Today is Rafael Sabatini’s birthday

The novelist Rafael Sabatini was born on this day, April 29th, in 1875 in Italy.

I have always thought of Rafael Sabatini as a member of a special trinity. Like the other two members John Buchan and Anthony Hope, he provided food and fuel for the imagination and a chance to escape from the mundane world. He gave a taste of romance, excitement and adventure, often in glamorous and historic settings, to people who had little chance of getting anything like it in real life.

John Buchan was also born in 1875, and by coincidence there are significant occasions in February for all three men: Anthony Hope was born on February 9th; John Buchan died on February 11th and Rafael Sabatini died on February 13th.

I put Rafael Sabatini above Anthony Hope and below John Buchan when it comes to both my enjoyment of their books and finding them a good source of material for articles about unseen influences.

Previous references

Although his books do not inspire commentary the way John Buchan’s do, Rafael Sabatini has been mentioned in a few articles. His wise words about equality have been quoted; the tragic deaths of his son and step-son and his obvious favouring of heroes with black hair over their rivals with blond hair have also been discussed.

To mark the occasion, I want to say a little more about Sabatini and his books.

Rafael Sabatini: equality is a by-product of envy

I recently came across a quotation from one of Rafael Sabatini’s historical novels that is very relevant today:

“The idea of equality is a by-product of the sentiment of envy. Since it must always prove beyond human power to raise the inferior mass to a superior stratum, apostles of equality must ever be inferiors seeking to reduce their betters to their level. It follows that a nation that once admits this doctrine of equality will be dragged by it to the level, moral, intellectual and political, of its most worthless class.”

- From Scaramouche the King-Maker by Rafael Sabatini

This quotation is sometimes said to come from Scaramouche: a Romance of the French Revolution, but it comes from the sequel. The two books were published in 1921 and 1931.

Rafael Sabatini, who died in 1950 so never lived to see what life in the 21st century is like, got it right. What he said about the lowest people trying to drag everyone down to the lowest level is very true. It is getting worse and worse.

Unseen Influences: the sacrifice of the sons?

When I was very young, I was an avid reader of the works of such prolific novelists as Sir Henry Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Rafael Sabatini. I knew at the time that both Rider Haggard and Kipling had a son who died young; it wasn’t until many years later that I learned about similar tragedies in the lives of Conan Doyle and Sabatini. 

Rider Haggard’s only son died of measles around the age of ten. 

Rudyard Kipling’s only son was killed in the first World War at the age of 18. Rudyard Kipling had lobbied for his son’s conscription after the boy was declared unfit for military service. Sadly, Kipling’s elder daughter had earlier died of pneumonia at the age of seven.

Conan Doyle’s first-born son died at the age of 25 in the flu epidemic in 1918. 

Rafael Sabatini’s son and only child died in a car accident at the age of 17 or so. Mrs Sabatini was in the car too but survived: she was thrown from the car, which reminds me of the fatal car accident involving Monaco's Princess Grace and Princess Stephanie. Rafael Sabatini’s young stepson died in a plane accident after joining the RAF. Something went wrong when he flew over the family home to demonstrate his new skills, and his plane crashed in flames nearby.

Aryan supremacy: blond hair and blue eyes versus black hair and brown eyes

The idea that people from the Nordic race are superior to those from other races was of enormous importance to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. They propagated that the best kinds of human beings were Northwestern Europeans, white-skinned people with blue eyes and blond hair; this meant that races such as the Negroid, Slavic and Mediterranean and people with black hair and brown eyes were considered to be inferior. 

Similar ideas affected people whose lives are of interest to me. 

When I first read a biography of Louisa May Alcott, I learned that her father was what we would now call an Aryan supremacist. Bronson Alcott was tall, and he had blond hair and blue eyes. He said that such people were superior to dark-haired people with black hair and brown eyes. Louisa resembled her mother, who could have passed for Spanish or Italian.

Bronson Alcott thought that his colouring indicated associations with the light and good, angelic forces; this implied that Louisa and her mother were not only inferior, but also dark, evil and demonic. When Louisa brought home a young man with fair colouring, Bronson said, “Sir, you are a child of light”. Why was this issue so important to him? What effect did his views have on Louisa and her mother?

Is it just a coincidence that Louisa was born in Germantown, Philadelphia? This reminds me of the connection between the Mitford family, Unity Valkyrie and her Aryan supremacist grandfather Bertie Mitford in particular, and Swastika, Ontario.