George Gissing: A Fan's Commonplace Blog

Commonplace 13 George & Demos Part Two

I return to my theme: Richard Mutimer is George in thin disguise.

George wearing all his clothes at once

Richard Mutimer is, superficially, a decisive man of action but with a detached, intellectual sensibility that hampers his true vocation as a natural leader of men (and women!). He is politically savvy, loves reading serious books, seems to be a revolutionary in a number of socially modern ways, and indulges in some hefty introspective soul-searching. George is very hard on Richard. He makes him a lonely figure incapable of love - even questioning his motives when he does have finer feelings for his wife (and some admiration, too). Diminished by his lack of fellow feeling; a man who never really lives up to his potential, Richard is killed randomly and somewhat prematurely and unfairly, and we are shown his moral ambiguity is his undoing. This is George writing about George.

George lets Richard develop tender sensibilities towards Adela, but never fully rewards Richard for the emotional 'progress' he makes. (If George can't find refined-lady love, why should uber-oik Mutimer?) And, so, Richard never gets to enjoy his 'crown of life' moment when he marries Adela because, for her, it is a transaction, not a love affair. He is tied to her legally but not romantically, from her point of view. She starts out actively disliking him, marries him for the usual Gissing reasons (money, status. duty), ends up walking all over him, and then ends the book not really noticing he has gone.

Work (Huh! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!) by Ford Maddox Brown circa 1853

In chapter 10, Adela's mother (Mrs Waltham) puts forward the case for Richard being a good catch; displaying a pragmatic attitude to class and marriage that is admirable (though George doesn't want us to see it like this!). Having done the requisite moral mental arithmetic and concluded that it is better to be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy, she promotes Richard as son-in-law material. Adela is horrified, then disgusted. Later in the chapter, we see the Richard/George version of this pragmatism in the way Richard talks himself out of his betrothal promise to Emma Vine. 

How subtle is the worm that eats into his attachment to Emma! We see how Mrs Waltham has been working on him - acting in a 'motherly' way by taking Richard into her confidence and treating him like a son. We are reminded that HG Wells said never did a man need mothering more than George - that first child who had to share his mother-love with his siblings, who had to work so hard to be 'special' in her eyes.

Without input from Adela's mother, would Richard have abandoned Emma? He acknowledges Emma's virtues - but there is a new consciousness awakening in him - the notion that 'genteel' women have higher feelings of love; that their devotion is purer and more sublime - 'a new idea of the feminine addressing itself to his instincts' (out in place in George by Mrs Fred Harrison and Mrs Gaussen?). Now Richard is a 'New Man' (ie monied); George makes it clear Richard is masculine, but not overtly sexually motivated - not the coarse type of man who lusts and therefore, scares, nice girls. Richard is not capable of love in the 'higher sense' (George doesn't explain what this means but supposedly he believed his male middle class readership would be on message so he didn't have to); he says Richard's new money has rendered him a crazy sensualist given to buying expensive horses and eating foie gras - just for the sheer hell of it - instead of spending it on worthy 'volumes' and trips to Italy and Greece (George, you are so transparent! ha ha). We are told this acquisitiveness (for horses?) motivates Richard in finally coming round to thinking he wants - deserves - Adela; she is just another sensual reward he feels entitled to. 

The Tennis Court Oath June 20th 1789. The poor are being led by the middle classes. Have a read of Hilary Mantel's A Place of Safety to find out more. She is so in love with Desmoulins!

New notions are stirring in Richard Mutimer. And, so gradually, not with the sword but with the kiss (thank you, Oscar) - Richard slowly, callously makes Emma realise she has been superceded - and doesn't even bother to tell her when he marries someone else. Lack of honour, this is an atypical striking lack of balls in Richard who has hitherto been acting for a higher purpose than his own selfish needs. This is why we know he is really an aspect of George who sneaked around keeping secrets, employing spies to follow people, lay false trails of his whereabouts to confound Edith - his legal wife! - , manufacture Diary entries to cover his tracks, rather than act nobly and decisively. Wasn't this how he handled his parting from Marianne aka Nell? He gradually cast her adrift, too, never fully delivering the coup de grace, but only willing to accept his responsibility towards her in 15/- postal orders. If he had divorced her (when he paid the police sergeant to surveil her in autumn 1883), maybe she would have found someone to marry and love her.

