The Gap in the Curtain: John Buchan nails it once again

The Gap in the Curtain is not one of John Buchan’s best-known works. It is not a story of excitement and adventure either: no thriller, it has a supernatural or paranormal theme and has been described as borderline science fiction. 

The Gap in the Curtain features the lawyer Sir Edward Leithen, another of Buchan’s heroes and narrator of the story, and Professor August Moe, a brilliant physicist and mathematician. 

The story starts with a dinner party. Leithen, who is extremely tired from overworking and close to the end of his tether, had been in two minds about accepting the invitation. He feels a little better when he notices that several other guests around the table are not looking too good either: they seem nervous, under the weather, ill, tired or even exhausted:

“I was free to look about me. Suddenly I got a queer impression. A dividing line seemed to zigzag in and out among us, separating the vital from the devitalised. There was a steady cackle of talk, but I felt that there were silent spaces in it. Most of the people were cheerful, eupeptic souls who were enjoying life... But I realised that there were people here who were as much at odds with life as myself...”

Mr Standfast: John Buchan nails a problem

I was much more interested in the exciting action and adventure than the philosophising when I first read John Buchan’s books; now it is the subtle elements that hold my attention. 

Something I read in Mr Standfast recently really hit home this time around: it is a soul-baring speech made by the character Launcelot Wake.

“'I see more than other people see,' he went on, 'and I feel more. That's the curse on me. You're a happy man and you get things done, because you only see one side of a case, one thing at a time. How would you like it if a thousand strings were always tugging at you, if you saw that every course meant the sacrifice of lovely and desirable things, or even the shattering of what you know to be unreplaceable? I'm the kind of stuff poets are made of, but I haven't the poet's gift, so I stagger about the world left-handed and game-legged... 

I'm not as good a man as you, Hannay, who have never thought out anything in your life. My time in the Labour battalion taught me something. I knew that with all my fine aspirations I wasn't as true a man as fellows whose talk was silly oaths and who didn't care a tinker's curse about their soul… I'd give all I have to be an ordinary cog in the wheel, instead of a confounded outsider who finds fault with the machinery...'”

“I'm the kind of stuff poets are made of, but I haven't the poet's gift...”

This goes right to the heart of the matter; it is the essence of the problem that some people have. 

Life is very difficult for anyone who is unfortunate enough to have the creative temperament without much in the way of creative abilities to go with it. Such people may feel stuck between two worlds, getting the worst of both and not fully belonging to either. 

Unable to function as well in everyday life as the ordinary people in the outer world do, unable to create anything or demonstrate any particular talent, gift or genius as the artists of various kinds who are in touch with other dimensions and the inner world do, they may feel inferior to the inhabitants of both worlds. 

Being able to demonstrate abilities far above normal in some areas may be compensation for and explanation of being obviously far below normal in others; having creative abilities may be some compensation for having to endure the torment of a creative temperament, while being able to function well in the ordinary world may be some compensation for being collective-minded and not having any special talents.

Considering that the highlighted words quoted above were spoken by someone who says he has no gift for poetry, it is ironic that, with the addition of a line or two, they could be part of a poem, perhaps something written by Rudyard Kipling! 

The Lament of Launcelot Wake 

I'm the kind of stuff poets are made of,

  But I haven't the poet's gift.

Between me and the world of the poets,

  There lies an unbridgeable rift!

Today is the 150th Anniversary of Rudyard Kipling’s birth

Rudyard Kipling was born on December 30th 1865, in India.

His life and his writings have been written about and discussed extensively. I have read a lot of criticism of him and his works and I agree with some of it, but he is still one of my favourite authors.

Kipling is also a person of interest because the kind of unseen influences that I am very interested in appear to have been at work in his life. This will be the subject of a future article.

In the meantime, there is a big coincidence involving a place in Hampshire where he stayed as a child. I have mentioned it in another article, but decided to repeat the story to mark the occasion of the birthday of a very great author and poet.

It came first as a surprise, then, on reflection, not such a surprise, when I first learned that Lorne Lodge, the ‘House of Desolation’ where he and his sister suffered so much as children, was (and still is) in Campbell Road in Southsea. ‘By chance’, Lorne Lodge is just around the corner from a house where my family lived for a while when I was 11 years old. What a coincidence. Although I knew nothing at the time, I always avoided walking down Campbell Road because it gave me bad feelings.

The name of the people Rudyard Kipling stayed with was Holloway; by coincidence, when my family left Southsea it was to go to a house very close to a big thoroughfare called Holloway Road. By coincidence, the ‘terrible little day-school’ called Hope House that Kipling attended in Southsea was run by a man with the same, not particularly common, last name as that of my step-mother, who was behind our move away from Southsea. She disappeared from our lives not long afterwards.

Unseen Influences at Christmas

I don’t enjoy this time of year very much. Seasonal depression prevents much enjoyment and turns necessary tasks into impositions; painful memories and feelings surface and thoughts of what might have been become overwhelming.

People are stressed and I pick up a lot of the tension and unhappiness that are in the air.

Even though I am not a Christian, I hate the way that consumerism and secularism have taken over what should be a religious festival. 

