Making Facts Fit The Narrative

Making Facts Fit The Narrative

A Review of Fareed Zakaria In Foreign Affairs

by

R.E. Prindle

Zakaria, Fareed: The New China Scare, Foreign Affairs, Jan-Feb 2020

Mr. Zakaria subtitles his screed:  Why America Shouldn’t Panic About Its Latest Challenger, that is, China.  My objection to Foreign Affairs, Mr. Zakaria and the whole Leftist-Liberal Establishment is that while professing to be far in advance than the Conservatives they cling to the whole post-WWII fantasy of American hegemony or supremacy.  That time is gone.  We are now living in a new Global era which is inter-locked economically while national sovereignty is taking a much diminished role.

Because of the shifting of whole national populations into the United States it is no longer possible, if it ever was, to speak of a unit called America.  America was a dream of the past.  Because of the extreme diversity of the US there is not one but several ethnic Americas.  The Chinese themselves already have a significant presence in the US and are inundating our neighbor to the North, Canada.  These domestic Chinese identify more with China than the US so it is not appropriate to speak of a China while disregarding its ex-pats in the rest of the world.  It is more or a Chinese diaspora and has to be dealt with as such.

Mr. Zakaria is himself a Moslem and in speaking of his ‘chosen’ country he speaks of it as an other and not as his own.  Thus in his subtitle he speaks that ‘America shouldn’t Panic.’  We, who have been born here, perhaps several generations ago, don’t recognize the China problem as panic, we recognize China as a competitor on the world stage that is seeking world dominance or, put another way, it wants to be the Top Country.  China being 90 some percent of the same ethnic group, Han Chinese doesn’t have the identity problem that the US does.  China does not cater to its minority peoples they dominate and subordinate them as with the Uigurs on its Eastern frontier.  Nor are they polite; they round the Uigurs up, put them in concentration camps and ‘indoctrinate’ them out of their ways, which are Moslem, into Chinese ways.  If Europe or the US would attempt that the world, including the Chinese, would put up a howl.  Yet if the West wants to maintain its culture it must ‘indoctrinate’ its minorities as the Chinese do.  Even the Hindus of India have belatedly become aware that their culture is under threat from the Moslems and repressive measures are being taken.

Let us be clear there is no China Scare in the US contrary to Mr. Zakarias assertion.  We are dealing with the new Global situation on a calm rational basis.

By a New China Scare Mr. Zakaria does not mean to refer to a second China scare, he is referencing the defensive measures taken against the Communist threat after WWI and WWII.  By ‘scare’ he means an irrational response to an imaginary threat.  Thus he tries to force the facts to fit his narrative. 

In point of fact there was a Communist threat that had to be quelled.  After WWI the alert and astute Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer rose to the occasion rounding the Communists up and actually deporting a few hundred to the Socialist Homeland, the Soviet Union.  His efforts were compromised by the Domestic Reds in prominent positions.

After WWII HUAC rose to the occasion abetted by 1950 with the activities of the courageous Senator Joseph McCarthy who also were defeated by internal Communist forces, but the Communist momentum was derailed after both wars and forced to reorganize.

Now, Zakaria follows the official CIA line in which ignorant American fears dominate their actions.  Thus they say that in both the aftermath of WWI and WWII there were no Communist threats and the effective responses to defuse those threats were merely panic attacks.  While our great generals had won the wars and our brave American soldiers had outfought their terrible enemies immediately on arriving home they had panic attacks rather than recognizing enemy tactics.  In WWI Mitchell Palmer who acted so magnificently has been defamed as a paranoid dodo.

After WWII Pres. Truman’s actions are characterized this way by Zakaria following the CFR playbook:

In February 1947, US President Harry Truman huddled with his most senior policy advisors, George Marshall, and Dean Acheson and a handful of Congressional leaders.  The topic was the administration’s plan to aid the Greek government in the fight (scary response in Mr. Zakaria’s thought processes) against a Communist insurgency.  Marshall and Acheson presented their case for the plan.  Arthur Vandenberg, chair of the Senate Committee On Foreign Relations, listened closely and then offered his support with a caveat.  “The only way you are going to get what you want,” he reportedly told the president, “is to make a speech and scare the hell out of the country.”

Now, one might say that Pres. Truman, acting in his capacity and duty as the President, presented his speech to alert the country to the threat of World Communist domination which was real and imminent at the time having been encouraged by the Communist sympathizer former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who Vice President Truman succeeded after having been purposely kept ignorant of the world situation even though Roosevelt was obviously a sick and dying man.

Zakaria says that Pres. Truman was not rational but an irrational scare tactician manipulating the country to get what he wanted.  Zakaria could have co-written Howard Zinn’s trashy history.  This is the way that the Left discredits by insinuation and defamatory characterization ignoring the facts.

Mr. Zakaria continues:

Over the next few months, Truman did just that.  He turned the civil war in Greece into a test of the United States ability to confront international communism.

You see how Zakaria turns the situation from an internationally communist backed insurgency into a civil war, and instead of an international defense against the spread of communism into an ego test of the United States ability to confront international communism.  Obviously Truman and the US was at fault and not Joseph Stalin and international communism.  Thus we go from a communist insurgency to a civil war, to a ‘test’ against international communism.  This says something as to why the CFR would allow such trash in their magazine.

Quote:  (note the language)

Reflecting on Truman’s expansive rhetoric about aiding democracies anywhere, anytime, Acheson confessed in his memoirs that the administration had made an argument “clearer than truth.”  Something similar is happening today in the American debate about China.

Unquote.

Not the negative characterization of the phrase ‘Truman’s expansive rhetoric about aiding democracies anytime, anywhere’ and Acheson ‘confessed.’  Did he really confess or merely state what might have been an obvious truth to him.  And his ‘clearer than truth’ may be meant positively rather than negatively.  It can possibly be read both ways but Zakaria make Acheson ‘confess’ which is negative.  This is the Leftist way.

Perhaps English is Mr. Zakaria’s second language while Arabic is his first. Oh, I know, I know, even though Mr. Zakaria is a Moslem he is as ‘American’ as apple pie.  He may even have been born here, right?

