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SYBIL,

OR THE TWO NATIONS

by Benjamin Disraeli

I would inscribe these volumes to one

whose noble spirit and gentle nature ever prompt

her to sympathise with the suffering; to one whose

sweet voice has often encouraged, and whose taste

and judgment have ever guided, their pages;

the most severe of critics, but --

a perfect Wife!

The general reader whose attention has not been specially drawn to the subject which these volumes aim

to illustrate, the Condition of the People, might suspect that the Writer had been tempted to some

exaggeration in the scenes which he has drawn and the impressions which he has wished to convey. He

thinks it therefore due to himself to state that he believes there is not a trait in this work for which he has

not the authority of his own observation, or the authentic evidence which has been received by Royal

Commissions and Parliamentary Committees. But while he hopes he has alleged nothing which is not

true, he has found the absolute necessity of suppressing much that is genuine. For so little do we know

of the state of our own country that the air of improbability that the whole truth would inevitably throw over

these pages, might deter many from their perusal.

Grosvenor-Gate,

May Day, 1845.

BOOK ONE

Chapter 1

I:1:¶1

"I'll take the odds against Caravan."

I:1:¶2

"In poneys?"

I:1:¶3

"Done."

I:1:¶4 And Lord Milford, a young noble, entered in his book the bet which he had just made with Mr

Latour, a grey headed member of the Jockey Club.

I:1:¶5 It was the eve of the Derby of 1837. In a vast and golden saloon, that in its decorations

would have become, and in its splendour would not have disgraced, Versailles in the days of the grand

monarch, were assembled many whose hearts beat at the thought of the morrow, and whose brains still

laboured to control its fortunes to their advantage.

I:1:¶6 "They say that Caravan looks puffy," lisped in a low voice a young man, lounging on the edge

of a buhl table that had once belonged to a Mortemart, and dangling a rich cane with affected indifference

in order to conceal his anxiety from all, except the person whom he addressed.

all right."

"They are taking seven to two against him freely over the way," was the reply. "I believe it's

I:1:¶8 "Do you know I dreamed last night something about Mango," continued the gentleman with

the cane, and with a look of uneasy superstition.

I:1:¶9

His companion shook his head.

I:1:¶10 "Well," continued the gentleman with the cane, "I have no opinion of him. I gave Charles

Egremont the odds against Mango this morning; he goes with us, you know. By the bye, who is our

fourth?"

I:1:¶11

"I thought of Milford," was the reply in an under tone. "What say you?"

I:1:¶12

"Milford is going with St James and Punch Hughes."

I:1:¶13

"Well, let us come into supper, and we shall see some fellow we like."

I:1:¶14 So saying, the companions, taking their course through more than one chamber, entered an

apartment of less dimensions than the principal saloon, but not less sumptuous in its general appearance.

The gleaming lustres poured a flood of soft yet brilliant light over a plateau glittering with gold plate, and

fragrant with exotics embedded in vases of rare porcelain. The seats on each side of the table were

occupied by persons consuming, with a heedless air, delicacies for which they had no appetite; while the

conversation in general consisted of flying phrases referring to the impending event of the great day that

had already dawned.

I:1:¶15 "Come from Lady St Julians', Fitz?" said a youth of very tender years, and whose fair visage

was as downy and as blooming as the peach from which with a languid air he withdrew his lips to make

this inquiry of the gentleman with the cane.

I:1:¶16

"Yes; why were not you there?"

I:1:¶17

"I never go anywhere," replied the melancholy Cupid, "everything bores me so."

I:1:¶18 "Well, will you go to Epsom with us tomorrow, Alfred?" said Lord FitzHeron. "I take Berners

and Charles Egremont, and with you our party will be perfect."

I:1:¶7

I:1:¶19

"I feel so cursed blasé!" exclaimed the boy in a tone of elegant anguish.

I:1:¶20

"It will give you a fillip, Alfred," said Mr Berners; "do you all the good in the world."

I:1:¶21 "Nothing can do me good," said Alfred, throwing away his almost untasted peach, "I should

be quite content if anything could do me harm. Waiter, bring me a tumbler of Badminton."

I:1:¶22 "And bring me one too," sighed out Lord Eugene De Vere, who was a year older than Alfred

Mountchesney, his companion and brother in listlessness. Both had exhausted life in their teens, and all

that remained for them was to mourn, amid the ruins of their reminiscences, over the extinction of

excitement.

I:1:¶23

"Well, Eugene, suppose you come with us," said Lord FitzHeron.

