Mrs Austen, in a letter to Sarah DIsraeli, confirmed that the journey had passed without the least disagreement. Your brother is so easily pleased, so accommodating, so amusing, and so actively kind, that I shall always reflect upon the domestic part of our journey with the greatest pleasure. Indeed, Benjamin, so Sara Austen said, had behaved excellently, except when there is a button, or rather buttons, to be put on his shirt; then he is violently bad, and this happens almost daily. I said once They cannot have been good at first; and now he always threatens to tell my Mother you have abused my linen.16
Travelling homewards through France, Disraeli and his friends left the main road to go to see the Layard family. Austen Henry Layard, the future excavator of Nineveh, was then nine years old. In later life he retained a vivid recollection of Disraelis appearance, his black curly hair, his affected manner and his somewhat fantastic dress.17
His holiday was almost over now; and, as he approached the Channel, Disraeli congratulated himself upon having seen five capitals and twelve great cities, and, although he might well see more cities, he could not hope to see more varieties of European nature. I feel now, he added, that it is not prejudice when I declare that England with all her imperfections is worth all the world together, and I hope it is not misanthropy when I feel that I love lakes and mountains better than courts and cities, and trees better than men.18