For CC forum enquirers

Although all my own material is saved, I am devastated by the loss of so much valuable information that other members had posted. Some of us are still in touch; perhaps something can be salvaged and we will be able to get going again.

UnseenI

unseeninfluences@googlemail.com

Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, and the Isle of Wight

When I visited Portsmouth and Southsea earlier this year, I thought about extending my explorations to another, nearby, seaside town - Ryde on the Isle of Wight. After walking around Southsea looking at places of interest, I didn’t have enough energy or inclination left, so I decided to leave it for another day. I had hoped to go much sooner, but I have finally made the trip.

Significant dates

Geoffrey Stavert, the author of A Study in Southsea: The Unrevealed Life of Doctor Arthur Conan Doyle, did some detective work and was reasonably confident that Conan Doyle arrived at Clarence Pier in Southsea on Saturday, June 24th 1882.

By coincidence, June 24th 2017 was a Saturday too, and I first intended to visit the island on that day; it seemed fitting that I would leave Clarence Pier on the same day and date that Conan Doyle arrived. However, it was a day when the weather was not very good and I didn’t feel like going anywhere.

I kept postponing this trip in favour of other things, until I realised that autumn was upon us. September 22nd was the day of the Autumn Equinox, so I thought that would be a good day to go.

Journey to Ryde on the Isle of Wight

I returned to Southsea, then travelled by Hovercraft over the Solent to Ryde.

I have made this journey before, but on those occasions Kipling and Doyle were not involved. I lived in Ryde for a short time when I was four years old, and I went back there just for personal reasons. This time, I was aware of some relevant associations.

Unseen influences on the Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight has a bad reputation. There are allegations of Satanism, black magic and mysterious goings on. Freemasons in business and local government are alleged to have inordinate influence on the island’s affairs. David Icke, who lives in Ryde, is one of the many people who have written about this.

I will never know why my family moved to Ryde – and some other places with interesting and sinister connections. I suspect that someone was following some kind of psychic trail.

Stella Gibbons’s Juliet: different, difficult and defiant

I didn’t expect to think of anything more to say about Stella Gibbons’s books, and I knew that as she died in 1989 there wouldn’t be any more of them.

I learned recently that two manuscripts she left to her estate have been published. I didn’t expect to like the new books - I prefer Stella Gibbons’s earlier to her later books - and I didn’t expect to find anything relevant to this blog either.

The stories contain anachronisms and anomalies, recycled and repurposed characters and other material that I recognised from her previous books, and I can’t say that I enjoying reading them for their own sake very much.

However, some of what I read in Pure Juliet (a draft that was completed in 1978 and retitled from An Alpha) resonated enough to inspire an article.

I want to concentrate on one character, the eponymous Juliet, and the most relevant aspects in this book: by coincidence, Juliet’s main interest in life is the study of coincidences.

Juliet’s personality

It seems to me that Stella Gibbons wanted to create and describe someone who was in many ways her exact opposite. She has not done too bad a job of it. Much of what she says about Juliet’s character and behaviour is familiar, and some of it could apply to INTJ girls. I can identify with a lot of it.

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.

Some thoughts about good and bad role models

I wrote about the acceptance of responsibility a while back as part of an exercise to start listing the attributes that in my opinion make someone a good role model.

Creating articles for this blog and making contributions to some forums has involved a lot of research. Much of the material that I have encountered recently is very disillusioning. I have seen some horrific revelations about public figures. 

These discoveries have inspired me to return to the subject of role models and associated attributes. This article continues the exercise with some ideas about bad role models and some attempts to define the qualities that make a good role model.

Bad role models

Many people are presented by the media as good examples to follow and emulate. We are given the message that we should respect these people just because of their power and position and because they are in the public eye. 

Celebrities and socialites, some talentless and lacking in achievements and with hedonistic, unwholesome or even degenerate lifestyles, are marketed as examples of success in life and good role models. After all, anyone who has millions of followers on social media must be doing something right.

They are the in-crowd and we are outsiders. The suggestion is that we should admire them for their wealth, fame and glamour and envy them for and attempt to copy their lifestyles.

Benjamin Disraeli: Imperium Et Libertas, death and primroses

Benjamin Disraeli died on April 19th, 1881.

Protocol did not permit Queen Victoria to attend his funeral, but she sent two wreaths of primroses with a simple message attached: “His favourite flowers.”

She used to dispatch many bunches of primroses from Osborne House, her holiday home on the Isle of Wight, to Disraeli, for which he always thanked her effusively. Perhaps he was just being polite; perhaps he really did like primroses more than any other flower.

Queen Victoria sent primroses to Disraeli’s grave at his home in High Wycombe on each anniversary of his death until 1901, when she herself died.

Some people allege that by ‘his’, Queen Victoria meant Prince Albert’s!

Either way, because of what she wrote and sent, primroses became associated with Disraeli’s name and were featured in two legacies, Primrose Day and The Primrose League.

Primrose Day

On the first anniversary of Disraeli’s death, many people in London wore primroses in their hats and buttonholes as a tribute to the great statesman who had done so much for his country and the British Empire.

This established a tradition; for decades to come April 19th was Primrose Day, which became an unofficial national holiday until the First World War.

On the day, people made pilgrimages to Disraeli’s grave and to his statue near the Parliament that was his Mecca.