I:1:¶24 "I think I shall go down to Hampton Court and play tennis," said Lord Eugene. "As it is the

Derby, nobody will be there."

I:1:¶25 "And I will go with you, Eugene," said Alfred Mountchesney, "and we will dine together

afterwards at the Toy. Anything is better than dining in this infernal London."

I:1:¶26 "Well, for my part," said Mr Berners, "I do not like your suburban dinners. You always get

something you can't eat, and cursed bad wine."

I:1:¶27

"I rather like bad wine," said Mr Mountchesney; "one gets so bored with good wine."

I:1:¶28 "Do you want the odds against Hybiscus, Berners?" said a guardsman looking up from his

book, which he had been very intently studying.

I:1:¶29

"All I want is some supper, and as you are not using your place -- "

I:1:¶30

"You shall have it. Oh! here's Milford, he will give them me."

I:1:¶31 And at this moment entered the room the young nobleman whom we have before mentioned,

accompanied by an individual who was approaching perhaps the termination of his fifth lustre but whose

general air rather betokened even a less experienced time of life. Tall, with a well-proportioned figure and

a graceful carriage, his countenance touched with a sensibility that at once engages the affections.

Charles Egremont was not only admired by that sex, whose approval generally secures men enemies

among their fellows, but was at the same time the favourite of his own.

I:1:¶32

"Ah, Egremont! come and sit here," exclaimed more than one banqueter.

I:1:¶33 "I saw you waltzing with the little Bertie, old fellow," said Lord FitzHeron, "and therefore did

not stay to speak to you, as I thought we should meet here. I am to call for you, mind."

I:1:¶34

"How shall we all feel this time tomorrow?" said Egremont, smiling.

I:1:¶35 "The happiest fellow at this moment must be Cockie Graves," said Lord Milford. "He can

have no suspense I have been looking over his book, and I defy him, whatever happens, not to lose."

I:1:¶36

"Poor Cockie," said Mr Berners; "he has asked me to dine with him at the Clarendon on

Saturday."

I:1:¶37 "Cockie is a very good Cockie," said Lord Milford, "and Caravan is a very good horse; and if

any gentleman sportsman present wishes to give seven to two, I will take him to any amount."

I:1:¶38

"My book is made up," said Egremont; "and I stand or fall by Caravan."

I:1:¶39

"And I."

I:1:¶40

"And I."

I:1:¶41

"And I."

I:1:¶42

"Well, mark my words," said a fourth, rather solemnly, "Rat-trap wins."

I:1:¶43

"There is not a horse except Caravan," said Lord Milford, "fit for a borough stake."

I:1:¶44

"You used to be all for Phosphorus, Egremont," said Lord Eugene de Vere.

I:1:¶45 "Yes; but fortunately I have got out of that scrape. I owe Phip Dormer a good turn for that. I

was the third man who knew he had gone lame."

I:1:¶46

"And what are the odds against him now."

I:1:¶47

"Oh! nominal; forty to one, -- what you please."

I:1:¶48

"He won't run," said Mr Berners, "John Day told me he had refused to ride him."

I:1:¶49

"I believe Cockie Graves might win something if Phosphorus came in first," said Lord Milford,

laughing.

I:1:¶50 "How close it is to-night!" said Egremont. "Waiter, give me some Seltzer water; and open

another window; open them all."

I:1:¶51 At this moment an influx of guests intimated that the assembly at Lady St Julians' was broken

up. Many at the table rose and yielded their places, clustering round the chimney-piece, or forming in

various groups, and discussing the great question. Several of those who had recently entered were

votaries of Rat-trap, the favourite, and quite prepared, from all the information that had reached them, to

back their opinions valiantly. The conversation had now become general and animated, or rather there

was a medley of voices in which little was distinguished except the names of horses and the amount of

odds. In the midst of all this, waiters glided about handing incomprehensible mixtures bearing aristocratic

names; mystical combinations of French wines and German waters, flavoured with slices of Portugal

fruits, and cooled with lumps of American ice, compositions which immortalized the creative genius of

some high patrician name.

I:1:¶52 "By Jove! that's a flash," exclaimed Lord Milford, as a blaze of lightning seemed to suffuse

the chamber, and the beaming lustres turned white and ghastly in the glare.

I:1:¶53 The thunder rolled over the building. There was a dead silence. Was it going to rain? Was it

going to pour? Was the storm confined to the metropolis? Would it reach Epsom? A deluge, and the

course would be a quagmire, and strength might baffle speed.

