Pt. VII: Time Traveling With R.E.
Prindle
by
R.E. Prindle
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| George W. M. Reynolds |
Would to God your horizon may broaden
every day.
The people who bind themselves to
systems are those who are unable to encompass the whole truth and try to catch
it by the tail; as system is like the tail of truth, but truth is like a
lizard, it leaves its tail in your fingers and runs away knowing full well that
it will grow a new tail in a twinkling.
Ilya Turgenev as quoted by
Daniel Boorstin
The doctrine that correlates imply
one another, that the father cannot be thought of without thinking of a child and that there
can be no consciousness of a superior without consciousness of an inferior—has
for one of its common examples the necessary connexion between the conception
of whole and part. Beyond the primary
truth that no idea of a part can be framed without a nascent idea of some whole
to which it belongs, there is the secondary truth that there can be no correct
idea of a part without a correct idea of the correlative whole. There are several ways in which inadequate
knowledge of the one involves inadequate knowledge of the other.
Herbert Spencer
The Principles of Ethics
To
understand a serious author like Reynolds it is necessary to place him in his
context. Reynolds’ interest seems to be
all Europe in its widest breadth and length and depth. By depth I mean its timeline. Ancient literatures line out what they
consider their maximum territory. Thus
the Greek story of the Argonautica travels East along the North of Anatolia to
Armenia. Armenia then seems to be the
dispersal point of Hellenes or Greeks.
The line then runs West across the South coast of present day Russia, up
the Danube into the Alps, beyond which the Hyperboreans live, and down the
Adriatic side of the Balkans, the heel of Italy, across the Mediterranean to
Include Libya and back around Crete to Greece proper. Something is being said.
The Novels
of Reynolds do exactly the same thing including Armenia. His home base of England and London
reflecting his personal history. His
timelines slip up and down if less recognizably to the casual observer. The key topic running through the novels is
the relationship of men to women. The
big issue is that of Libertinage- specifically as codified by the Marquis de
Sade.
While I have
yet to find a reference to Dashwood’s Hell Fire Club the activities of the
Regent, George IV epitomize the philosophy of the Hell Fire clubs in their
motto, Do What Thou Wilt. It should be
noted that these clubs and the philosophy predate the Marquis de Sade.
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| George IV In Full Regalia |
The
antecedents of the Hell Fire Clubs lead to the Jeffrey Epstein club of the
twenty-first century as it is descended from the Hell Fire clubs of eighteenth
century England. In Hollywood of
mid-twentieth century the actor Errol Flynn led such a club there.
The problem
rises much earlier than the Catholic Church with its rather strange sexual
practices but by the fifteenth century the challenge to the Church’s sex
notions was becoming acute. Hence
societies such as the Free Spirits arose.
Thus, bands of Free Spirits burst into nunneries and dragged the nuns out
in a furious mode, raping them and demanding that they engage in free sex with
any man at any time.
The later
Anabaptists had very similar attitudes toward sex while the Libertines of the
eighteenth century down to the current times are of the same opinion. Women’s Liberation is all about altering
their sexual attitudes toward free sex.
The gathering place for Libertines for centuries has been Bohemia. Hence the expression ‘marriage a la Boheme,’
which is to say a ‘union of hearts’ only.
There is no commitment on the man’s part except convenience. The well-kept secret of Women’s Liberation is
that women are encouraged to engage in free sex with any man at any time. This is what Women’s Lib is all about.
Reynolds
attacks that problem directly usually falling, I think on the side of Libertinism.
As all
experienced Time Travelers know, in our lifetimes as we inch along from year to
year we are actually travelling through time.
Today, myself at eighty-two, I have seen so many impossible changes as
to be incredible. Mores between 1948
when I became aware and 2020 where I am today have changed by 180 degrees. What was true in 1948 no longer applies. Change after change. Whole industries have disappeared and new
ones risen. The once ubiquitous savings
and loan industry was completely looted and discarded, disappearing in the
1980s. That crime is still incredible to
me.
