Disraeli was an artist in politics, whose principal achievement was his own career. But he had an imaginative appreciation of the nature of political power which no one in his generation could match... The majesty of power Disraeli saw as a genuine element in the world. Thus, to approach it with some show of pomp and circumstance was not to indulge in theatrical nonsense—even if admitting that it was a show. When he spoke of jewels in the imperial diadem, Conservative members would say that this was just Dizzy's way, but he was putting into words for them romantically patriotic convictions that they themselves would never express... Sir Henry Lawrence...had once written that it was 'the due admixture of Romance and Reality that best carries a man through life'. Disraeli seemed to know what that precise admixture should be. It was this inner sureness of touch and grasp, this mastery of occasion, that had carried him against all odds into the command of the political ideas of so many dukes, squires, soldiers, lawyers, brewers, and private gentlemen. Disraeli, his party felt, dumbly but truly, knew what politics were about.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Disraeli was an artist in politics, whose principal achievement was his own career. But he had an imaginative appreciation of the nature of political power which no one in his generation could match... The majesty of power Disraeli saw as a genuine element in the world. Thus, to approach it with some show of pomp and circumstance was not to indulge in theatrical nonsense—even if admitting that it was a show. When he spoke of jewels in the imperial diadem, Conservative members would say that this was just Dizzy's way, but he was putting into words for them romantically patriotic convictions that they themselves would never express... Sir Henry Lawrence...had once written that it was 'the due admixture of Romance and Reality that best carries a man through life'. Disraeli seemed to know what that precise admixture should be. It was this inner sureness of touch and grasp, this mastery of occasion, that had carried him against all odds into the command of the political ideas of so many dukes, squires, soldiers, lawyers, brewers, and private gentlemen. Disraeli, his party felt, dumbly but truly, knew what politics were about." in the context of "A. P. Thornton, The Imperial Idea and Its Enemies (1959), pp. xxxii–xxxiii" to mean that wisdom is timeless.