2.1 Rider Haggard
2.1.1 Egypt
2.1.2 Writings
Henry Rider Haggard was born at Bradenham near Thetford. His notions about nature came from the intensively farmed border lands along the edges of the Waveney valley, the county boundary between Norfolk and Suffolk. His boyhood impressions came from his father's Brandenham Hall estate, and in later life, from his work as a tenant farmer at Ditchingham Hall. Here his particular neighbourhood was at a point where the Norfolk and Suffolk clay-edge landscapes become one.
It seems that it is from his mother than Haggard drew his imaginative and literarary talents. She wrote poems and songs which were published in various journals and it was a year after Henry's birth that she published with Longman her first poem in book form entitled 'Myra', or the 'Rose of the East: A Tale of the Afghan War'. The poem concerned the Kabul campaign of 1842. It also reflected on the 'mysterious law' or purpose of the universe which was one of the central themes that Haggard was to develop in his fiction.
Time passes- silently but swift
And down its mighty current drift
The circling worlds on high;
We gaze upon them till some spark
Becoming till now, extinguished dark
A blank leaves in the sky;
That which our hearts stand still with dread
We think, that orb's bright course is sped
Our haven may be nigh;
And hush our souls in silent awe
And muse on thy mysterious law
Unknown Eternity.
The poem is a beautifully worded plea for humility during the period when science was becoming the new religion and the findings of Charles Darwin (1809-82) on the origin of the species and the law of natural selection were still being fiercely debated.
It is interesting that, like his mother, Henry became intrigued with spiritual ideas raised by the concept of evolution.  She says that science can explain 'how' but not 'why'.
"Is Nature God?
Are gases reigning laws?
Atoms fortuitous - the Great First Cause?"
In the last speech he was to make, in November 1924, Haggard tried to come to terms with his powerful imagination.
"Imagination is power which comes from we know not where. Perhaps it is existent but ungrasped truth, a gap in the curtain of the unseen which sometimes presses so nearly upon us. It means suffering, but it also means vision, and is not light better than darkness? Who knows its object? No man: but it may be that those who possess it are gates through which the forces of good and evil flow down in strength upon the world: instruments innocent of their destiny. For it seems to me as I grow old that the spirit of man is like those great icebergs which float in Arctic seas - towering masses of glittering blue-green ice, which yet hide four fifths of their bulk beneath the water. It is the hidden power of the spirit which connects the visible and the invisible: which hears the still small voice calling from the infinite".
No doubt, under the influence of her father, these notional appraisals of nature were continued by Lilias Haggard, Haggard's youngest daughter. In a diary which she wrote for the local newspaper, she added her own personal spiritual values to commonplace things in garden and countryside around Ditchingham, and the Norfolk and Suffolk coastlands.
Lilias, describes her notions on an Easter Sunday facing the imminent horrors of a world war.
"Easter Sunday and the first day of real spring weather. The garden, held back by so much cold sunlessness, gloried in the warmth, and the air was filled with the scent of the long lines of heavy- headed hyacinths, pink and purple, blue, white and palest yellow. It was a day full of those small things, forgotten through long weeks of winter, which come back to one with a little shock of joyful surprise. The loveliness of the first brimstone butterfly, questing over purple aubretias, and primroses just one clear pale shade lighter than its saffron wings. The queer resonant croaking of a toad from the dyke, the deep hum of the velvet-bodied bumble bees, working patiently in the lilac blossoms of the lowly ground-ivy, to fill their little waxen honey pots against a rainy day. The swift double note of the chiff-chaff, earliest of all our warblers to arrive, as he and his mate slipped along the branches of the wild cherry, once more breaking into blossom, a white foam against the unleafed woods. As dusk fell I stood by the pool watching the dace rising joyfully after fly-the steady plop-plop breaking the glassy surface of the water for a moment only, for it was very still. A day full of the sacrament of common things, those things which, in spite of unrest and anxiety-wars and rumours of wars, and all the fret and fever with which man surrounds his little life-are always there if you pause to look for them.
Part of that secret kingdom which, as Mary Webb, writing about her closed 19th century rural world of Shropshire, says, 'Sends one man to the wilds, another to dig a garden, that sings in a musician's brain, that inspires a pagan to build an alter, and the child to make a cowslip ball."
2.1.1 Egypt
Haggard cherished literary ambitions beyond those of a merely successful story- teller. The sales of his mystical novel  She relieved the strict financial economy observed since his marriage, and he took a trip to Egypt early in 1887, with the object of collecting local colour for a novel about Cleopatra, a subject obviously at the back of his mind when he sketched the personality of Ayesha in She.

  • ·   On his return to England, he found himself " quite a celebrity," for Allan Quatermain had continued the success of She; twenty thousand copies were sold in the month of publication, ten thousand being subscribed in London alone, a figure which Longmans believed " more than has ever been subscribed of a 6s. novel before." He was disappointed that Cleopatra, which ran serially in the Illustrated London News before book publication in 1889, did not enjoy equal success.