The immense
travel industry inaugurated by the Boeing 707 in 1959 has become so ubiquitous
while being daily increased by the billions of Asians that tourist destinations
can no longer handle the crowds. Sites
are being destroyed by tramping feet of the hordes of gawkers. Whole cities contained
in giant cruise ships are delivered to tourist spots in a single hour. In the not too distant future visitor permits
will have to be issued limiting the number of tourists to specific time spots.
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| Beau Brummel |
So with
Reynolds in his time. By 1859 when his
novelistic career essentially terminates it was a different England from 1844
when he successfully launched himself as a novelist. Eighteen forty-four was a significantly different
England than the Regency period and kingship of George IV. And in 1859 when Darwin’s Origin of Species
was issued changes began to come too rapidly to be absorbed and diffused before
new changes made the previous changes obsolete. The rate of change was
commemorated by Washington Irving in his story of Rip Van Winkle. In 1903 the Wright Brothers completed the
impossible dream by lifting off in a heavier than air craft.
The very
changes rapidly occurring may have brought Reynolds’ career to the end by
1858-60. His novels would no longer have
represented contemporary life. It is
perhaps no coincidence that his last few novels dipped into the historical
past.
He continued
his newspaper work until his death and, indeed, his newspaper survived him by
almost a century, longer that his novels did.
I have vague memories of being encouraged to read the paper to prevent
its going out of business when I was in San Francisco in the 1960s. But, what could that have meant to me? I had no idea of its significance,
In 1848
Reynolds began his magnum opus, The Mysteries of the Court of London, attacking
the British monarchy. This book, or two series
of books, is actually a historical novel built around George IV. The first series takes place in 1794-95 and
the second series during the Regency in 1814-1, thus actually a historical
novel. In 1820 George’s father, George
III, died; George took the throne and would die ten years later in 1830.
George
Reynolds was born in 1814 while spending six of his first eight years on the
island of Guernsey. He may never have
heard of George IV until 1822 when he returned to England. How much he may have thought of George IV in
the next eight years from eight to the age of sixteen it couldn’t have been
much. Certainly not enough to give him
his bone deep hatred of the Prince that he displays in the Court of London, in
which George is the central figure.
Related to
George is the aristocracy that Reynolds also hated, hated to the point of
slander and defamation. His ire went far
deeper than mere exposure. From 1848 to
1856 over which time the massive five thousand page novel was written there
were a large number of people still alive that had lived through the Regency
and kingship of George IV. The Regency
began in 1811 when George’s father was declared mentally incompetent to rule.
Memories of others
differ substantially from the George that Reynolds portrays. For instance a Capt. Jessie in his 1844
biography of George ‘Beau’ Brummel, an intimate of the Regent, says that ‘in
spite of the opinion retailed by a modern novelist, that “in the zenith of his
popularity and personal advantages he seemed positively vulgar by the side of
the Count d’ Artois,” was allowed by his greatest admirers to be the most
distinguished looking man of the day.’
I have no
doubt that Capt. Jessie was referring to Reynolds as the modern novelist. Compare Reynolds’ opinion by this painting of
George in his prime and Reynolds’ opinion seems highly prejudiced. True George became obese as he sped his
course but in his prime he seems to have been quite the beau.
In his
antipathy to the monarchical system Reynolds was all but beating a dead
horse. By the time he began his effective
career in 1844, Victoria, who he despises as a mere girl, was queen and the
monarchy had been neutered becoming a mere symbol as all effective power passed
to the House of Commons. So, his
actually scurrilous biographical novel of George IV in the Mysteries of the
Court of London merely commemorated his life.
Of course in
1848-52 of the First Series of Court perhaps the state of the monarchy wasn’t
that clear but England cherished the institution so that the French system
wasn’t to occur in England even though Reynolds wished it. Even the nobility were never physically endangered
but as the role of Commons dominated it the House of Lords was reduced to a
mere debating society. And, while the
Reform Act of 1832 imprinted society’s growing understanding of the
consequences of the Industrial Revolution it wasn’t fast enough for the
revolutionaries with their pie in the sky utopian notions. The first really effective and successful
attempt to ameliorate the conditions of unskilled labor would occur in 1914
when Henry Ford in the US courageously tackled the problem offering a living
wage to the unskilled lumpenproletariat along with sanitary working conditions.