Mr. Zakaria says that similar to the ‘Red Scares’ is happening today  in the American debate about China.  Not true, there is nothing similar at all.  This is a different time, different circumstances and a different grope for power.  What Americans should panic about is Mr. Zakaria’s being given space to spin his anti-American vitriol.  Would it be out of line to ask from which university Mr. Zakaria received his degree in history?

A Tale of Two Cultures

A Tale Of Two Cultures

 

There are many different thinkers, that is, interpreters and therefore interpretations.  This quote is from Edith Starr Miller’s 1933 study- Occult Theocrasy in which she examines the history of mystical thinking in all its manifestations through the Ages.  Very informative.

She evolves both the European approach to life and the Jewish approach stemming from Ancient Egyptian Theocrasy.  The ‘s’ instead of the ‘c’ changes the meaning slightly.

I quote:

Concealed behind the popular cult of Osiris and Isis was the soul of Egyptian esotericism which no one could reach, except after having been deemed worthy to penetrate the most sacred mysteries of Isis whole statue, with its face veiled, stood before the door of occultism.

The trials of initiation which the candidate had to withstand before he beheld the light of Osiris and understood the “Vision of Hermes” were long and terrible.  They were interspersed, however, by a series of trance induced by special beverages, during which the initiate had voluptuous visions of Isis preceded by the five-pointed star or the Rose of Isis.

Two great flowing currents issued from the esoteric wisdom, jealously safe guarded by the Egyptians, namely, Mosaism or Judaism, taught by Moses whose God was Jehovah [or Yahwey], and Orpheism taught by [the Greek] Orpheus whose God was Zeus or Jupiter.  The former adapted his beliefs to suit the mentality of the undisciplined, rebellious masses of Israelites in Egypt, hence a god of Fear and Vengeance; the latter legislated for a people whose Hellenic genius touched sublime heights of philosophic wisdom on the one hand and sought on the other to carry its irrepressible sense of beauty and lightheartedness in pursuit of material pleasures.  Hence the great difference between the two currents which had divided their central teaching from the same source.

Unquote.

The conflict in values continues today.  Something to consider.

Pt. X, Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle: GWM Reynolds' The Necromancer

Part X, Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle

A Review

Geo. W.M. Reynolds’ The Necromancer

by

R.E. Prindle

Reynolds’ writing system was such that he could write each installment of the Mysteries of the Court of London in seven hours leaving the rest of the week open.  Thus he had a seven hour work week leaving time to do a myriad other things including writing other books.  He says his mind was bursting with ideas.  He had a powerful compartmentalized mind so that he could keep two or three novels going at the same time so that in the year of 1851 he wrote his installments for the Court of London and The Seamstress, Pope Joan, Kenneth and the Necromancer,  the last two extending into 1852.  We are going to examine here his very fine novel, The Necromancer, or perhaps one might rename it the Magician.

If as seems evident that every novelist is writing his own life whether consciously or unconsciously, it is also true that the novelist reflects his own time.  Ostensibly the Necromancer takes place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries but I think we can abstract a story about what was happening currently in his day.  This will require much background work.

As is uppermost in every twenty-first century White mind the question of is the author in any way anti-Semitic, non, Feminist, a racist, and as it is expressed a Homophobe.  We are going to explain the Necromancer as an explanation of Semitism in the England of Reynolds and ignore the other bete noirs.  You have been forewarned.

Whether you consider Semites, that is Jews, as a religion, a nation, a people or whatever they are an economic, political and social force working solely for Jewish interests to the exclusion of all others.  Jews consider themselves a nation and a people.  The period from 1814 through the nineteenth century saw the rise of the Jewish people as the pre-eminent people of Great Britain.  The rise was especially prominent from 1815 to 1860, the period most important of Reynolds novelist life.

It is not possible that he didn’t note the situation and if he didn’t mention it directly, which he doesn’t, then there must be a reason.  Why would he have to resort to a parable such as The Necromancer?  The answer was that even at that time there were penalties to writing ethnographical studies such as Reynolds’ that did not show Jews to critical advantage.

If one found it necessary to include Jewish characters they must be portrayed in the most benevolent light.  Reynolds does mention Jewish characters but in a peculiar way.  He lauds them as long suffering, unfairly victimized as a people but then he invariably displays them as what are called anti-Semitic stereotypes.  Thus the pawn broker in Wagner, the Wehr Wolf.

He is depicted as a totally inoffensive person, obsequious to the extreme as a persecuted member of the bedeviled people.  After these laudatory comments Reynolds then pictures a character bearing all the so-called Semitic tropes.  He changes the stones on the pawned diamonds to paste, which Reynolds justifies by his peoples ages long persecution, as well as other criminal acts.  It would seem that Reynolds knew the score.

The odd thing, since Jewish activity was at a height is that Reynolds makes no reference to Jewish economic or banking activities.  Let us do a brief survey of where matters stood at the time.  In 1815 Nathan Rothschild seized control of English currency and the Bank of England.

  To explain:

A famous European and Jewish canard is that of father Mayer Amschel Rothschild and his five arrows, that is, his five sons.  They were dispatched to European capitals to form a powerful network covering the continent and England.  Nathan Rothschild was sent to Manchester to engage in the booming textile industry.  Nathan was no businessman and could not succeed in textiles.  He therefore turned to crime becoming a smuggler which would turn out to fortuitously make his fortune.

In 1806 Napoleon was conquering the German States, moving in on the Margrave of Hesse-Cassel.  The Margrave was fabulously wealthy.  He wanted to conceal his wealth from Napoleon who was more than eager to appropriate it.  The Margrave then employed his Court Jew, Mayer Amschel Rothshild, to conceal it.  Mayer sent a substantial portion of it to Nathan who by this time was floundering around as a banker.  The money immediately established Nathan as a financial force.  At that time the British were engaging Napoleon in the Iberian Peninsular War.  Wellington the British general in the Peninsula needed cash desperately but the usually inventive English didn’t know of a secure way to get the money to him.  Nathan was then used to transport the money.  Using his, by this time, well developed smuggling skills in conjunction with his brother arrow, James, in Paris, they delivered the mail.

