Conan Doyle's Magic Door: great minds think alike!

This article might never have existed if I hadn't decided at the last minute to 'pull' the article about books, reading and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in favour of one about Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood & Co. books, which was next in the queue and all ready to go.

The Conan Doyle article was originally scheduled to be published on April 7th, but I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable because two of the quotations in it had no source. They are widely attributed to Conan Doyle, but without any indication of where they originally came from.

I had a strong feeling that I should dig deeper to find the origin of these quotations: it just didn't seem right to release the article before I had done all that I could to find the sources.

I guessed that they might have come from Conan Doyle's letters, but eventually found them in Through the Magic Door (1907), a collection of essays about books, writers and reading. 

I thought that this title was a good coincidence: the Magic Door leads to a world of books, and I had said in the Conan Doyle books and reading article that my first books had magical titles and opened a door to new worlds.

I took a very quick look at Through the Magic Door; I saw immediately that it contained enough coincidences, references to familiar topics and other relevant material to inspire at least one article. Some of the content would have been suitable for the books and reading article, but I decided to publish this in its original form after just adding the quotations' source and to forget the Magic Door until I had finished some work in progress.

Ever since I read that dropping existing activities when something new and exciting comes along is a sign of emotional immaturity, I have been trying not to do this!

I wanted to give Through the Magic Door my undivided attention, which meant first getting some outstanding work out of the way. I returned to the book after completing a few half-finished articles; this post is the result of giving it a much closer look.

Something about Through the Magic Door
The Magic Door is a portal to another world, one that is entered by reading. Conan Doyle gives a tour of his library to an imaginary visitor; he introduces his favourite books and authors and gives his views on many of them. Some of his comments and references stand out because they are similar to material in various articles on here, including the Conan Doyle books and reading one.  

This is quite a coincidence considering that not only had I not read Through the Magic Door until after I had posted the material that we have in common, I had never even heard of it!

Context and the total picture: Part IV

The first article in this series describes what can happen when people go from looking at their painful experiences in isolation to putting them into the context of other, often well-known, people's lives. 

Some people react negatively and some positively when they learn that somebody famous suffered in a similar way.

Napoleon Bonaparte's living on crumbs of hope is a good example: while negative, glass half empty, people may feel worse when they realise that not even an emperor is safe from being reduced to this, positive people may feel better when they realise that this great man also experienced a lack of options for the future.

This article has something further to say about the positive reactions that some people have when they first discover that that they are in good company. 

People who feel better may have previously felt alone in their suffering; they may feel gratified when they learn that they have something in common with a famous person. 

They may have had erroneous assumptions, that fame and fortune, power and position and certain personal attributes offer protection from many unpleasant experiences for example, and evolve mentally when shown to be wrong.

Two cases from personal experience
A positive example from my own experience involved someone who was being targetted with unkind and belittling remarks by some hostile people he worked with. 

I told him about Princess Margaret, whose husband Lord Snowdon belittled her in public and left spiteful little notes in various places such as her desk and glove drawer. One of them started, “Twenty four reasons why I hate you”! 

He is reported to have worn a brown paper bag over his head when they attended a private dinner party in London. When the Princess eventually asked him why he was doing it he replied, “Because I can't stand the ****ing sight of you!”

Context and the total picture: Part I

Sometimes a painful experience doesn’t feel quite so bad when we learn that other people, some very well known, have had a similar experience.

One example comes from the life of the artist Pauline Baynes, best known for her illustrations of the Narnia books.

Her family broke up when she was five years old. She returned to the UK from India with her mother. She was sent to a convent school where she was given a hard time by strict, unsympathetic nuns because of her fantastical imagination, her unusual handmade clothes and her ability to speak Hindi.

She later learned that Rudyard Kipling, whose work she greatly admired, had as a boy been sent back from India to a place where he was treated badly. Learning that she was not alone, that she was in very good company, made her feel a little better.

Then there was Napoleon, reduced to living on crumbs of hope in exile. Anyone who knows what subsisting on remote possibilities is like might well feel a little better or even gratified when they learn that they have something in common with the great emperor. 