Responding
to the successfully met revolution of 1848, never try the same joke three times
running. In response in 1851 England presented the world with its Crystal
Palace Exhibition of all the technological and scientific wonders achieved by
scientists and industrialists which were going far to ameliorate the living
conditions of the hoi polloi while increasing wealth.
Reynolds sniffs at the Exhibition in vol. I of the second series of Court of London, not exactly wishing the Prince Albert ill in his enterprise but snidely nevertheless. He knew its import.
Reynolds sniffs at the Exhibition in vol. I of the second series of Court of London, not exactly wishing the Prince Albert ill in his enterprise but snidely nevertheless. He knew its import.
Change was
in the air and while not so rapid as the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
as Reynolds was busy blasting the monarchy and aristocracy of 1795 to 1820 the
world was moving forward and slipping beneath his feet. This was surely epitomized by Exhibition of 1851. Surely Reynolds visited the Exhibition more
than one time and one wonders how it affected him. While one can pinpoint when changes occurred
it is more difficult to understand how and when those changes were diffused
among the whole population. There were
certainly early adapters even then but as a novelist it is difficult to dwell
on them before they had time to affect the mores of the civilization. One can’t be too far ahead of one’s
readership.
On the other
hand Reynolds’ responded immediately to the Crimean War of 1853-56 with his
novel Omar of 1855-56, but then the war was easy to understand.
Technologically
Reynolds does introduce mentions of the railroad and telegraphy. He marvels at
the wonder of electricity which he understood as an actual fluid. Most astonishing to him was the introduction
of the steamship or packets as they were called. These amazing ships were the product of the
mind of an engineer by the name of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Reynolds wrote his penultimate novel of his
first period about the ships titled The Steam Packet.
Who was
Isambard Brunel and what was his importance?
The writer of the Wikipedia article says this:
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| Isambard Kingdom Brunel |
Isambard Kingdom Brunel; 1806-1859, was an English mechanical and civil engineer who is considered “one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history”, “one of the 19th-century engineering giants”, and “ one of the greatest figures of the Industrial Revolution, [who] changed the face of the English landscape with his groundbreaking designs and ingenious constructions”. Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway, a series of steamships including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship, and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionized public transport and modern engineering.
So, in 1859 when Brunel died he left a different England behind. In 1839 he built the first transatlantic steamship, The Great Western. It was a metal reinforced wooden vessel driven with paddle wheels and sails. It was to that point the most magnificent ship ever built. It must have fired Reynolds’ imagination. He set to work a year later in 1840 producing his novel The Steam Packet. There were of course smaller steamships or packets plying the European trade. Reynolds produced an enthusiastic encomium of the vast numbers of ships gathered in the Thames Pool. A regular timewarp of the doomed sail and upcoming steamship laying side by side. Standing on London Bridge and watching this inspiring theme he imagined a trip down the Thames visiting the Cinq Ports of Kent, and the French Channel ports. He created an imaginary club called the Luminaries, a bunch of enlightened illuminated fellows to charter a ship. In 1865 Reynolds tried to make such a voyage a reality. On his company’s annual outing he tried to charter a steamer to take his employees to Herne Bay in Kent but he was unable to find a ship to charter, probably for political reasons.
As the
Wikipedia article indicates Brunel spent the twenty years between 1839 and 1859
building ships and railroads. In 1853 he built the SS Great Britain an all
metal ship that was the first driven by a screw and no paddle wheels. In 1859 as he died he built the Great
Eastern. Eighteen fifty-nine was also
the year that Reynolds essentially ended his novelistic career. Perhaps he was wise as time had passed him
by, there wasn’t much nasty he could say about the girl Queen Elizabeth while
politics had entered a new era in which his literary attitude was not quite
relevant.
A part of
the July Revolution in France in 1830 that had a profound effect on England seems
to have passed him by. Napoleon in the 1790s
had emancipated the Jews who then began their political rise as a nation. It is a mistake not to consider the Jews a
nation with national aspirations, distributed throughout Europe, working in
concert to their own agenda. Thus in
1830 the Jews were politically potent in all countries.