This was known to the French authorities as Fouche, the very clever Minister of Police, was aware of exactly how it had been done.  The method is well demonstrated in the German Movie, The Rothschilds.  So Nathan and his fellow Jews scored a bundle on that caper.

Nathan’s most outstanding feat that brought England to its knees was his capture of the currency after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.  He spread the rumor that Napoleon had won Waterloo causing a stupendous sell off that drove prices far down.  While others sold Nathan bought.  Then his special couriers raced to London to carry news of the English, or allied, victory.  Prices bounced back but by then using the fabulous wealth of the Margrave of Hesse Nathan owned huge amounts of securities that he sold at magnificent profit thus securing the base of the Rothschild dynasty, still going strong eight generations on.

To report this astonishing feat in history tends to mitigate the reaction of the Brits when they learned how they had been diddled out of the ruling of their country for Rothschild had pulled an astonishing cheat.  Reynolds who was very well informed across the board must have known this but was constrained from portraying it for fear of Jewish retaliation which even was formidable.

We are now moving to the 1840s and Nathan who had passed was succeeded by Lionel Rothschild as the scion of the family.  A most formidable and dangerous antagonist.

At this time young Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was attempting to establish himself as a literary wizard before entering politics.  He had already written many novels when in 1844 he wrote Coningsby, Sybil in 1845 and Tancred in 1847.  In Coningsby he laid bare the Jewish influence in European affairs when he wrote that the world was actually governed by different people behind the scenes than the public imagined.  Thus he led the reading public to believe that the apparent rulers were mere operatives of others, that is, the Jews.

These three political novels made more of a stir than his earlier romances had so that it seems reasonable that Disraeli, Coningsby at least, had been read by Reynolds by 1851.  In Coningsby Disreali lauds his Jewish mastermind as the most astounding human being since Adam.  The character was based on the real life Right Honourable Lionel Freiherr Rothschild.  (1808-1879) Named Sidonia in the novel.

Lionel, Lion-el means Lion of the Lord or God, what we might say, Defender of the Faith in Christian terms.

The Jews since Nathan had owned the State of England but they as a different religion from the Anglicans suffered political and religious disabilities.  It was Lionel’s mission to remove them in which mission he was successful.

In 1847 he was the first Jew to be elected to Parliament.  This was success but it would also have absorbed Lionel as just another member.  He wanted more.  He in essence did not want to be absorbed as an English member of the House of Commons but as an autonomous Jew.  To be sworn in he had to take an oath of Christian formulation.  This he refused to do wishing to be sworn in as a Jew.

In order to accommodate him this would have required a changing of the rules with long term consequences.  Accordingly Lord Russell introduced a Jewish Disabilities Act to change the rules.  In 1849 when the Act failed the German-Jewish Baron Lionel Rothschild resigned his seat.  But still determined he won a bye election to keep his campaign going.  Returning he still refused to swear on the New Testament demanding the Jewish or Old Testament.  The oath still required him to say:  ‘Upon the true faith of a Christian.’  He refused to do so on the grounds that Christianity was not the true faith, Judaism was.  Once again he was compelled to resign his seat.

In 1852 he tried to bull his way through but once again was denied.  Finally in 1858 Lionel Rothschild forced through the oath changes.  Refusing to be bareheaded as required by English custom he demanded to wear his yarmulke  or skull cap and instead of saying ‘on the true faith of a Christian’ he was allowed to say ‘so help me Jehovah.’

Thus he became the first Jewish member of the House of Commons but the first Jew in the House rather than an English member of the Jewish faith.  Thus in this long battle to be seated Lionel changed the nature of the country into a country of Englishmen and nearly autonomous Jews.  Already in control of English currency the Jews would now aspire to political power while moving freely through society ostensibly equal but actually superior having all English rights as well as autonomous Jewish rights that were denied the English.

Thus Disraeli’s astonishing Sidonia/Lionel cleared the way for Disraeli to serve in the Commons but also to become the Prime Minister; the intermediary between the English people and their Sovereign.

These activities were not carried on in a vacuum or beneath the observance of interested parties of which Reynolds was one.  While he was only observing the struggle up to 1851-52 when he wrote the Necromancer the writing was on the wall.  No doubt Reynolds had read Disraeli’s Coningsby and had watched Lionel Rothschild’s maneuvering.  Being a novelist it was easy for him to shadow forth the denouement that occurred in 1858.

My reading of the Necromancer reflects Reynolds’ version of what was happening.  Thus his protagonist Lionel Danvers is Lionel Rothschild.  As an historical novelist he then creates a fictional history of the Danvers/Rothschild story.  He combines the five arrows into one.  As was commonly thought at the time the Jews were Satanic thus Danvers had sold his soul to Satan for a period of a hundred fifty years so and with the due date imminent it was necessary for Danvers to honor his commitment to Satan to redeem his soul.

Danvers existed under several names and guises as he was able to shape shift to any age at any time.  Thus at various periods he was the middle aged Walter, a mature Lionel Danvers and a boyish Reginald or Conrad. 

Even though he had sold his soul to the devil, Satan had given him an escape clause in that if he could find six virgins who would do anything for him, even die, he would take those six souls in exchange for Danvers’.  For some reason I always read Danvers in the French form of D’enfer.  Thus Danvers becomes The Lion Of the Lord of Hell.  Whether correct or not it certainly fits.

Now, Lionel Danvers to use that name of his existence, had all the wealth of Europe at his command.  While ostensibly an English Lord he spent all his time on the continent where he had the greatest concentrations of wealth in addition to his very large holdings in England.  For him money had no other meaning than to buy power in whatever form it took by any means necessary.

In his Walter incarnation, his first, as the clearest example, Walter shows up in Genoa where he befriends the scion of the Landini trading family.  He then bestows, not as a loan but for safe keeping interest free, an incredible fortune that Landini can use without any restrictions for his own benefit on the condition that whenever Danvers appears the Landinis are to return his money in full on demand or they become his slaves.

