BENJAMIN DISRAELI, 1ST EARL OF BEACONSFIELD, AND THE YOUNG ENGLAND MOVEMENT Everything comes if a man will only wait. —TANCRED, book iv. chap. viii “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin D’Israeli HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI BENJAMIN DISRAELI 1804 December 21, Friday: Benjamin Disraeli was born in London. This male infant would be ritually circumcised. (His father Isaac C. D’Israeli, a well-known author, would have Ben baptized into the Church of England when he turned 13 despite his mother Maria Basevi D’Israeli’s desire that he continue as a Jew.) The Requiem of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was performed in France for the initial time, in Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, directed by Luigi Cherubini. Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6 day 21 of 12 M 1804 / My mind has been so void of life for several days as to render it unfit for me to write in my journal, but being this morning a little favor’d, am free to insert that Yesterday I was at our preparative Meeting, & in the first was under good impressions which continued in the last. The Queries were answered, & the second which respects love & unity occasioned some exercise, feeling but too little prevailing among us. — —————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Benjamin Disraeli “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1817 Isaac C. D’Israeli’s and Maria Basevi D’Israeli’s children bore Jewish names (Sarah, Benjamin, Raphael, Jacobus) and the sons had been ritually circumcised. However, at this point due to an 8-year dispute with Synagogue Bevis Marks and upon the advice of a friend Sharon Turner, the family had itself baptized into the Church of England. Sarah would henceforward be known as “Sa,” Benjamin as Ben (or “Dizzy” while prime minister of England), Raphael as Ralph, and Jacobus as James or “Jem.” LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin D’Israeli HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1826 Benjamin Disraeli’s novel VIVIAN GREY. ENGLISH EVENTS OF 1826 HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1831 Benjamin Disraeli’s novel THE YOUNG DUKE. HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1832 Benjamin Disraeli’s CONTRARINI FLEMING. The author stood for election to Parliament as a radical at High Wycombe, was defeated, and was again defeated in the general election. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin D’Israeli HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1833 Benjamin Disraeli’s novel ALROY, and his “Rise of Iskander.” HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1834 Benjamin Disraeli was defeated at High Wycombe by the election of a Tory. THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Benjamin D’Israeli HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1835 William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli met for the 1st time. Disraeli was defeated at Taunton as a Tory. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Benjamin Disraeli “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1836 Benjamin Disraeli’s HENRIETTA TEMPLE. HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1837 After four failed attempts, Benjamin Disraeli was elected to the House of Commons as a Conservative (Tory) MP for Maidstone. He would oppose repeal of the Corn Laws which taxed British imports of grain. His VENETIA. Ebenezer Elliott’s business again failed, and again he lost a great deal of money. His attitude was that it was all due to those darned Corn Laws. WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF Benjamin Disraeli “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1839 William Gladstone married Catherine Glynne and Benjamin Disraeli married Mary Anne Lewis. HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1844 Benjamin Disraeli’s CONINGSBY, OR THE NEW GENERATION, which satirized the historian Sir Archibald Alison as “Mr. Wordy.” HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1845 Benjamin Disraeli’s novel SYBIL. HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1846 Benjamin Disraeli became chancellor of the exchequer in Conservative governments that the Earl of Derby headed from the House of Lords. HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1847 Lola Montez fled her situation as countess of Landsfeld and mistress to King Ludwig I in the midst of riotous demonstrations against her; the furor she had helped to create by her liberal and anti-Jesuitical influence upon him then forced his own abdication. Hermann Ludwig von Helmholtz (1821-1894) articulated a doctrine that would later travel under the rubric “Conservation of Energy,” in his ÜBER DIE ERHALTUNG DER KRAFT (“ON THE CONSERVATION OF FORCE”). The heat generated by muscles can be accounted for as the result of a complex chemical reaction that is