Now, for
centuries, since 1492 and the expulsion from Spain the Moslems of the Mediterranean
littoral had been plundering the Southern coasts of Europe both robbing,
destroying localities and carrying off Europeans to enslave them in Algeria and
other places. Europeans had not acted to
stop this but in 1830 France did, destroying the corsair power and annexing
Algeria as a French colony, actually considering it a department of France.
The Jews had
always been a subordinated nation in Algeria.
But, as an important figure of the July Revolution the Jewish lawyer,
Adolphe Cremieux, inserted a clause making the Jews of Algeria French citizens
so that they catapulted to power over their former masters, the Moslems. This would have consequences. Of course France had colonies to the South of
the Sahara and now to administer the Sahara they created that immortal band of
misfits, The French Foreign Legion. Thus
the North African desert area was opened to Europeans and the English. The English took to the desert like ducks to
water, no pun intended. The Sahara
became one of Europe’s playgrounds.
Dangerous but fun.
Within short
order series of novels placing Englishmen in the desert began to pour out
including Ouida’s famous Under Two Flags, Robert Hitchins great Garden Of Allah,
Mrs. Hull, and P.C. Wren. The twentieth
century would see Algiers fill with English drug addicts and homosexuals. Very
amazing. At one moment the Moslems were
raiding Europe and the next France had its foot on their necks. In a twinkling so it appears.
Amazing. Adolphe Cremieux would go on to figure
importantly in the Revolution of 1848 and the resistance to Napoleon III,
behind the Paris Commune of 1871 and be instrumental in the writing of Maurice
Joly’s Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu that was supposed
to be the matrix for the Protocols of the Elders of Zion written in Vienna in
1897 during the Zionist convention. The
Protocols had no importance until 1917 when they were promoted as a defensive
measure to discredit critics of Jewish participation in the 1917 Revolution. But few could see the consequences of what
was so deeply concealed in the annexation of Algeria by a seemingly
insignificant people. But, if you look closely….
I hesitate
to introduce this next section because I’m sure you have never heard of it and
hence you probably may find it too far fetched.
You’ll be skeptical. Nevertheless
there are subterranean streams. I’m sure
that you have heard of the psychologist Carl Jung’s notion of the collective
unconscious. I am not a believer in the
notion but still life’s situations present themselves to all peoples and are
interpreted by them. At the same once
the problems are denominated they are thought of and examined down through the
generations until they become the common property of initiates and/or
investigators. The zodiac is one of
those things, for instance. The zodiac
which was merely an ancient timekeeping device to keep track of where you were
between Dec. 21st-25th of one year and the next. Stonehenge for instance was very probably a
representation of the Zodiac denoting the various key points of the year.
A great
mythology was built up about those key points.
For instance Castor and Pollux, Helen and Clytemnestra are legends of
the solstices and equinoxes. Castor is
the winter solstice and Pollux the summer.
Helen the spring equinox and Clytemnestra the autumn. Hence Helen is the beautiful spring and
Clytemnestra is the obnoxious precursor of winter.
The ancient
religions had the motto: As above, so
below. As there was a twelve month
Zodiacal calendar on Earth so there must be a twelve month celestial calendar
above. Thus, the Zodiac was translated
to the sky. Just as the terrestrial
Zodiac denoted the weather conditions prevalent during each month so, once the
Great Year was discovered so weather conditions were apportioned to the Great
Year. The Great year was caused when the
Plane of the Ecliptic came into existence and a cycle of 25,900 years ensued.
Each Age was
therefore 2000 some years long. I’m sure you know the signs of the Zodiac. The transitions from Age to Age were always
fraught with terrific consequences because the ancients believed in the Zodiac. Now, the year O of the Christian calendar was
also the transition from the Age of Aries to the Age of Pisces.
To properly
understand the mass suicide of the Jews on the mountain fortress of Masada one
has to understand that a new Age was beginning and those Jews sincerely believed
that if they died they would be revived in a matter of days. Obviously it was a mistaken belief. Jesus was talking about immediate results not
those of a far distant Age.
The symbol for Pisces was the two fish
connected by an umbilical cord while swimming in opposite directions. Carl Jung sat and pondered this long and
hard. He was a student of this submerged
consciousness that he called the Collective Unconscious. He then noted that about the year 1000 AD the
archetypes for the Age began to change.
