Word: pearson
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Dizzy, by Hesketh Pearson. A lively, short biography of Disraeli, by an enthusiastic admirer (TIME, Sept...
Subsequently, dishing the Whigs (or as Disraeli put it: "Tory men and Whig measures") has been a basic plank in Tory platforms. Even Britain's Hesketh Pearson relishes nothing more than the tart flavor of a well-dished Whig-and Pearson denies that he is a Tory at all. In his time, he has written sympathetic biographies of such diverse spirits as Dickens, G.B.S., Oscar Wilde and Gilbert & Sullivan. But, Tory or no Tory, Biographer Pearson seems to see eye-to-eye with Dizzy on a great many matters of principle. He is strongly opposed, for one thing...
...Author Pearson likes to believe that such a frankness characterized all Disraeli's acts. Once Dizzy privately remarked that a show of British paintings was "destitute ... of all spirituality, all ideality"-then made an after-dinner speech declaring that he had been "most forcibly struck [by] the high tone of spirituality and ideality" of the paintings. Concludes Pearson: "He clearly felt that he had better say the exact opposite of what he considered quite obvious, in the hope that intelligent people would appreciate the irony." This explanation suggests, in Author Pearson, a lack of appreciation both of the elements...
...hard to sum up a man who voted against his own party whenever he thought fit, and yet (as Pearson sadly admits) bequeathed to politics the tight "party-line" system that has plagued it ever since. No man did more than Dizzy to din radical notions into Tory skulls, yet he could also say without a qualm that "the movement of the middle classes for the abolition of slavery was virtuous, but it was not wise...
...harmonizing of such mixed ideas lies Disraeli's fascination. Author Pearson, offering no startling new discoveries of his own but gleaning gracefully through the biographical harvest of more plodding predecessors, has written one of the most readable sketches of the year...