Naturally the Landinis being astute traders enjoy enormous success for several generations.  Even though Danvers has never returned they still maintain his fortune.  Each successor has been made aware of his obligation so that not only the trust is available ready to honor at any time but also interest.  However suddenly the worst fortune descends on them and all their deals begin to sour, whole argosies are lost at sea.  Danvers chooses this moment to return and demand his money.  The demand can’t be honored.

But, the Landinis have a beautiful virgin daughter, Bianca.  Danvers courts her, wins her heart and they set a date to be married.  In the meantime, as debtors to Danvers, the Landinis have become his slaves.  They are ordered to go to London and start a jewelry house, which they do.

Before leaving the marriage is arranged between Walter and Bianca.  Before the marriage Danvers carries Bianca off to no one knows where.  They both just vanish.  Bianca becomes the first of the virgins sacrificed to Satan by Danvers.  But, of course, the details that can be revealed here are mysteries to the reader.

Bianca had been abducted to Danvers ruined castle on the Isle of Wight.  In the secret chamber where Danvers murders the women a score card is on the wall in fiery letters, thus Bianca becomes virgin soul #1, five more to go.

As the story opens Lionel Danvers is sacrificing his fifth, Clara Manners.

One of the deepest mysteries in this astonishingly deep book is the problem of Musidora Sinclair who Lionel has selected as his sixth victim.  He seems to have had a singular attachment to the girl.  Musidora had been a charming girl but at the age of seventeen  she became of a very icy temperament unmoved by anyone or anything.  As it turns out Lionel had attempted to lead her to his secret chamber, she lived on the Isle of Wight, but she got cold feet on the way to the chamber and fled.  This event turned her heart cold.  Now, after having despatched Clara Manners he decides to try again to make Musidora his final victim.

I take Musidora to mean Golden Song or music. Whether right or wrong, she is.

Lionel now has a problem because Musidora won’t allow him near her.  Fortunately Lionel has a plan B.  He will impersonate King Henry VIII, during whose reign the story takes place at this point, and wed her.  Unfortunately her beauty overwhelms him and he impregnates her (another mystery) thus destroying her virginity.  Even Lionel Danvers was not so stupid that he didn’t know that it was impossible to diddle Satan.

For Reynolds the story of the impersonation of Henry III is the central point of the story.  Between Nathan and Lionel Rothschild a shadow government had been forming in England.  While Queen Victoria was the apparent ruler at this time the actual rulers were, as Disraeli had written, other than the seeming rulers.  Lionel lived till 1879 when he died at the age of seventy.

Granting that Disraeli was accurate then whatever power the shadow rulers had at the time, their power has gone on increasing to the present day when Evelyn Rothschild wields the power behind the throne.  Prior to the Communist Revolution of 1917 Rasputin was deemed the power behind the Russian throne.  He was also thought to be conspiring with the Germans.  As it happened Rasputin had a Jewish secretary and we must suppose that the secretary had ties to other Jewish revolutionaries so that he was able to pass information to them much as Dreyfus had done in France in the 1890s.

In all probability the German agents Rasputin was thought to be conspiring with was actually being done by his Jewish secretary.  The secretary would have been very intimate with Rasputin and would have had strong control over what information Rasputin received while having access to all or most of Rasputin’s info and plans.  Thus Through Rasputin the Jews would have been able to influence the Czarina and through the Czarina the Czar.

In the US during the same period, the Wall Street speculator Bernard Baruch would become the actual co-president of Woodrow Wilson free to issue commands on his own authority subject only to correction by Wilson himself and he and Wilson were of like minds.  So, at the crucial time of the Revolution both Russia and the US were subject to Jewish discipline.

Be that as it may, is it any coincidence that Lionel Danvers and Lionel Rothschild bore the same Christian name?  I think not.  Reynolds is trying to tell us something.  So Lionel Danvers having circulated rumors that he was dead or on the continent set about to realize his lust on the body of Musidora Sinclair while posing as Henry VIII.

It will be remembered that at this time Henry was seeking a divorce from his Spanish wife Catherine, but it had not yet been achieved.  Danvers has to fool Musidora into believing he, impersonating Henry, had succeeded in obtaining that divorce.  First Danvers has to lure Musidora from her retreat on the Isle of Wight.  He has a relative couple of Musidora living in the royal city of Greenwich invite Musidora to come for and extended visit to their castle.  Then he finds a probable excuse for Henry to be a guest of the Earl and Countess Grantham, Musidora’s relatives.

There is some hint that Danvers magically transformed himself into a duplicate form of Henry.  I don’t think that was necessary.  At this point in history but few people would have seen Henry.  So, all that Danvers would have had to have done is bought some clothes royalty would have worn and developed the persona.  Of course Musidora knew Danvers well as a young girl and ought to have been able to identify his voice.  But, this is Reynolds’ story and the disguise was complete although their was some uncertainty accepting face values.

Nevertheless Henry/Danvers showered Musidora with expensive gifts including a set of very expensive diamonds.  It will be remembered that the Landinis from Genoa had been running a jewelry shop in London for about a hundred years.

Eventually, with continued prodding from the Granthams, who were completely fooled, Danvers/Henry break Musidora down and she agrees to marry the faux monarch.  However suspicions remain and the strictest safeguards are taken.  Musidora demands to see the papal bull nullifying Henry’s marriage to Catherine which matter was not resolved at the time. 

Danvers has one forged.  As three papal seals are needed Danvers obtains authentic seals.

As a political operative he has suborned numerous members of Henry’s household putting them on the payroll and so has one obtain seals from an authentic papal communication.  The officiating priest is fooled and really has no choice but to marry Musidora and Danvers/Henry.  Danvers cannot allow Musidora to circulate or talk about her marriage so he swears her to secrecy about the whole affair.

Nevertheless Henry learns of the fraud and swears his informers to secrecy because he doesn’t want the public to know that a shadow King Henry is loose in the kingdom.  Reynolds here is describing the actual political condition in England that a second monarch is running the kingdom by secretive measures.  This answers to Disraeli’s claim that others than the seeming rulers are directing affairs.