While Christ remained the male archetype, the female archetype, the fish
swimming in the opposite direction assumed prominence over the male archetype. Thus, in the Catholic Church the Virgin Mary,
the Great Mother, became the focus of worship over that of Christ. However, inr the North of Europe, the Nordics
rejected the Great Mother as the female archetype choosing rather to adopt that
of, in the Greek world, Artemis, who was called Diana in the Roman
dispensation. Thus while the archetypes
were Mary/Jesus in the South of Europe, in the North they became Jesus and Artemis-Diana.
Artemis was known as the Mistress of the Animals, the huntress, the virgin
goddess. She transcended Jesus. The last thousand years then have been
dominated by the female archetype of the Age of Pisces. We are now on the cusp of the Age of Aquarius
hence the archetypes will change appropriate to that Age. The Green Man will be the male archetype; I’m
not aware of the who the female archetype will be.
So, the
initiates are aware of this and George W.M. Reynolds was an Illuminated
initiate. He knew about Diana, hence in
the two Mysteries stories if you are reading attentively, you will notice the
prominence of the name Diana. It is most
prominent in the story of Lady Diana Lade and Tim Meagles in the Court of
London. I am not an initiate or
Illuminated in the religious sense, I am merely an independent historical
scholar. I come by my understanding through study.
You may want
a couple illustrations that demonstrate my point. They are readily available in plain sight. For those of you who are familiar with the
Arthurian Cycle you will remember the story of Vivian or Nemue and Merlin the
Magician. Merlin can be designated
Jesus/Merlin and Vivian, Vivian/Diana.
In the cycle that was written about mid-Age you will recall that Merlin
was the wisest man of all and he was associated with Blaise to whom he related
his adventures to compose for posterity.
Merlin as a male represents the first half of the Age when the male was
dominant. Thus the young and beauteous
Vivian makes up to the doddering old Merlin and flatters his masculine
drive. She wheedles his magical secrets
from him then turning on the charm, placing his head in her lap, as it were,
she wheedles the great secret from him which he knew better than to tell her
but…love, love, love.
Having the
secret she then says the magic words and imprisons Merlin in the earth, Mother
Earth, the feminine, that is. He’s still
there, obviously. Thus Diana assumed
prominence as the female archetype of Pisces in the North.
Now, here’s
where it gets kind of spooky. About the
turn of twentieth century as the Age of Aquarius got nearer, rumblings began to
appear premonitory of the transition.
Then, in 1920 an Englishwoman by the name of Mrs. Hull published her
novel, The Sheik. The same Sheik that
made Rudolf Valentino famous. In this
novel the huntress, as Diana was called, who had been brought up as a boy by
her father, was visiting the English watering hole in the desert, Biskra, in
Algeria. There was a railway from the
coast about 115 miles long to Biskra which is on the verge of the Sahara. We now have Diana coupled with the English
fascination with the desert.
That
fascination may perhaps be best described by the Saharan explorer Byron Khun De
Prorok in his Mysterious Sahara. Mrs.
Hull who had actually been in Algeria makes an attempt. In her story Diana is the haughty male
despising huntress who is about to make a crossing of the desert from Biskra to
Oran unescorted. The Sheik, ostensibly an
Arab and a Moslem sees her about town and decides to abduct her, which to make
a longer story short, he does. Now, he
has to tame Diana, this is interesting, he rapes her night after night until
her spirit is broken. In the course of
the story she assumes the subordinate role to the male. This is a strange story. Naturally the Sheik
turns out to be not Arab but half English and half Portuguese more or less
giving the English a claim to the Sahara but creating a weird relationship between England and the Moslems that
now appears to be manifesting itself in reverse. If Mrs. Hull was an initiate and that isn’t
unlikely then possibly she is, or was, preparing the way for the coming
Aquarian Age when a new female archetype will be needed. That’s about as far as my researches have
taken me so far. It will be noted
however that in Reynold’s story Lady Diana Lade, who wears men’s clothes and is
repeatedly denominated the huntress marries Tim Meagles who has become a
Marquis, hence noble and a fitting mate for the princessly Diana. One may compare that with Mrs. Hull’s story.