Richard has this internal dialogue rationalization about Emma:  

And the voice of his conscience lost potency... Richard was embarked on the practical study of moral philosophy; he learned more in these months of the constitution of his inner being than all his literature of 'free thought' had been able to convey to him. To break with Emma, to cast his faith to the winds, to be branded henceforth in the sight of his intimate friends as a mere traitor, and an especially mean one to boot -- that at the first blush was of the things so impossible that one does not trouble to study their bearings. But the wall of habit once breached, the citadel of conscience laid bare, what garrison was revealed? With something like astonishment, Richard came to recognise that the garrison was of the most contemptible and tatterdemalion description. Fear of people's talk -- absolutely nothing else stood in his way.

Had he, then, no affection for Emma? Hardly a scrap. He had never even tried to persuade himself that he was in love with her, and the engagement had on his side been an affair of cool reason... In those days Richard had no dream of wedding above his class, and he understood very well that Emma Vine was distinguished in many ways from the crowd of working girls. There was no one else he wished to marry. Emma would feel herself honoured by his choice... This flattered him -- a form of emotion to which he was ever susceptible...

He had never repented. The more he knew of Emma, the more confirmation his favourable judgments received. He even knew at times a stirring of the senses, which is the farthest that many of his kind ever progress in the direction of love. Of the nobler features in Emma's character, he of course remained ignorant; they did not enter into his demands upon woman, and he was unable to discern them even when they were brought prominently before him. She would keep his house admirably, would never contradict him, would mother his children to perfection, and even would, go so far as to take an intelligent interest in the Propaganda. What more could a man look for?

So there was no strife between old love and new; so far as it concerned himself, to put Emma aside would not cost a pang. The garrison was absolutely mere tongue, mere gossip of public-house bars, firesides, etc. -- more serious, of the Socialist lecture-rooms. And what of the girl's own feeling? Was there no sense of compassion in him? Very little. And in saying so I mean anything but to convey that Mutimer was conspicuously hard-hearted. The fatal defect in working people is absence of imagination, the power which may be solely a gift of nature and irrespective of circumstances, but which in most of us owes so much to intellectual training. Half the brutal cruelties perpetrated by uneducated men and women are directly traceable to lack of the imaginative spirit, which comes to mean lack of kindly sympathy. Mutimer, we know, had got for himself only the most profitless of educations, and in addition nature had scanted him on the emotional side. He could not enter into the position of Emma deserted and hopeless. Want of money was intelligible to him, so was bitter disappointment at the loss of a good position; but the former he would not allow Emma to suffer, and the latter she would, in the nature of things, soon get over. Her love for him he judged by his own feeling, making allowance, of course, for the weakness of women in affairs such as this. He might admit that she would 'fret,' but the thought of her fretting did not affect him as a reality. Emma had never been demonstrative, had never sought to show him all that was in her heart; hence he rated her devotion lightly.

The opinion of those who knew him! What of the opinion of Emma herself? Yes, that went for much; he knew shame at the thought, perhaps keener shame than in anticipating the judgment, say, of Daniel Dabbs. No one of his acquaintances thought of him so highly as Emma did; to see himself dethroned, the object of her contempt, was a bitter pill to swallow. In all that concerned his own dignity Richard was keenly appreciative; he felt in advance every pricking of the blood that was in store for him if he became guilty of this treachery. Yes, from that point of view he feared Emma Vine.