In fact Disraeli himself will become Prime Minister and facetiously and destructively make Victoria the Empress of India.  Disraeli was ostensibly a Christian having changed from Judaism to Anglican at the age of thirteen.  Thirteen is when a Jewish lad takes his Bar Mitzvah becoming a young man with a man’s prerogatives.  It is very likely the change to Anglicanism was deceitfully made with political motives in mind.  Disraeli became a Jew disguised as a Christian.

While there may be some objectors to my analysis one should note that Sir Piers Dunhaven the father of the second female victim had once had an extensive property in Cumberland but he had lost most of his property to usury.  As Christians were forbidden usury it follows that Jews using their monopoly in usury had stripped Sir Piers of his property.  There are subtle hints such as this to Lionel Danvers nationality.

What we have here then is an allegory of the subjection of England by the Jews according to Reynolds.  On that level this is the shadow meaning of the novel.

On another level this is a near perfect Gothic novel.  One is reminded of The Mysteries of Udolpho by Mrs. Radcliffe.  As he was an old admirer of Mrs. Radcliffe I’m sure that Reynolds had Udolpho in mind as he wrote this.  The story is also first class mystery and would beat out Willkie Collins for longest mystery story.  And, Reynolds keeps the mystery going to the very end.  Who could have guessed that Marian Bradley, Danvers last possible chance to beat the devil was his and Musidora’s daughter?  Didn’t see that one coming did we?

The story is plotted out perfectly.   When we are shown the glowing signboard with the illuminated names and the blank spaces we have to wonder.  That was the first mystery and the finest first mystery explained.  This list of victims also gave Reynolds his opportunity to tell six tales and he loves to tell those tales.

Then there is the mystery of Danvers and where he gets his inexhaustible supply of money.  His fortunes, not just a fortune but fortunes, come from over all Europe and England.  An historical question often asked is how do Jews when expropriated and expelled out of one locality show up in a new one and immediately, as it seems, regain their wealth.  The solution to that one is easy—usury.  Aware that they may be expelled on short notice they kept jewels and portable wealth sewn into garments so that they could leave on amoment’s notice to resurface as wealthy elsewhere.

The Catholic Church and its opinion on money making money, that is usury, which is the objection to loaning on interest, penalized its own adherents and enfranchised the Jews who it politically disenfranchised.  Interest in those days wasn’t six or seven percent either.  Usury laws only came into existence much later.  In those days interest was as much as fifty percent compounded daily or more so you can see how the money lenders, Jews, cornered the money supply wherever they were.  The Danvers unlimited, renewed wealth must have come from usury, that is, legalized theft.

And Danvers applied his wealth artfully.  The ruse of entrusting money to someone to be reclaimed whenever on no notice is a sure way to entrap the party.  Reynolds was no dummy when it came to understanding ruses and ploys.  He studied hard. The ploy that the Marquis of Leveson used to entrap Venetia Trelawney was classic.

The Marquis wanted sex from Venetia that she didn’t want to give.  Not unlike Danvers, Leveson had unlimited funds that he didn’t mind losing so long as he obtained his desire.  So he presented Venetia with a magnificent string of pearls.  He told her he would redeem one or all at a time at a thousand pounds each on demand and with the last pearl she was his.  Venetia then accepted what she thought was a guarantee that she would never be in want and never have to succumb.

However the wily Marquis set a series of matters in motion to compel Venetia to redeem the pearls.  Borrowing from Eugene Sue’s Wandering Jew he has accomplices debauch the formerly steady husband of Venetia so that he turns to dissipation and gambling thus having to be bailed out frequently.  Venetia soon has to bed the Marquis.  The mysteries are usually tragic stories if you compassionate with the characters.

In this novel, while none of the characters has the memorability of the Resurrection Man from Mysteries of London, the whole ensemble of characters all work well together to create a memorable story.

The Necromancer is one of series of Satanic novels that Reynolds wrote from 1847 to 52.  The first being Wagner the Wehr Wolf, 1846-47, Faust in 1847, The Bronze Statue in 1849-50 and then the Necromancer in 1851-52.  Each is a beat the devil attempt on the part of the protagonist.  Satan is a tough customer and none succeed.

The end of Danvers is a classic much exploited in novels and movies.  Lionel (Walter, Reginald and Conrad) has lived for a hundred fifty years.  When his attempt on the sixth maiden fails and Satan comes to receive his due, Danvers shrivels from a handsome young man into a withered old man bursts into flames and disappears.

I don’t know whether Reynolds was the first to use this dodge or not, but it becomes a classic dodge thereafter.

The estimable critic Dick Collins considers the Necromancer to be his favorite Reynolds.  While I have now read twenty-five volumes of Reynolds I can’t place the volume ahead of the massive novels of The Mysteries of London, The Mysteries of the Court of London, nor, for that matter, The Mysteries of Old London.  The last has a special place in my esteem; yet, as I have said, The Necromancer as a super-natural Gothic novel I think it may be near perfection.  I’m sure that Mrs. Radcliffe would have been pleased with George’s effort.

Par XI of Time Travels With R.E Prindle follows.

Pt. IX: Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle: George W.M. Reynolds, George IV

Pt. IX:  Time Traveling With R.E. Prindle

by

R.E. Prindle

Young George IV En Regalia
 

 

Now that in parts six, seven and eight we have an adequate time line of Reynolds’ career we can get down into the substance of his major works, Mysteries of London and Mysteries of the Court of London.  For those not aware of the extent of his corpus, it is immense with about all of it written concurrently with his two major novels.

For instance, in the four years from 1844 to 1848 when the four series of Mysteries of London were written, George also wrote Faust:  A Romance of the Secret Tribunals in 1847; Wagner, the Wehrwolf in 1846-47; The Mysteries of Old London: Days of Hogarth in 1847-48 and The Coral Island or, The Hereditary Curse in 1848 as he ended Mysteries of London and began Mysteries of the Court at the same time.  All of these are significant works are of some length.