  • ·   It was written in two months, immediately after his return from Egypt, and he believed it to be his best work up to that time. Having absorbed much knowledge of Egyptian antiquities, he allowed his enthusiasm for the subject to override his theory that a story should be told simply and directly. He was depressed when Lang, after reading the manuscript, advised him to

" Put Cleopatra away for as long as possible, and then read it as a member of the public. You will find, I think, that between chapters three and eight it is too long, too full of antiquarian detail, and too slow in movement to carry the general public with it.... It is not an advantage for a story to be told in an archaic style (this of course is unavoidable). For that reason I would condense a good deal and it could be done."

Haggard obtained most of his evidence about the socioeconomic organisation of the ancient Egyptians from their elaborate religious ceremonies depicted in temple and tomb.  Unfortunately, the key to the complex religious symbolism resided with the living priesthood. Having lost this oral tradition we are left with an Egyptian world view expressed in unintelligible symbols.  Our quest for understanding must inevitably begin with the most consistent symbolisms which are those of the procession, the festival, and the rites of temple and funeral.  A central feature of these ceremonies throughout the long period of Egyptian history is the offering of village produce to the gods.  The ancient Egyptians not only depicted the offerings but also detailed the various processes by which they were produced.   A widely accepted interpretation of this convention was put succinctly by Alexandre Moret in his analysis of the symbolism of wall decorations:

'All around, servants bring provisions of food, clothing and the necessary furniture; the making and origin of each offering is used as the theme for the decoration. Thus, to explain the offering of a leg of beef, they show animals feeding in the pasture, the mounting of the cow, the birth of the calf and scenes of agricultural life up to the slaughter of the animal; the offering of bread made it necessary to have scenes of tilling, harvesting and baking; the offering of wine was the excuse to show vineyards and grape-gathering; offerings of furred and feathered game and of fish made it necessary to show scenes of hunting in the desert and of fishing by line or net. Each of the objects of the funeary furniture - shrine, coffin, bed, vessels, clothing, arms or jewels - gave rise to descriptions of the methods of manufacture of these objects; thus, we can see, plying their trades, carpenters, foundry- men, armourers, weavers and jewellers. Even the purchase of provisions in the market and the drawing up of household accounts are used as decorative subjects. The soul and the body of the deceased relived perpetually the sculpted scenes: the act depicted became a reality, each picture of a being or an object recaptured, for a moment, its ka and came to life according to the wish of the god who lived in the tomb . . .'

This idea, which appealed to Haggard's strong historical and spiritual imagination, is presented diagrammatically in Fig 1 as a sphere of 'worldly abundance' linked to a sphere of 'celestial abundance' via a sphere of 'offerings' organised by palace and temple.
Fig 1 An world model of Ancient Egypt
graphic
A dynamic systems view of this model ( Fig 2) defines the flow of offerings as a channel of mediation between people and gods to realise mankind's divine potential. The system represents a constant processing of natural resources through society to ensure life after death in an eternal agrarian paradise.  This organic flow also guaranteed divine feedback to maintain an abundant natural economy in mankind's transient earthly life through the unfailing daily circuit of the sun.

Fig 2  Human and divine flows of natural resources  and spiritual 'energy' through Egyptian society
graphic

The artifacts, which for the most part come from temples or tombs, cannot be considered in isolation from this model.  However, at the level of the daily lives of farmers, craftsmen and traders they may be simply taken as illustrations of the systems and processes by which biological resources enter a local natural economy. In this way Haggard was able to draw his Egyptian experiences into both his novels and his life as a Ditchingham farmer.
2.1.2 Writings
Haggard, Sir Henry Rider (1856-1925). British novelist. He was born at Bradenham, Norfolk, June 22, l 1856, and educated at Ipswich grammar school. He held official posts in S. Africa, 1875-79, and was then called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn.
A first work, Cetewayo and His White Neighbours, was published in 1882. South Africa figures prominently in his novels, the success of which is due to Haggard's exceptional narrative and descriptive powers.
In addition to King Solomon's Mines, 1885, his most successful adventure story, and Jess, 1887, perhaps his best work, his novels include Dawn, 1884, She, 1887, in which mystery is blended with adventure; Allan Quatermain., 1887; Colonel Quaritch, V.C,, 1888; Cleopatra, 1889; Allan's Wife, 1890; Nada the Lily, 1892; Montezuma's Daughter, 1893; The Heart of the World, 1896; Ayesha, 1905, Fair Margaret, 1907, Red Eve, 1911. In 1891 with Andrew Lang, he wrote The World's Desire.
Haggard, who was knighted in 1912, became prominent as a practical farmer and an agricultural economist. His journeyings through England in 1896-98 to investigate rural conditions resulted in a valuable work, Rural England, 1902. After the First Great War he visited every part of the British Empire in connection with settlement of ex-servicemen.

He died May 14, 1925.
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