As I say,
this tremendous story runs underground like the above ground Nile. However the traditions of the Zodiac are
transmitted, they are being transmitted.
But, back to
Reynolds and his story of the Steam Packet and its place in his corpus. The story was written and published in ten parts
at one shilling each before the last novel of his first period Master Timothy’s
Bookcase which was published in 1942.
The edition I have, reissued by Gyan Press of India, is all ten parts
bound and published together originally in 1844 with an ad for Master Timothy
on the back cover. Each of the
installments was priced at one shilling, twelve pence. Master Timothy was
advertised by the publisher W. Emans for sixteen shillings. Apparently the public rejected Reynolds at
very high prices compared to a penny.
Perhaps Reynolds despaired of success after both titles failed. The advertisement for Master Timothy sounds
like a plea to the reader. Very
interesting, I reproduce it:
“We have frequently had occasion to speak favourably of the writing of this author; and we see no reason in the work before us for changing that opinion. Part I. of ‘Master Timothy’s Bookcase’ contains forty pages of letter-press and two beautiful steel engravings, and is sold at the usual price of one shilling. At that rate it is decidedly one of the cheapest works of the day; and its intrinsic merits will doubtless aid not a little in procuring for it an adequate share of the public patronage. The design of the tale is singular; the hero, Sir Edmund Mortimer, becomes possessed of a magic bookcase, which reveals to him all the secrets and mysteries of human life. The chief aim of Mr. Reynolds in this work seems to be to involve his hero in a series of doubts and mystifications; and when his curiosity and suspense are worked up to the highest pitch, he appeals to the book-case, and the truth is immediately made apparent. That which as first sight appeared virtuous, turns out to be vicious; seeming injustice proves to be justice; and every thing turns out in a contrary manner from what either the hero or the reader of the tale anticipate. We are told in the Preface that ‘one of the principal aims of the author, is to illustrate the truth of the ancient aphorism that we should never trust to appearances.’ The interest of the reader is most acutely excited; and he must lay down the first Part with a wish to become acquainted with the next. We perceive by the Preface, that in the course of forthcoming Parts the story of Madame Lafarge and the historical subject of the Man with the Iron Mask are to form episodes in the tale. The plot is ingenious and original; for, although, from the title, the reader might imagine that it is an imitation of ‘Master Humphrey’s Clock,’ we can vouch that no similitude of design is apparent in the tale before us.” –Dispatch, July 4th, 1841.
The reader
would certainly be justified in thinking that the title refers to Dickens’
Master Humphrey and as the book ends with a story about Mr. Pickwick it would
seem he was justified. Perhaps Reynolds
did despair as both The Steam Packet and Master Timothy seem to lean on Dickens
for a sense of direction. He seems to be
a parasite of Dickens.
To move
ahead a bit to 1844 when Reynolds began Mysteries of London for the publishers
Stiff and Vickers. At the end of the
Second Series of Mysteries of London in 1848
Stiff and Vickers say that they own The Mysteries of London and imply
that Reynolds can no longer use the title.
Indeed, they found another writer, Miller, to write, I assume, for hire
to continue the series.
One wonders
then whether Stiff and Vickers didn’t approach Reynolds to write a Mysteries of
London in imitation of Eugene Sue’s Mysteries of Paris. Another Frenchman, Paul Favel, had also
published his novel Mysteries of London in 1843 which, judging only from a few
excerpts, the book has never been translated, it is similar in concept to that
of Reynolds. It is possible that Stiff
and Vickers seized on the idea and recruited Reynolds to write the story to
which occasion Reynolds supremely rose.
In any event
The Steam Packet is written much in the Dickens style although as usual much
superior to Dickens’ execution. The
story has a tristesse about it as though Reynolds’ first period is ending with
a feeling of failure. In fact, he seems
to have made small impression at this point in his career.
Reynolds
reverts to a Dickens motif of a club and its leader not dissimilar to the
Pickwick Club. This is the Club of Luminaries
led be a Mr. Pifpaf. Not exactly an
endearing name, not quite as good as Pickwick.