Also, in 1846, he began to publish his magazine, The Reynolds Miscellany which he edited.  While I have not received the copies yet, Gyan Publishers of India offers ten volumes of the Miscellany in five volumes of about eight hundred pages each.  I will browse them when they arrive.

Altogether this seems to be a heavy writing load, an impossible load.  Yet when one examines Reynolds’ working methods and his careful time management it may have been easily done by him given his large mind.  Certainly the load from 1844 to 1848 was, for him, light.  He was responsible for turning in eight double column pages, minus illustrations a week.

As his mind could apparently be rigidly compartmentalized; as he is said to have written very fast, then his actual work period turning out eight thousand words could be easily done in, say, six hours.  He had to keep his whole story in mind for each sequent but, as I imagine, as he turned in an installment his mind, or part of it, immediately began plotting out the next installment so that when his next deadline approached he had the eight thousand words ready and could just spill them out.  So, his whole work week by which he sustained his whole extensive family was only six hours long.

The rest of the seven days could be devoted to family matters, exploring the metropolis and reading.  George read and studied.  His Greek mythology was correct and extensive, and he drops classical references regularly.  Oddly he makes few Biblical references.  He very obviously was familiar with the British, French and German literature of the day.  He was definitely literate in English and French and probably could read German.  He takes his inspiration from where he can get it.  Could there be any coincidence that the William Harrison Ainsworth depiction of the Gypsy camp in Rookwood is reflected in Reynolds’ passages of Gypsy camps in Mysteries of London?  I think not.

As I am discovering, not many people are aware of W.H. Ainsworth.  He seems to be virtually unknown, but then, so does Reynolds.  Ainsworth was a very successful and influential author of the day turning out perhaps more books than Reynolds while being a major influence on Reynolds.  Very good books, too, well worth reading.  

While I had read Ainsworth’s name being frequently mentioned I had never read him until just recently.  I was fortunate to pick up various sets of novelists of this period at an online auction for next to nothing.  Ainsworth was one of the sets.  While the books were nearly free, about a dollar each, the shipping from Topeka Kansas was horrendous.  So, while I have some reading of the period, I can now immerse myself.

By the way, I have been familiar with the French writers for some time and more recently the German authors while an ardent admirer of ETA Hoffman for a couple decades.  While it is clear that George read French with ease, it seems probable that he could wade through German texts also.  So, what he did with a full week’s time is of interest.

The Beau

 

Obviously, one thing, was how to become his own publisher.  In 1846 only two years into Mysteries of London he obviously understood enough about publishing to launch his successful Miscellany at which time he began his ancillary novels to fill its pages.  The first issue began with his Wagner, the Wehr Wolf.  Undoubtedly the other three novels also appeared in its pages.  I will find out soon.

Now, the two major works are immense.  I have now read each twice.  The first time I caught the most exciting highlights.  The second time I penetrated the depth but the stories are so long and diverse a third and fourth reading would be necessary to organize all the characters and incidents.  Actually both works are several novels in one.  The stories are braided in such a way that that one story branches out replaced by another related story then rejoining further downstream.  Each story could be abstracted and edited into a complete novel with certain characters interchangeably distributed throughout.  Thus the story in the first series of Mysteries of the Court of Tim Meagles and Lady Diana Lade is completed and finished with Tim and Diana eased out of the rest of the novel.

The question in that instance is who was Tim Meagles in real life.  I believe he was none other than the Beau himself, Beau Brummell.  As Mysteries of the Court is a story of the Regency of George VI and as the Beau had the same relationship with the Prince as Meagles, the two must be related as no other than the Beau had so close a relationship with the Regent.

As my authority for the history of Beau Brummell I use the biography of Capt. Jesse, titled Beau Brummell.  The Capt. Published in 1844 and he is speaking first hand while having had an acquaintance with Beau in his exile in France.  My edition is from a set called Beaux and Belles of England published probably in the 1890s by the Grolier Society of London, a veritable treasure trove of biographies of the era.

The Beau, a Dandy and Beau, is an example of a social species with a long history in England and indeed probably going back in the annals of time to the transformation of the human species from the anthropoids.  It is certain that there were cavemen who wore their pelts better than others and perhaps bathed more regularly.  The advent of Mr. Gillette being well in the future.  The Beau himself was fastidious, apparently unlike his contemporaries as his fastidiousness is mentioned as exceptional.  Make your own judgment.

Brummel who was named George as apparently were half the male members of England at the time, was the son of a wealthy merchant thus inheriting thirty thousand pounds on his father’s death or however long it took to get out chancery.  Beau, surveying the social scene determined that the only society worth having was that of the aristocrats.  Having money but no title he did not qualify for their company so the Beau became the Beau, the trendsetter of male fashion and thus gained acceptability.

He also developed into a master snob and as such rose to prominence or, at least, notoriety.  His notoriety attracted the attention of the Prince, that is, George IV, later the Regent and then the King in his own right.  There is a remarkable resemblance between the two.  I post pictures.  From these it appears that the two might almost have had the same father.  At any rate, Prince and Beau become bonded, much like Meagles and the Prince.  Remember that George IV in his own persona is the main character in the story.  The Prince then resided in his mansion, Carlton House, on Pall Mall.  Let me interject that there is an excellent survey of the Capital titled London by Charles Knight in six lengthy volumes, Cambridge University Press, containing wonderful historical essays on most of the locations mentioned by George- that is, Reynolds.  The six volumes were originally issued in parts ending in 1844,  One can sharpen one’s understanding.

But, George- that is Brummel- was terribly irked by his inferior position to George- that is the Prince and so he became demeaning and superior, ridiculing George IV in conversations with others so that the Prince, George, became infuriated and broke off relations with George, the Beau.  The crowning touch came when he and a fellow ran into the Prince while walking.  The Prince studiously ignored the Beau addressing only his friend causing Brummell to caustically remark:  Who’s your fat friend?  Well, come now.  Completely in disfavor now the Beau deteriorated and as a relatively young man was forced into exile in Calais, France.  This previous history is all that concerns us in his characterization in Tim Meagle.

