CHAPTER XVII

Retirement from office--Dignity in retreat--Hughenden--Lord Beaconsfield as a landlord--Fondness for country life--'Endymion'--Illness and death--Attempted estimate of Lord Beaconsfield--A great man? or not a great man?--Those only great who can forget themselves--Never completely an Englishman--Relatively great, not absolutely--Gulliver among Lilliputians--Signs in 'Sybil' of a higher purpose, but a purpose incapable of realisation--Simplicity and blamelessness in private life--Indifference to fortune--Integrity as a statesman and administrator 254

INDEX 263

LORD BEACONSFIELD