I:1:¶54 Another flash, another explosion, the hissing noise of rain. Lord Milford moved aside, and

jealous of the eye of another, read a letter from Chifney, and in a few minutes afterwards offered to take

the odds against Pocket Hercules. Mr Latour walked to the window, surveyed the heavens, sighed that

there was not time to send his tiger from the door to Epsom, and get information whether the storm had

reached the Surrey hills, for to-night's operations. It was too late. So he took a rusk and a glass of

lemonade, and retired to rest with a cool head and a cooler heart.

I:1:¶55 The storm raged, the incessant flash played as it were round the burnished cornice of the

chamber, and threw a lurid hue on the scenes of Watteau and Boucher that sparkled in the medallions

over the lofty doors. The thunderbolts seemed to descend in clattering confusion upon the roof.

Sometimes there was a moment of dead silence, broken only by the pattering of the rain in the street

without, or the pattering of the dice in a chamber at hand. Then horses were backed, bets made, and

there were loud and frequent calls for brimming goblets from hurrying waiters, distracted by the lightning

and deafened by the peal. It seemed a scene and a supper where the marble guest of Juan might have

been expected, and had he arrived, he would have found probably hearts as bold and spirits as reckless

as he encountered in Andalusia.

Chapter 2

I:2:¶1 "Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?" sang out a gentleman in the ring at Epsom. It

was full of eager groups; round the betting post a swarming cluster, while the magic circle itself was

surrounded by a host of horsemen shouting from their saddles the odds they were ready to receive or

give, and the names of the horses they were prepared to back or to oppose.

I:2:¶2

"Will any one do anything about Hybiscus?"

I:2:¶3

"I'll give you five to one," said a tall, stiff Saxon peer, in a white great coat.

I:2:¶4

"No; I'll take six."

I:2:¶5 The tall, stiff peer in the white great coat mused for a moment with his pencil at his lip, and

then said, "Well, I'll give you six. What do you say about Mango?"

I:2:¶6 "Eleven to two against Mango," called out a little humpbacked man in a shrill voice, but with

the air of one who was master of his work.

I:2:¶7 "I should like to do a little business with you, Mr Chippendale," said Lord Milford in a coaxing

tone, "but I must have six to one."

I:2:¶8 "Eleven to two, and no mistake," said this keeper of a second-rate gaming-house, who,

known by the flattering appellation of Hump Chippendale, now turned with malignant abruptness from the

heir apparent of an English earldom.

I:2:¶9 "You shall have six to one, my Lord," said Captain Spruce, a debonair personage with a well-

turned silk hat arranged a little aside, his coloured cravat tied with precision, his whiskers trimmed like a

quickset hedge. Spruce, who had earned his title of Captain on the plains of Newmarket, which had

witnessed for many a year his successful exploits, had a weakness for the aristocracy, who knowing his

graceful infirmity patronized him with condescending dexterity, acknowledged his existence in Pall Mall as

well as at Tattersalls, and thus occasionally got a point more than the betting out of him. Hump

Chippendale had none of these gentle failings; he was a democratic leg, who loved to fleece a noble, and

thought all men were born equal -- a consoling creed that was a hedge for his hump.

I:2:¶10 "Seven to four against the favourite; seven to two against Caravan; eleven to two against

Mango. What about Benedict? Will any one do anything about Pocket Hercules? Thirty to one against

Dardanelles."

I:2:¶11

"Done."

repeatedly.

"Five and thirty ponies to one against Phosphorus," shouted a little man vociferously and

I:2:¶13

"I will give forty," said Lord Milford. No answer, -- nothing done.

I:2:¶14 "Forty to one!" murmured Egremont who stood against Phosphorus. A little nervous, he said

to the peer in the white great coat, "Don't you think that Phosphorus may after all have some chance?"

I:2:¶15

"I should be cursed sorry to be deep against him," said the peer.

I:2:¶16 Egremont with a quivering lip walked away. He consulted his book; he meditated anxiously.

Should he hedge? It was scarcely worth while to mar the symmetry of his winnings; he stood "so well" by

all the favourites and for a horse at forty to one. No; he would trust his star, he would not hedge.

I:2:¶17 "Mr Chippendale," whispered the peer in the white great coat, "go and press Mr Egremont

about Phosphorus. I should not be surprised if you got a good thing."

I:2:¶18 At this moment, a huge, broad-faced, rosy-gilled fellow, with one of those good-humoured yet

cunning countenances that we meet occasionally on the northern side of the Trent, rode up to the ring on

I:2:¶12

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