass. ”

“ England is the only country which enjoys the unspeakable advantage of being thus regularly, promptly, and accurately furnished with catalogues of those favoured beings who are deemed qualified to enter the houses of the great. ”

“ I'll tell him of it.' And he followed Tancred.
'You and Valentine must rub up your harness, Milford,'said Mr. Ormsby; 'there is a new champion in the field. We are talking of Lord Montacute,' continued Mr. ”