Despite not being religious, I did go to a Christmas service once. It was at the suggestion of a neighbour. One fateful Christmas Eve many years ago, I went for the first time ever to a Midnight Mass. It was held in Westminster Cathedral, and I went just for the carols and the spectacle.

The outing was pure delight from beginning to end. I felt very well, euphoric even; I had the feeling that something wonderful was on the horizon; the weather was very mild; we saw some happy looking policemen driving around in a car that was covered in Christmas decorations.

I enjoyed the lights, the surroundings and the music inside the Cathedral very much. Just as midnight was striking, I wished very hard for a good cause to support and a new and exciting interest in my life for the coming New Year. 

The expression “Be very careful what you wish for as you may well end up getting it” is becoming a platitude but is very relevant here. A ‘chance’ meeting with a stranger on New Year’s Eve brought me exactly what I had wished for. For good or evil? I still don’t know. It led to some of the best and some of the worst moments of my life, including a Christmas that I still can’t bear to think about. 

Another recent string of minor misfortunes

I wrote about a bad day I had in a previous post. I have had a few more bad days recently, and I have a good idea what caused them.

I kept walking into and tripping over things at home, giving myself some bruises.

I went out on some errands. I fell very heavily just outside the library: all I did was step on a tiny stone, but it rocked forward, threw me off balance and tipped me right over. I was very shaken; I got some more bruises and I grazed my hands. 

Inside the library, a machine took my reservation money but did not credit my account; luckily the library staff believed me when I said I had paid, and they sorted it out.

I had a jarring shock when my internet connection suddenly stopped working when I was in the middle of something important. I did get it working again, but I had some bad moments.

The worst aspect was feeling depressed, apathetic and just plain terrible: as always, it got worse and worse then slowly wore off.

My normal practice at times such as this is to work backwards and look for an energy vampire. This time, I knew that a possibly stupid action of mine was responsible.

It all started when I saw a post on a consumer forum from someone who had discovered that his name and address details could easily be found online, even though he had opted out of the open electoral register. 

I went on the site he mentioned, and could not resist trying the name of someone I had not seen for a very long time: I went ‘no contact’ by choice as I just couldn’t take any more.

Robin Jarvis’s witchmaster Nathaniel Crozier: Part I

Nathaniel Crozier is a key character in A Warlock in Whitby, the second volume of Robin Jarvis’s wonderful Whitby Witches trilogy. 

He is the husband of the witch who called herself Rowena Cooper, but was really Roselyn Crozier (called Roslyn Crosier in The Whitby Witches). He is not a witch exactly, but he is a black magician and he does control a group of witches. 

He is a person of interest because some of the things he and his followers say and do are very familiar.

An introduction to Nathaniel Crozier
Nathaniel Crozier casts a dark shadow ahead of him: he is briefly mentioned in The Whitby Witches, where he is introduced as Roselyn’s God-awful husband. They performed foul ceremonies together in Africa. They are described as a hellish pair who deserve to hang. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

The prose gets purple in A Warlock in Whitby:

“Nathaniel Crozier: historian, philanderer, warlock, high priest of the Black Sceptre and the unseen hand behind countless unsolved burglaries of religious relics from around the world…the most evil man on earth.”

There is nothing on this earth that he cannot make yield and bow before him.

How strange that such a man should wear worn and shabby clothes and be unable to enter a dwelling without an invitation! 

He seems to have very little to show for all his studies, efforts, powers and stolen magical artefacts. 

Person of interest: Madeleine L’Engle’s Zachary Grey

Zachary Grey is a character in several young-adult novels by Madeleine L’Engle. Confusingly, he becomes Zachary Gray in the later books.

Madeleine L’Engle is not one of my favourite authors and her books do not inspire me to produce a series of articles, but some aspects of the behaviour of her character Zachary Grey and the destructive effect it has on people around him are relevant to my ideas about energy vampires and unseen influences.

About Zachary Grey

Zachary Grey, often known as Zach, is a bit of a Bad Boy. He is very rich and throws money around. He is moody and troubled; he is wild, reckless, unpredictable and sometimes self-destructive; he likes to hurt and frighten people; his outlook on life is cynical, amoral, nihilistic, negative and pessimistic: he is always saying, “What’s the point?” and wondering whether there is anything worth living for in this lousy world. He sees nothing but doom and disaster ahead. 

There are times when he hates just about everyone: he drives them away then tries to cajole them into staying.

Zach has a weak heart; he knows that he could die at any time and uses this as a weapon to control people: if they don’t do just as he likes he might have a heart attack. He uses hysterical outbursts to manipulate his parents into giving him whatever he wants; they are under his thumb.

Zach has a death wish and courts danger; he habitually does things he knows he shouldn’t do. He is always getting kicked out of schools for smoking and cheating and not turning up for classes. He does this for kicks, because he is bored. He intends to study law just to learn how to get away with things and get the better of and outsmart the phonies who run this lousy world.

Zach believes that money is everything; he has nothing but withering scorn for religion: he thinks that all religious people are phonies; he thinks that people care only about number one and that the only way to get on in the world is to step on people. His goal in life is to have what he wants, do what he wants, go where he wants and get what he wants. 

Zachary Grey is a devil’s advocate.