more similar to than dissimilar from any of the very simple heat-producing chemical reactions that might occur when a chemist pours some one non-organic chemical into some other non-organic chemical in a test tube in a lab. There is therefore no need for any inventive or elaborate or special “vitalistic” explanation. In this same year, using a device that continuously measured blood pressure, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm found that the circulation of the blood was a mere fluidic process that could be fully explained in ordinary physical terms. THE SCIENCE OF 1847 Benjamin Disraeli, future prime minister, proposed in TANCRED, OR THE NEW CRUSADE that All is race; there is no other truth. In other words, white is right and (–oh, incidentally, you must know that) Jews are Caucasians rather than HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI Semites. Professor Louis Agassiz accepted a professorship of zoology at Harvard College. In this year, also, appeared his AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY, IN A SERIES OF LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE HALL OF THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS, NEW YORK. BY PROFESSOR AGASSIZ. ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS. ALSO, A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF THE AUTHOR (New-York: Greeley & McElrath, Tribune Buildings). AGASSIZ’S INTRODUCTION His former student Charles Frédéric Girard followed Professor Agassiz to Harvard, as an assistant. In this year, also, the German traveler Johann J. von Tschudi was offering in his TRAVELS IN PERU, DURING THE YEARS 1838-1842 ON THE COAST, AND IN THE SIERRA, ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS AND THE ANDES, INTO THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS, just then being published in London in English translation, racist remarks which would subsequently be brought forward in such accounts as Dr. Josiah Clark Nott’s and George Robins Gliddon’s foundational textbook of the new racialist American anthropology, to be published in London in 1854, TYPES OF MANKIND: OR, ETHNOLOGICAL RESEARCHES, BASED UPON THE ANCIENT MONUMENTS, PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES, AND CRANIA OF RACES, AND UPON THEIR NATURAL, GEOGRAPHICAL, PHILOLOGICAL, AND BIBLICAL HISTORY: ILLUSTRATED BY SELECTIONS FROM THE UNEDITED PAPERS OF SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON, M.D., AND BY ADDITIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS FROM PROF.L. AGASSIZ, LL.D., W. USHER, M.D.; AND PROF. H.S. PATTERSON, M.D., and again subsequently be brought forward in 1876 HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI by Herbert Spencer in Volume I of his THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY, and again subsequently to be brought forward by an Austrian politician imprisoned in Germany in 1925-1926, in his book about his struggles, entitled MEIN KAMPF. Some lies are so choice, they can never die. EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS Professor Samuel George Morton’s “Hybridity in Plants and Animals considered in reference to the Question of the Unity of the Human Species” appeared in Silliman’s Journal. The author concluded that from the standpoint of the science of biology, all members of our species needed to be considered to be parts of the same human family — regardless of race. Jakob Mathias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann announced that cells were the basic units of all living structures. CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Spring: Maria Basevi D’Israeli, wife of Isaac C. D’Israeli and mother of Benjamin D’Israeli, died. Benjamin Disraeli “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI March-April: Waldo Emerson, in his journal, determined that successful life amounted to the predation of other human beings — and expressed contempt for any of us who fail to be adequate as predators: I feel ... that those who succeed in life, in civilized society, are beasts of prey.... I hate vulnerable people.... Novels, Poetry, Mythology must be well allowed for an imaginative being. You do us great wrong, Henry T., in railing at the novel reading. The novel is that allowance & frolic their imagination gets. Everything else pins it down. And I see traces of Byron & D’Israeli & Walter Scott & George Sand in the deportment of these stately young clerks in the streets & hotels. Their education is neglected but the ballroom & the circulating library, the fishing excursion & Trenton Falls make such amends as they can. WALTER SCOTT BENJAMIN DISRAELI (As someone once said, this is a very German attitude.) HDT WHAT? INDEX BENJAMIN DISRAELI BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI 1848 January 19, Thursday: Isaac C. D’Israeli died of the flu at age 81, at the family home, Bradenham House in Buckinghamshire.