The Image of the Architect

world to preach a sermon. His mission has always been to design a stage-set for his contemporaries. Disraeli, who was too profound to be intellectual, was well aware of this, and the architects who appear in his novels are charming and convincing. One of the most endearing of Disraeli's architects is Sir Carte Blanche, who strolls into The Young Duke at the very moment when the hero is filled with wonder and disgust at "those queer chambers which in England are called drawing-rooms." Depressed by Hauteville House, the family mansion, "the Duke sent immediately for Sir Carte Blanche, the successor, in England, of Sir Christopher Wren. His Grace," Disraeli tells us, "communicated at the same time his misery and his grand views. Sir Carte was astonished with his