However, putting painful experiences into the context of other people’s lives in this way can be a two-edged sword. 

‘Englich’ lessons for Napoleon Bonaparte

As mentioned in the previous article, Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena in the south Atlantic.

His capture after the Battle of Waterloo had raised the question of what to do with him. He would always be a focus for trouble if he stayed in Europe. For a while he hoped that he could escape to or would be sent to America but, just like his application for asylum in the UK, this came to nothing. 

Napoleon had to come to terms with living in exile in a very inhospitable place and find ways to pass the time. 

I was surprised to learn recently that one thing he did was to take English lessons. There is information available online about this episode in the former French Emperor’s life; I have selected aspects that I find particularly interesting and amusing, including some examples of his writing.

Napoleon put a lot of effort into learning English in the early days of his exile on St. Helena. He would have done this for several reasons.

Napoleon Bonaparte and the crumbs of hope

Napoleon Bonaparte must be one of the most written-about people on the planet. However, although he got a brief mention in an article about Benjamin Disraeli, who was a great admirer of his, I would not have expected that he would ever be the subject of an article on here.

I was reading about Napoleon recently while creating posts for the Alternaticity Project Forum, and I unexpectedly came across some material of interest. 

I was surprised to learn that after his final defeat, Napoleon had wanted to come and live in the UK. In exile, he even learned some ‘Englich’ in preparation for the life that he still hoped to have. 

He pinned his hopes on various members of the royal family in turn, only to be disappointed. He may even have lost the will to live when he realised that he would never return to Europe.

I never thought that I would have anything at all in common with Napoleon, but there are some familiar elements in a few of his letters. I know what it is like to live for some years on crumbs of hope, clutching at straws and desperately casting around for possibilities in the form of anything or anyone that might help to provide a way out of an unacceptable situation. 

Wishful thinking predominates, and ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ become major preoccupations. 

Living in such suspense is very painful; it is even worse when the last crumb of hope disappears.

Hope, the loss of hope and the absence of hope are major unseen influences in some people’s lives.

Benjamin Disraeli and the New World Order

This article contains more of the material I found while looking for answers to some of the outstanding questions I had about Benjamin Disraeli’s personality, beliefs, interests and activities.

There are allegations that Disraeli was involved with the New World Order. Did sinister forces conspire to put him into a very high and influential position? Was he a pawn and a puppet or a middleman? 

Was he even a member of the sinister organisations himself, working to further a secret agenda?

Could it just be immense amounts of persistence, ambition and determination that got him to the top of the world of politics – with the help of some patrons – or were unseen influences at work in his life? I suspect that they were.

Was it something he said?

It is Disraeli’s own words that have given some conspiracy theorists the idea that he had some connection with the Illuminati, the New World Order and similar secret organisations.

Here is a much-repeated line from his 1844 political novel Coningsby:

“So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes."

Another quotation from Coningsby:

"Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand..."

The hidden hand is often mentioned in connection with Freemasons; it is seen in portraits of great statesmen and leaders such as Napoleon.

Benjamin Disraeli: three Napoleons and The Revolutionary Epic

I found the material for this article while looking for answers to some questions I had about Benjamin Disraeli. I wanted to know whether, despite the allegations of his enemies and detractors, he had any sincere beliefs. Did he have strong convictions about anything, or were his views changeable and just adopted from expediency?

I found that he did have some genuine and firmly-held beliefs.

The Revolutionary Epic
One thing that Disraeli definitely believed in was his own genius. 

Another belief was that men are best influenced and governed by appeals to their imagination and by someone charismatic whom they could adore and obey. Someone they could hero-worship was what the people wanted. Romance was superior to reason when it came to leadership. He was right in that many people certainly do want their gods to be in human form.

These two beliefs came together in one of his attempts to make a name for himself as a creative writer.

In 1834, when he was 29 years old, he published his poem The Revolutionary Epic on this theme. It dealt with the French Revolution and the career of Napoleon Bonaparte. He considered it to be his masterpiece, the best thing he had ever done. It was going to show the world what a great genius he was, bring him fame and fortune and immortalise his name. 

Or so Disraeli thought.