As in Pickwick Abroad the Club organizes an outing on a Steam Packet
that probably was a novel concept at the time and in accordance with Reynolds
interest in The Great Western. In this
case the trip is down the Thames from the Pool, past Margate and the Cinq Ports
to a tour of the French ports with its various adventures comically told. It’s not bad.
It is a very good effort of Reynolds that probably deserved better
acceptance except for that fatal association with another man’s work. Dickens is always on your mind.
Still, I see
it as a Sentimental Journey as Reynolds more or less recaps his life to this
point. Consider this passage from page
75. He has just been criticizing Margate
in Kent as a place where they roll up the sidewalks at five. Then this lovely passage.
Still—in despite of all that I have just written—I love Margate well. I am deeply attached to that part of Kent in which the Cinque Ports are situated; for I myself first drew breath of life in one of them. There are some men who regard love for one’s native place as a kind of fanaticism;--mind how you speak before them of the village where your eyes first held light—of your attachment to the very earth—to the atmosphere—to the village bell—or to the gently murmur of the passing stream;--all this is an impenetrable mystery to their cold egotist souls: in such hearts Self is the dominant power—such men love naught but themselves. They possess not a single generous association: listening to them you might believe that they exist without having ever submitted to the weakness of infancy—that they are secure from tomb.
Delicious is the privilege of enjoying the remembrance of a spot upon the earth where all our delightful dreams are assembled, our youthful loves and our parting hour! Delicious is it to picture a happy life in the little white cottage, sheltered with rosy tiles, as did Rousseau! There are you known by the very trees that grace the hamlet: that crowing cock that announced your birth—that wooden cross looked on while you received the name of Christian—that heavenly star rose through the ethereal arc to protect your life—the old church portals have creaked a kindly welcome to your repeated presence. There alone are you at home and beside your family;--there rests your father, there sleeps your mother;--there you were a helpless babe; and thither will you return in old age! Oh! spurn not that patriotism which is circumscribed to one’s native place,--it is patriotism still; for he who can love the humble village which saw his birth, possesses that sacred fervor which prompted Decius and Curtius how to die! Oh! even as my hand traces these words, I feel myself carried back to the days of infancy—and I rove with light and buoyant step once again amongst my native valleys. And so it is with the old man, too: though many years have glided by, and time has touched him with its silvery hand—though the roses of spring be faded, and the merry song of youthfulness be hushed; yet over these does memory linger, and draw from the remembrance a fragrance redolent of the gathered flower.
I think that
sort of sentimentalism pervades Reynolds writing and gives it much of its
interest. My life circumstances prevent
me from sharing the view but Reynolds experience is as mine should have been
and which I miss having been prevented to see.
When the
steam packet lands at Dunkirk it is as though Reynolds is conducting a tour of
his stay in France which he found equally as wonderful as his childhood even
though he experienced some rough times.
He seems fully conversant with Dunkirk and nearby St. Omer although the
necessities of fiction prevent it from becoming a travelogue.
Reynolds was
always quite observant of place and people as he shows in his excellent portrait
of Calais. It sounds as if he had
returned for a visit as he compares the present fallen state with the bustling past. At one time Calais was the only point of
entrance into France from England while at the time he is writing other ports
have assumed importance and Calais has become a shadow of itself with all
institutions in decline. He himself
claimed to have spoken with George ‘Beau’ Brummel when he first arrived in 1831. The Beau was the prime credit exile at the
time. At that time all English visitors
landed at Calais. There his old acquaintances
saw the decaying Brummel and were dunned by him for loans that he could never
repay. His was a sad story as he began
his long decline dying a few years later a tattered remain of his former glory.
The Steam
Packet was a much better book than I expected.
It has multiple charms. Not least
of the charms is that Reynolds is describing the French Channel ports as they
appear to have actually existed at the moment while comparing them to the
recent past. One is led to believe that
Reynolds visited them just prior to writing.
In a very interesting manner he interjects one of his long tales, as he
calls them, short stories as a later period might, that ultimately leads to the
career of the Seeress Mlle. Lenormand.
Mlle
Lenormand was a real person and was alive at the time of writing dying in 1843. She was a very famous Seeress dating back to
the time of the Revolution. She was
probably a topic of conversation in Reynolds’ circles. I would hesitate to call a seeress such as Mlle.