Meagles’ story was written a while after Dumas’ very famous The Three Musketeers was published.  The Three Musketeers is a fabulous myth.  A wonderful creation of the equally fabulous Alexander Dumas.  In Meagles and his companion Lady Diana Lade it appears that Reynolds is trying to create a myth to equal the Musketeers and female character, Milady.  Indeed, there are such similarities that Reynolds may have considered himself a rival to the great Frenchman.

Read what Andre Maurois has to say in his biography of the three Dumas titled The Titans of 1957, pp. 182-83:

Quote:

Never in the whole course of French literature has there been anything comparable to Dumas’s output between the years 1845 and 1855.  Novels from eight to ten volumes showered down without a break on the newspapers and bookshops.  The whole history of France was passed in review.  The Three Musketeers was followed by Twenty Years After and that by Vicomte de Bragelone, another trilogy- Chicot the Jester (La Reine Margot), La dame de Monsoreau and The Forty-Five Guardsmen.

Simultaneously with these, Dumas was busy narrating the decline and fall of the French monarchy—The Diamond Necklace…Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge, Memoires of a Physician…Ange Pitou and La Comtesse de Charny.  From early on he had planned to annex the whole of history to his romantic domain.  “There is no end to what I want to do,” he said.  ‘I long for the impossible.  How am I to achieve what I have in mind?  By working as no one has ever worked before, by pruning life of all its details; by doing without sleep…’  This programme accounts for the five or six hundred volumes which so astonish the reader…. No one has read all Dumas.

Unquote.

Compare Reynolds and his output from 1844 to 1859.  He too wished to write the history of all Europe.  When Maurois mentions the five or six hundred volumes he means, I imagine, parts.  Thus if Reynolds is broken into parts he can account for three or four hundred volumes.  The eight or ten volumes of Mysteries of the Court of London can be broken down to eight or ten complete novels all interrelated.  Truly the period from about 1840 to 1880 is the height of British and European literature.

Reynolds changes the character of Meagles from Brummell’s own.  The Beau according to Capt. Jesse was quite effeminate.  Indeed, he never married and apparently had no female lovers.  Meagles and Lady Lade seem to have had a platonic relationship until her husband died.  They extorted a Marquisate from George III and then as the Beau had disappeared from England they disappear from The Mysteries of the Court.

Indeed, the Beau must have been trying to inveigle his friend, George IV, into making him a Marquis or ennoblement of some kind.  Had Brummel been ennobled then he would have been entitled to associate with the aristocracy instead of being a hanger on.

Lady Lade throughout her and Meagles’ episodes dresses in men’s clothing so that she and Meagles appear as two men to the unobservant.  As her name Diana indicates she represents the virgin huntress Artemis in Greek mythology or Diana in the Latin; the female archetype of the Piscean Age in Northern Europe.  Reynolds repeatedly refers to her as the Huntress and other attributes of Diana, Tim must therefore be meant to be the male archetype of Pisces in Reynolds’ mind, not as the Redeemer but perhaps as the Trickster.

Just as the Beau longs for a title so does Tim.  While the Beau retreated ungratified Tim and Lady Diana Lade obtain their Marquisate by criminal or blackmail means.  Without going into details here, Tim and Diana have knowledge that would compromise the reputation of the Georgian House.  Using this knowledge then they criminally extort their Marquisate from George III.

To some extent then, Mysteries of the Court is a roman a clef.  How many of the other novels in the Mysteries of the Court collection may reference actual histories remains to be addressed.

The main theme is a condemnation of the Regent, George IV.  Reynolds detests him as well as the whole aristocracy to the maximum.  But, how much of that detestation is sheer envy.  How much of himself did Reynolds put into Meagles/Brummell?  Reynolds himself has the appearance of a Dandy or Beau and Ainsworth definitely was one.  He is so vehement one has to wonder about his accuracy.  Is this a fictional history of reality or mere raving.  It is apparently reasonably accurate.  Capt. Jesse who wrote of Beau Brummell while a stalwart member of his class condemns George IV for, as he puts it, teaching the aristocracy to live beyond their incomes, squandering their great wealth frivolously while living the lives of Libertines.

Reynolds then has the spirit of the times correct and while he may perhaps exaggerate he is not false.  He himself believes he is writing fictionalized history; that is, fleshing out the fact with probable detailing.

Thus, in what might be termed the fifth and sixth series of the extended Mysteries of London and the Court, although these two series are not related to the first four, the fifth series concerns itself with the years around 1795 leading to the marriage of George IV with the Princess Caroline.  The key point being his previous secret marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert.

Reynolds does not tackle his main theme directly but embeds it in a series of stories, or novellas, or novels, peripheral to it while creating a sociological portrait of the times making George’s character confirmed by external events.

Mrs. Fitzherbert had ruled Carlton House and the Prince, as George then was, before the Regency, and enjoyed great privileges.  The crisis came when George’s father, demanded that George marry the German Princess Caroline of Hanover, Germany who was something of a rustic.  That meant he had to put away Mrs. Fitzherbert whom he found compatible and take up with Caroline who he detested.

He tolerated her long enough to create an heir, the Princess Charlotte and then made Caroline’s life miserable so that she exiled herself to the Continent.  In Reynolds’ story, sixth series, she is living in Switzerland twenty years later.  As this is 1815 Napoleon has just returned from his exile on Elba to Paris.

Reynolds is a clear writer and as his title indicates he is essentially writing a mystery he reveals clues only as necessary.  The sixth series, then, titled Venetia Trelawney tells of Mrs. Fitzherbert’s attempt to regain her position at court through a surrogate, Venetia.

We are not permitted to know this until at the conclusion of the series of book five.  Apart from all the subsidiary stories the main burden of the sixth series is George IV’s machinations to injure his wife, Caroline.  He attempts to portray her as dissolute and morally corrupt for consorting with her equerry, Bergami. he was a fine figure of a man.