Considerations of larger scope did not come within the purview of his intellect. It never occurred to him, for instance, that in forfeiting his honour in this instance he began a process of undermining which would sooner or later threaten the stability of the purposes on which he most prided himself. A suggestion that domestic perfidy was in the end incompatible with public zeal would have seemed to him ridiculous, and for the simple reason that he recognised no 'moral' sanctions. He could not regard his nature as a whole; he had no understanding for the subtle network of communication between its various parts. Nay, he told himself that the genuineness and value of his life's work would be increased by a marriage with Adela Waltham; he and she would represent the union of classes -- of the wage-earning with the bourgeois, between which two lay the real gist of the combat. He thought of this frequently, and allowed the thought to inspirit him.

To the question of whether Adela would ever find out what he had done, and, if so, with what result, he gave scarcely a moment. Marriages are not undone by subsequent discovery of moral faults on either side.

This is a tabular exposition of the man's consciousness. Logically, there should result from it a self-possessed state of mind, bordering on cynicism. But logic was not predominant in Mutimer's constitution. So far from contemplating treason with the calm intelligence which demands judgment on other grounds than the common, he was in reality possessed by a spirit of perturbation. Such reason as he could command bade him look up and view with scorn the ragged defenders of the forts; but whence came this hail of missiles which kept him so sore? Clearly there was some element of his nature which eluded grasp and definition, a misty influence making itself felt here and there. To none of the sources upon which I have touched was it clearly traceable; in truth, it arose from them all. The man had never in his life been guilty of offence against his graver conscience; he had the sensation of being about to plunge from firm footing into untried depths. His days were troubled; his appetite was not what it should have been; he could not take the old thorough interest in his work. It was becoming clear to him that the matter must be settled one way or another with brief delay.

One day at the end of September he received a letter addressed by Alice. On opening it he found, with much surprise, that the contents were in his mother's writing. It was so very rarely that Mrs. Mutimer took up that dangerous instrument, the pen, that something unusual must have led to her doing so at present. And, indeed, the letter contained unexpected matter. There were numerous errors of orthography, and the hand was not very legible; but Richard got at the sense quickly enough.

'I write this,' began Mrs. Mutimer, 'because it's a long time since you've been to see us, and because I want to say something that's better written than spoken. I saw Emma last night, and I'm feeling uncomfortable about her. She's getting very low, and that's the truth. Not as she says anything, nor shows it, but she's got a deal on her hands, and more on her mind. You haven't written to her for three weeks. You'll be saying it's no business of mine, but I can't stand by and see Emma putting up with things as there isn't no reason. Jane is in a very bad way, poor girl; I can't think she'll live long. Now, Dick, what I'm aiming at you'll see. I can't understand why you don't get married and done with it. Jane won't never be able to work again, and that Kate'll never keep up a dressmaking. Why don't you marry Emma, and take poor Jane to live with you, where she could be well looked after? for she won't never part from her sister. And she does so hope and pray to see Emma married before she goes. You can't surely be waiting for her death. Now, there's a good lad of mine, come and marry your wife at once, and don't make delays. That's all, but I hope you'll think of it; and so, from your affectionate old mother,

'S. MUTIMER.'

Richard read the letter several times, and sat at home through the morning in despondency. It had got to the pass that he could not marry Emma; for all his suffering he no longer gave a glance in that direction. Not even if Adela Waltham refused him; to have a 'lady' for his wife was now an essential in his plans for the future, and he knew that the desired possession was purchasable for coin of the realm. No way of retreat any longer; movement must be forward, at whatever cost.

 If this isn't George dumping Marianne, I'll eat my hat! 

Pondered over in summer 1885, then started in that autumn, two-three years after he and Marianne ceased to cohabit, but not necessarily ceased to have sex with each other (we know from his claim at Marianne's death in 1888 that he had not seen her for three years, but I don't believe that) in the midst of hobnobbing with the Harrisons and Mrs Gaussen, anxious to clamber up the greasy pole to middle class acceptance, in Demos, George is saying: 'Look, there's this old, icky me - then there is the new me all shiny and ... bourgeois. Nell who?'.

From Songs of Innocence and Experience by the sublime William Blake