Lenormand fraudulent except that she and all Seers and Seeresses lay claim to
have supernatural powers. The good have
acute vision and highly developed acumen.
They are able to look at what is happening, compare it with the past,
and make fairly accurate prognostications of the future. Thus before the Revolution Mlle. Lenormand
was able to accurately project the course of the Revolution gaining her reputation. Thus she was assumed to have supernatural
powers so that she would have had to have worn the mantle to protect her
reputation.
In order to
succeed she had to have a system to collect information wide and deep then
present her findings in a mysterious manner.
She must have been at the height of her fame in 1840-41 when Reynolds
wrote the Steam Packet.
By 1841 many
societal things were happening that tended toward the encouragement of the
supernatural. The Spiritual movement was
beginning that would persist through the century finally becoming the Society for
Psychic Research. Table turning and
rappings were to become the rage. Mesmerism
or Hypnotism as it became controversy was simmering along merrily in which Reynolds
was heavily involved along with Franz Gall’s phrenology that was taken quite
seriously at the time, the study of physiognomy is frequently referred to by
Reynolds. And then there was the misunderstood phenomenon of electricity shrouded in the mystical, that
Reynolds believed to be an actual fluid.
And the telegraph, my Lord, messages could be sent hundreds of miles
instantaneously. This was quite a mindblower at the time. By the twenty-first
century you could transmit your own picture to anyplace in the world
instantaneously. Perhaps then as now it wasn’t
easy to determine what was real and what wasn’t. Today you address a black column and instead
of saying abracadabra, you say Alexa and all kinds of improbable, seemingly
impossible, things can occur. So, what
isn’t possible? Perhaps then as now it
wasn’t that easy to determine what was real and what wasn’t.
At any rate,
in this atmosphere, Reynolds chose to expose the methods, or some of them, of
Mlle. Lenormand. It is questionable how
effective the Steam Packet was in discrediting her, nevertheless it’s the
intent that counts. One wonders if she
heard of it.
I think that
one can couple The Steam Packet with Master Timothy’s Bookcase. They are both highly emulative of
Dickens. Reynolds wouldn’t shake off the
influence of Dickens until he began the Mysteries. Astonishingly Reynolds was only twenty-six years
old when he wrote Steam Packet and it is an involved and intricate story with
very good characterizations.
Reynolds first
attempt, The Youthful Impostor was first written when he was only eighteen,
that would have been in 1832, and published in 1835 when he was
twenty-one. Reynolds rewrote it as The
Parricide. As Reynolds describes that
work in the advertisement:
This work has been completely remodeled, incorporating with it almost the whole of the episode involving the adventures of Sophia Maxwell and the Tale, in its new—reshaped---improved form, and Is now issued to the public under the more appropriate title of “The Parricide”
And that is
dated 1847. So he has been reborn as a
success and thus brings forward what he considered an important work under his
own imprint. It appears that the four
series of the Mysteries of London remained the property of Stiff and Vickers as
I have found no evidence to this point that the series was ever republished by
Dicks.
There is
some mystery concerning the Court of London that putatively exists as four
series also. The Oxford Society in
England and the Burton Ethnographical Society of Boston USA published a twenty
volume ‘Works’ of G. W. M. Reynolds that includes the first two series undoubtedly
written by Reynolds but then continues on with a five volume work titled The
Crimes of Lady Saxondale and a fourth five volume series titled The Fortunes of
the Ashtons.
I have no idea
where the third and fourth series came from but Reynolds could not have written
them while they were available in 1900 when the Oxford and Burton sets were published. It is physically impossible that Reynolds
could have written the two continuations while the style of writing is quite
different from his.
Today, times
and mores have changed, 1840-56 is 170 years or so in the past. Even the Oxford and Burton editions are well
over a hundred years old, one hundred and seventy years of eventful history,
two centuries almost, and millions of books.
The mentality of the current age cannot elate to the changes the human
mind has gone through so any thoughts of a revival, any such hopes, are
futile. As Stendhal dedicated his great
novel, The Charterhouse of Parma to the ‘the happy few’, so only the happy few
will appreciate this fantastic author. I
am happy to be one of them.
Next: Part VIII, Into The Mysteries.
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