To achieve this goal the Prince, now Regent, goes to great lengths in a more or less improbable scheme.  A Mrs. Owen has four lovely daughters who, following the Prince’s instructions, she is turning into courtesans and mistresses of duplicity.  The youngest, Mary, refuses the training but the other three go to Geneva to be ladies in waiting for Caroline.  There by subterfuge they make it appear that Caroline and Bergami are having an affair.  Needless to say the scheme is baffled through the agency of Mrs. Fitzherbert.

That’s the general plan but of course much excitement is created by circumambient subplots that are braided into the main story.  Many interesting characters are created.  Larry Sampson, the Bow Street detective and his adversary the Hangman, Daniel Coffin.  Coffin comes close to being as interesting as the Resurrection Man of the first two series of the Mysteries of London.  Doctor Death of the third and fourth series doesn’t come close to the above two as a villain. Coffin is more related to the eighteenth century criminal master mind Johnathan Wild or Conan Doyle’s fictional Moriarty.

Of the six series the third and fourth are the weakest although having brilliant moments and a very good temptress, Laura Lorne.  That will be dealt with separately.  Having discussed the main story of The Mysteries Of London is the first eight parts of Time Travels there is no need to do so here.

When George closed off the second series of The Mysteries of the Court he said that he was through with George IV but that his head was bursting with ideas for a new series.  Now a mystery ensues.

My edition of Mysteries of the Court was published by the Francis F. Burton Ethnographical Society in Boston and an Oxford Society in England in twenty volumes c. 1900 under the general title The Works of George W.M. Reynolds.  By works is meant twenty volumes of The Mysteries of the Court of London, that’s all.  Thus, the set is divided into four units of five volumes.  The first five deal with the coming marriage to Caroline, the second five to Venetia Trelawney and the plot against Caroline.  Then a third set issued under Reynolds’ name with his picture on the title page under the title, Lady Saxondale’s Crimes, while the fourth division of five volumes is called The Fortunes of the Ashtons.  Thus, if the last two divisions are authentic the total work would be ten thousand pages.  However there is no mention of the latter two series by any Reynolds scholar.  Neither the Oxford Society nor the Burton Ethnographical Society give any indication of the provenance of the latter two series.

Richard F. Burton is the famous Victorian explorer, most notably in the search for the source of the Nile, and being the first European to penetrate into Mecca.  He translated the entire Arabian Nights in seventeen volumes.  So he became among the first ethnographers.  The Oxford Society was also an ethnographical society.  Little can be found on either on the internet. 

Burton established his Society in 1843 splitting off from a predecessor.  One wonders if Reynolds, ever curious, associated himself with the Burton Society and perhaps its predecessor.  His Mysteries of the Court of London may be construed as an ethnographical study.  I certainly read it as such.  Possibly the Oxford and Burton Societies found the Mysteries of the Court so suitable that they commissioned writers to write the two additional series. 

It might be possible that Reynolds commissioned the two series but there appears to be no earlier record of them at this tim, indeed, no record but their publication in the Works of George W.M. Reynolds.  There is a story worth investigating in the American publishing house, T.B. Peterson.  They were responsible for the publication of several novels written by their stable of authors under Reynold’s name.  There is information on T.B. Peterson on the internet.

The firm was located in Philadelphia.  They had a huge catalog what literature is in the Penny Dreadful style including a large selection of titles from writers like W.H. Ainsworth, Bulwer Lytton and, of course George W.M. Reynolds.  They published a two volume edition under the title of The Mysteries of the Court of London.  I have no idea whether it included the whole of the two series or a condensed version.  They published twenty, perhaps more titles written by their authors under Reynolds’ name, including Ciprina or, The Secrets of the Picture Gallery.

This volume has actually been issued by the British Library as an authentic Reynolds.  Possibly T.B. Peterson is unknown to them.  Lord Saxondale, who was apparently a little less criminal than his wife Lady Saxondale, Count Christobal, and Lucrizia Mirano, Edgar Montrose or, the Mysterious Penitent,  the Ruined Gangster.  Peterson really liked The Necromancer while that title was also published by a New York firm.

Anent the Necromancer.  I am of the opinion that this book was also not written by Reynolds, or possibly with a collaborator, even though it was published in his Miscellany in 1851.  The style isn’t his, the vocabulary isn’t his while in my reading I had the feeling that the book was written by a woman.  The detailing just seemed feminine.  I think it probable that Reynolds was following in the footsteps of his model Alexander Dumas.  Dumas collaborated with Auguste Maquet and others although the books were always issued as Dumas alone.

Perhaps in this case, Peterson called the Necromancer, the Mysteries of the Court of Henry VIII, Reynolds roughed out the story while employing someone else to do the actual writing.  At any rate, I do not believe he was the writer or perhaps the sole writer.

Needless to say, Reynolds received no economic benefit because the US did not honor English copyright laws.  Nor could Reynolds do anything about the counterfeits written under his name.

So, then, the question is from whence came the final two series and at what date were they written?  And perhaps, why?  Certainly they were commissioned.  Having never read them I am unqualified to speculate but, perhaps, someone might know and be willing to share their knowledge?

Reynolds began the two works in 1844 and so far as we know finished them in 1856.  Eighteen fifty-six was three short years before Darwin changed the world by issuing The Origin of Species and making evolution a household word.

By 1856 when the last word of the Mysteries was written Reynolds was already living in the Brave New England whether he knew it or not, and I suspect that he did know.  Being wide awake was a new term at the time but I suspect that Reynolds was wide awake.  The very face of England was changing as well as tunnels under the Thames.  The tunnel probably cost several times what a bridge would have cost and have been more useful.

While writing mysteries of the Court Reynolds turned out twenty other volumes many of great length.  Perhaps in the mode of Dumas he was making the maximum use of his time working long and sleeping little.  Or, perhaps, as he was accused by Dickens, of employing other writers. Reynolds denies it.

Around him a new crop of novelists were rising, each having become aware of different times and formed by different social conditions.  I suspect that although Reynolds remained a best seller throughout the century he became a little old fashioned.  Certainly his newspaper kept his name alive and before the public.  His politics would always have been ‘avant garde’ although by the turn of the century most of the Chartist demands had been met.  The triumph of the Revolution still lay ahead a few years.

 

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