Benjamin Disraeli the eminent Victorian, the
prime minister of what was at the time the greatest power on earth,
the statesman and superb orator who was also a novelist, essayist
and supreme letter writer, has been extensively studied and written about.
I can’t compete with or add anything to the
coverage of many aspects of his life, his brilliant political career in particular,
but in any case my main interest is in the unseen influences that I believe
were operating behind the scenes.
Curses, cursing and convenient deaths
I have already written about some deaths that
were very convenient for Mr Disraeli. I have just read something in a review of the biography Disraeli: a Personal History by Christopher Hibbert that gives further support to my suspicions:
"There was a streak of icy vengefulness in
his temperament; even as a young man he had written down and filed away the
names of those who crossed him. 'Something usually happens to them.'"
So Disraeli had a little list! So it was not
only innocent people who happened to be in his way who suffered the consequences of his feelings towards them. So in the
case of his enemies, the ill-wishing was deliberate.
This discovery has made me want to do a full
investigation.
In the meantime, a little research exercise
has found some familiar features. It
seems to me that his unsatisfactory (to Disraeli) starting position in life,
his inordinate ambition combined with his creative personality and the setbacks
he experienced made him someone who might well have attracted the attention of
whatever it is that operates below the surface in the lives of selected people.
