Commonplace 14 George & Nell sitting in a tree K.I.S.S.I.N.G.
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| Adam and Eve by William Blake |
It is not known when Marianne aka Nell moved to London to be with George, as our man destroyed all the Diary papers relating to his time with her. She must have been contactable after his gap year in the States, and was either already in London (being 'finished' - the usual explanation offered by biographers from zero evidence ) or imported in when George felt it appropriate.
Some of George's biographers employ a whole assortment of Freud's mental mechanisms when it comes to discussing anything to do with Nell - or Marianne Helen. From rationalisation to reaction formation; from denial to projection; from transference to identification and beyond, certain Gissing biographers seem anxious to ignore what facts there are, then replace what is known with conspiracy theory strength BS that always - that's ALWAYS - paints her as some sort of scheming incubus who ruined George's life. (As if she had to do that when he was quite capable of doing it for himself ha ha.) I wonder why they hate her so? Is it Mr Grundy doing Mrs Grundy's work? The women who write about Nell aka Marianne seem just as rabid and judgemental and... wrong. Why do they all feel the need to tell his Manchester story featuring him as a dopey dough-boy who could be talked into anything by an ingénue with a saucy smile? And him a macho Yorkshireman from t'other side o' t' Pennines!
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Vietnamese Rat wedding - rats pay the cat protection in the form of a bird and a fish.
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Marianne was singled out by George for his own social experiment at a time when his egotism was equal to his egoism. He felt so sure of himself that he could anything he put his mind to - thanks to all those prizes and accolades at Owens - that he considered himself to be above the Law of the Land. We don't know why he stole from his peers - or if he was the only student who did it. He got caught and was punished with prison - he was lucky he wasn't flogged as well, possibly a concession to his class superiority over the usual convicted working class felon.
Why is this always presented as Marianne's fault? Did she hold such influence over him that she made him do it? From his accounts of her in subsequent letters to his brothers, does she really come across as a scheming Morgan Le Fay? Is it fair to represent her as the reason he stole, or that she even knew he did so? We don't have the evidence to say she was involved or even reaped the rewards of his crime spree, or even knew what he was up to.
My own theory is this: George, tired of a life of sleeping around and paying for sex, and on the back of having contracted a venereal disease, decided to find a girl of his own who was not too picky - and because he assumed any working class girl would jump at the offer of a relationship with a middle class boy, even a diseased one. Marianne fitted the bill: desperate, lonely, malleable, sexy, clean. He could have married her straight away - why didn't he? Jump to Commonplace 63 to find that out!
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| Morgan le Fay by Frederick Sandys 1864 |
That George and Marianne legalised their union with marriage blows the minds of most biographers. It is assumed the couple had been living together 'as husband and wife' and so had no 'need' to marry. Is this true? When you read of the stand Edith (a typical young lower middle class girl, though George claims she was lower - but remember, her father was a tradesman much as George's father had been in the trade of shop-keeping in Wakefield) made against living in sin, you have to realise the standard stereotype of a working class girl jumping into bed with any man who bought her a glass of port is nothing more than a piece of class warfare anti-working class propaganda because, for most girls of this class in the 1800s, the only 'dowry' they brought to the wedding table was their virginity.
When biographers marvel at George's crazy decision, and wonder why he did it, what they mean, is, why did he
lumber himself with Marianne? She was a chronically ill young woman, diagnosed with scrofula when a child and subject to epileptic fits. Maybe she and George thought George could handle it. As for actual, legal marriage, my own feeling is he married her because it brought them both some benefit. She was unwell and might not qualify for free treatment as a single woman living in sin, particularly at the German Hospital where she was treated thanks to George's relative (the much disliked by GRG Paul Rahardt) organising it. A woman living with a man would be seen in another kind of establishment (say, a workhouse, or one of the strict institutions that regarded cohabiting women living out of wedlock as little better than prostitutes) as not entitled to what was on offer. Affordable medical help might be only available by signing oneself into a workhouse, and in places such as these, getting in was a lot easier than getting out. Being married opened up a world of health care for Mrs Gissing, and a raft of carers to help George look after her.
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| Mars and Venus by Sandro Botticelli c 1485 |
Marriage in church was not a knee jerk reaction - it took at least three weeks for the banns to be read before the ceremony and would sometimes involve some sort of interview with the vicar and possibly a programme of reflective Bible study, to make sure the candidates were sober-minded about the venture. Some churches required prospective married couples to undertake regular attendance in the weekly services, or the promise to attend future services. Later in their relationship, George mentions his scorn that Marianne spoke of wanting to convert to Catholicism (he actually took it as a sign she was becoming demented!) so maybe she was religious. Of course, to accept that possibility, you have to rewrite the biography you have of her in your head. I think Marianne was never a prostitute but a respectable if somewhat naïve and easily-exploited working class girl who was probably always religious - is she was a country girl from Shrewsbury, then she could very well have been a Methodist of a Quaker
click for more .
It is worth remembering, being an ordinary working class girl - not a wanton bohemian grisette forced to live in sin - marriage was a sign of social standing. I think they married because the embarrassment of being unmarried was too much for Marianne to withstand, especially as she was 'lying' to William (at least) because Will
assumed she and George were married when he put her up in his lodgings in May 1879. This deception placed Will in the false position of being a liar, which would very much have gone against his strict moral character. He no doubt described her as his sister-in-law to his landlady who would probably have refused if he thought she was a prostitute (even a reformed one) - a single, unattached woman shipped in to spend time with her single lodger? I don't think so! Again, to think such thoughts one has to rewrite the book of George. To consider Marianne as a typical young woman, not a social outcast (as she is always portrayed) one has to hand back responsibility to George for his fall at Owens, his struggle, and his alleged failures in life.