As late as 1916, Pathé News filmed the laying of a wreath of primroses at Disraeli’s statue outside the Palace of Westminster.

No other Prime Minister’s death has been honoured in this way.

Benjamin Disraeli: clothes, debts and a very happy marriage

I have been looking at more information about Benjamin Disraeli’s life, personality and political career. He is still a man of mystery to me. Perhaps describing and contemplating the aspects, good and bad, that have interested and affected me the most will help me to decide what sort of man he really was and how sincere his views were.

This article describes some personal aspects that caught my attention.

Disraeli the dashing dandy

Benjamin Disraeli’s exotic appearance was a major factor in his life.

I have noticed many references in Victorian writings to coal-black eyes. This is odd; I have never seen anyone like that. Perhaps it was just a convention for describing very dark brown eyes. It is also possible that the dim lights they used enlarged people’s pupils so their eyes appeared black.

Disraeli too was described as having coal-black eyes, and he had glossy black hair too. His family was of Italian origin – just like Marie Corelli, he claimed Venetian ancestry - so perhaps this was where the dark colouring came from.

His appearance meant that he could never pass as typically English, so he exploited his looks and went to the other extreme. He became an exhibitionist. He cultivated a flamboyant and exotic image, when he was a young man at least. He modelled himself on Lord Byron and developed a very colourful, striking and outrageous style of dressing in order to attract attention.

For example, he was seen in -

“…a black velvet coat lined with satin, purple trousers with a gold band running down the outside seam, a scarlet waistcoat, long lace ruffles, falling down to the tips of his fingers, white gloves with several brilliant rings outside them, and long black ringlets rippling down upon his shoulders.”

Another notably ostentatious outfit consisted of green velvet trousers with a yellow waistcoat, shoes with silver buckles and lace at his wrists again.

He is said to have worn rouge, powder and perfume too.

He caused a big sensation when walking in central London:

"He came up Regent Street when it was crowded wearing his blue surtout, a pair of military light blue trousers, black stockings with red stripes, and shoes! 'The people,' he said, 'quite made way for me as I passed. It was like the opening of the Red Sea...Even well-dressed people stopped to look at me. I should think so!'"

Men usually wore boots not shoes at the time, which explains why his footwear was mentioned.

Perhaps he was acting a part; perhaps he was making his presence felt; perhaps he just enjoyed the attention.

Other people’s descriptions are better than nothing, but I wish that I could have seen Disraeli in all his glory for myself. He would have been a sight well worth seeing.

Disraeli and the ideal marriage

His critics alleged that Disraeli had no genuine feelings. His well-documented attachment to his wife Mary Anne, formerly Mrs Wyndham Lewis, proves them wrong. He just does not seem like a user or manipulator where she is concerned.

There was a lot of good feeling on both sides; they were devoted to each other. She was exactly what he needed; she provided the financial, emotional and practical support necessary for his political career.

Mary Anne Disraeli has been described as a loud, talkative, over-painted, over-dressed, social-climbing oddity whose speech and behaviour were often bizarre.

Many people disliked her, and Queen Victoria said that she was very vulgar. Disraeli would not permit any criticism of his wife, and when someone once asked him in effect how he could stand it, replied, “Gratitude”.

This sounds sincere, and anyone who can feel genuine gratitude can’t be all bad.

Disraeli had good reason to feel grateful towards Mary Anne. She had rescued him, settled his debts and promoted his political career. He might never have achieved his goal of becoming Prime Minister and a great statesman without her.

She took care of her Dizzy. In return, she got his loyalty and devotion, not to mention a lot of very romantic letters and speeches. 

She was 12 years his senior and 47 when they married, but throughout the 33 years they were together he behaved as if she were young and beautiful. He wouldn’t hear a word against her.

It is a very touching and enviable relationship. They may have seemed a very odd couple to outsiders, but they brought out the best in each other and had something that many people do not, something that enabled Disraeli to say this after Mary Anne had died:

"Marriage is the greatest earthly happiness when founded on mutual sympathy.”

It is good to learn that he had some personal happiness in his life.

Disraeli and his dreadful debts

Benjamin Disraeli’s behaviour towards his wife may have shown him at his best; his attitude towards borrowing money and getting into debt is for me the worst element in his personality. 

He was very good at persuading people to lend him money and invest in his business enterprises.

He had borrowed and lost a fortune by the age of 21. His South American mining investment venture and the publishing enterprise both failed to bring in the huge amounts of money he had hoped to make for himself and his supporters.

Not doing everything possible to support oneself, not living within one’s means, having feelings of entitlement to other people’s resources, sponging off friends and acquaintances and asking to borrow more instead of paying back the original loan all seem very horrific to me.

Perhaps Disraeli would have asked what else could someone with expensive tastes, great ambition and little money of his own do. He said, “As a general rule, nobody has money who ought to have it.”

Perhaps he thought that living within one’s means was all very well for ordinary people, but such rules should not apply to a great but unrecognised genius. Some scruples were luxuries that he could not afford, and the end justified the means.

As Lord Stanley explained to Queen Victoria, “Mr Disraeli has had to make his position, and men who make their positions will say and do things which are not necessarily to be said or done by those for whom positions are made.”

This is very true!