Some assert Marianne might have been pregnant and so the marriage ensured the child was legitimate, but there is no evidence. In fact, a marriage in a church might have been prohibited if the bride was pregnant, in which case, they would have gone to the local registry office. And, why in a church anyway, and not a registry office? I see Marianne's hand here, and this reinforces the notion I hold that she was probably religious. Church also brings companionship, and whatever else you think about her, it's clear she was lonely and miserable living with such an emotionally unavailable man who was ashamed of her. Church might have offered her a chance to mix with friends and find support, if George ever allowed her to attend.
I cannot accept she was ever the common debased slut biographers will have us think - she was refined, if un-educated, or William would not have bonded so well with her. She needed bringing on (as Will says) if she was to be taken as George's social equal in the world, but he has only good things to say about her. She was reported by one who knew her to have a fine speaking voice. We know she liked poetry and music and kept portraits of Byron and Tennyson on her wall in Lambeth - George found them there when she died. her fondness for religion was evidenced in the number of scripture texts in her possession when she died. And I hope she drew comfort from the card of Raphael's Sistine Madonna on her wall - which I think George gave her. So this love of culture, if relatively unsophisticated, was still heart-felt, and not an expedient pose to soften up George - and it was something she held onto when the world became a very dark place.
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| Sistine Madonna by Raphael c 1512 |
St James' Church, Hampstead Road isn't there any more - the church George and Marianne knew was demolished in 1954. They lived in Edward Street (now totally redeveloped and renamed Varndell Street) which is within spitting distance of where the church was - turn right at the end of their street and cross the road. All that remains of it now is a columned entrance on Hampstead Road with St James' Park, behind.
When it was redeveloped in the 1830s the land to the left (a corner position where was sited a turnpike) was used to build the now derelict Women's Temperance Hospital. Along the street was the St Patrick's Female Orphanage.
Below is the interior, though the 1879 place might not have had electric light.
Below is what the original looked like (the one before the one above here). Note the columns which might be the ones still in situ today.
click to see this
This original building had a churchyard that later became a small park but was then redeveloped when the church was taken down and rebuilt. The Gordon who led the Gordon Riots was buried there. William Gissing would have been interested to know the grandson of Charles Wesley, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, became organist there in 1826 when he was just 15 years old.
The witnesses at the ceremony on October 27th 1879 were Fanny Crump and Robert Drake - some claim these were random witnesses dragged in off the streets, but there is no reason to suspect George and Marianne didn't have friends especially if both worked and had colleagues. There is this weird idea in Gissing studies that George only knew the people he writes about and only did the things he records in Letters and Diaries. He might not have had bosom buddies but he probably had acquaintances and friends he could go to the pub with - until his snobbish ways prevailed. And Marianne was a typical young woman and enjoyed socialising - remember, this was a contributory cause of her fall from favour with her possessive and secretive husband. And, if Marianne went to church she would have made friends there, but, again, George would not have approved of irrational church influences over his cast iron grip on his wife.
We can presume these two marriage witnesses were real friends or associates and not strangers because it's illogical to assume they were grabbed off the pavement. I'm a simple soul: I'm not a forensic scientist (I missed my calling!) but the first line of exploration should be what is the most quotidian, what is the most obvious thing. If a patient goes to see a GP because of a sore throat the doctor will diagnose the commonest cause first - strep throat or tonsillitis - and not cancer of the trachea. If the sore throat doesn't go away with treatment, then they go up a list of probables until finally settling on a possible diagnosis of cancer which is when the experts come in. Why do biographers try and find devious explanations when the bleeding obvious is just as viable?
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Has this chap got a bad case of flaky skin or has he been to see
anatomist and artist Gunther von Hagens? |
Anyway, it would not have gone down well with the vicar, as it was not acceptable to drag someone in off the street to act as a witness to such a sacred rite - in a church! A vicar often wanted to speak to the witnesses weeks in advance to make sure the intended marriage was 'Christian' in theory and practice. Again, marriage was not a spontaneous event: it was planned and followed a specific system of rituals.
What did Marianne wear? I always think of her being a bit of a fashion fan - young girls being what they are. And, as she was a needleworker, she would be well able to adapt any costume she already had, or trim a hat to make it look new. Did she do the tradition of 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue'? Did Fanny Crump catch a tossed bouquet? What was the nature of the best man's speech?
Did they celebrate in a local pub or coffee house? Hampstead Road around where they lived in Edward Street, was home to many grand public houses, but the quaint, historic 'Adam and Eve Inn' was back towards the city. This would have pleased George as it is the pub featured here on the left in William Hogarth's 'March of the Guards to Finchley'.
click for more on the pub AND
click here for details of the church
Did they end the day with a romantic dinner for two, a bit of a knees-up and a lot of smooching? What poems did George read Marianne on her wedding night? Perhaps Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 116'?
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! It is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
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| At the Moulin Rouge by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1890 - a right royal knees up! |
Details of the wedding are in the introduction to the Collected Letters Vol 1 edited by Mattheison, Young and Coustillas.
George Gissing: The Heroic Life vol 1 by Pierre Coustillas available from all good outlets.
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