Commonplace 41 George & The Black Dog of Depression


Dante by Sandro Botticelli 1495

'Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost'  

From Inferno Canto One by Dante

In the Egoism posts, I touched on the claim  George was depressive from childhood - according to his sister Ellen, and later, his son, Alfred. 

Writing long after George's death, both put forward a case that he had been suffering from a form of mental illness when he stole at Owens. This might seem difficult to justify as the crimes had been going on throughout most of the academic year, and in all aspects of his life he seemed to be doing well, and showing no signs of mental disturbance. Were these family members doing the natural thing and protecting him by rationalising his actions?

Was George's tendency to quasi-bohemianism and non-conformist behaviour apparent at this time taken as a marker for nascent mental illness by those who didn't really understand the signs? If we consider the reaction amongst his family and wider social circle to his intention to marry Marianne aka Nell, then perhaps they regarded everything he did that was culturally different as the actions of a mentally unwell mind. John George Black and Morley Roberts claim they thought as much when they found out about this marriage plan (though they both are not to be totally trusted for accuracy as they were not objective witnesses to this). And, yet, marrying out of one's class (down, not up, of course) was not a bizarre, unnatural event to the family. The Gissings were not landed gentry; Mrs Gissing seems to have married slightly down when she agreed to bind herself to a shop-keeper as her father had been clerk in a solicitor's office. Shop-keeping in the nineteenth century wasn't the exulted thing it is today - for an account of the shame of being a shop-keeper, read George Meredith's Evan Harrington more than Will Warburton.

(Detail) Ophelia
by John Everett Millais c 1851

The fact remains, his sister (who knew a version of his inner working reasonably well, though never intimately - according to George himself) thought he was a depressive. So, what is clinical depression?

Broadly depression comes in two forms: exogenous (from the outside) also known as reactive depression; and endogenous (from the inside).

Reactive depression is generally triggered by adverse life events, such as grief or adversity, and will eventually ease and lessen even with little or no intervention having been applied.
It is likely to be a life-long reaction to challenges, can be disabling, but responds reasonably well to treatment. Opinion differs on the causes, depending on the school of psychology being used. Some believe it is caused by maladaptive social patterns and is a learned behaviour; others think it is a problem with the translation of information and the setting down of mind-altering habits that programme our developing emotions.

Endogenous depression can have an external stimulus of adversity but the mechanics of it are not wholly dependent on external life events click. It can be seen as a form of self-generating abnormality of mood arising from a fault in the workings of the brain. Incompetencies in neural pathways, lack of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the nervous system (serotonin has a much wider brief than you might think click) are termed 'medical model' schools of thought.

In the 1960s, 'anti-psychiatry' was in vogue, and RD Laing is probably the most renowned figure from the UK to make use of this new approach click. Here is a small piece that encapsulates Laing's point of view:
A sane response to an insane situation. This is Laing's comment about what "going crazy" entailed. Applying Gregory Bateson's click concept of the double bind, in which anything a person does leads to one or another kind of punishing consequence, he observed that some children are faced with the dilemma of having an identity defined for them that is fundamentally different from who they experience themselves to be. Their alternatives are to either give up the parental approval and caretaking they need to survive, in order to be truly themselves, or to give up their own sense of their identity and comply with parental demands. Faced with this dilemma, most people choose to give up their own identities and adopt those that are handed to them by parental figures. In some people faced with this situation, the response is to "go crazy."

Wise words indeed!

The Suicide of Dorothy Hale
by Frieda Kahlo 1939

From what we know about the lives of his parents, they did not have much in common. It seems George was encouraged by his father (possibly unconsciously) to take sides. Algernon and William would have been more likely to come under the influence of their mother more than their father, as it was mainly George who accompanied Mr Gissing enthusiastically on field trips to study plants. The two younger brothers both tended to have very different goals, and did share George's drive to academic success, though both seem to have worked hard at school and did their best to conform. Algernon was subject to poor self esteem and bouts of depression; William died before it developed.

The child is able to recognise rifts in parental harmony; if the father tended to criticise the mother (and vice versa), or even not support their opinions, what is a child to do but become as Laing suggests? Perhaps George's contempt for women started from being inculcated into believing his mother's word view was inferior and backward and that tended to be George's mindset for the rest of his days. He once famously reported to Algernon (26th October 1884) that he told Mrs Gaussen he hardly knew anything of his mother's character at all. Henry Hick told a tale of George's mother locking a five year-old in a cupboard for being naughty, but this is still a common punishment when a parent (especially those not wanting to leave any physical marks) wants to punish a child. George told Gabrielle he never remembered his mother hugging him, but that was the usual parenting style in the mid-nineteenth century and he might not (at the time) have felt this was abnormal. Did she cuddle William and Algernon or the girls? The photograph of the boys together with Algernon in the central chair shows three eminently huggable boys, so, if she didn't, she missed out on something special. But, if she had, we might never have had Born in Exile or The Odd Women.  

In George's studies of Darwinism, did he ever stop and ask: what is the evolutionary advantage in being depressed? Herbert Spencer coined the term 'survival of the fittest'; this does not mean the physically fittest - it means the one that best fits into its environment. So, there has to be an advantage in depression or Darwinian natural selection would have weeded out the depressives of this world. Does depression carry some advantage? Certainly celebrated people with mood disorders (including Darwin!) are all around us click so maybe there is a link between low mood and creativity - much as Artists tend to claim.

Death of Cato of Utica by Guillaume Guillon-Lethière 1795

Endogenous depression is complex, with severe variations, the main two forms being: 1) psychotic depression, characterised by disturbances of perception including delusions and hallucinations in addition to the problems with affect - Edith possibly suffered from this; 2) bi-polar affective disorder aka the classic 'manic depressive' picture. However, a person may be only depressed or only manic (termed uni-polar) or might have 'mood-swings' between the two states, Mania is not the opposite of depression, rather, it is a manifestation of it, presenting as frenzied activity, inability to sleep, compulsive actions and socially inappropriate behaviour leading to exhaustion and social misery with low mood.

There are variants of endogenous depression termed Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) where low mood depends on the amount of light in winter months. And there is post-partum or post-natal depression in mothers following birth.

Depression can be very hard to diagnose and sometimes impossible to treat. Psychosis tends to be a disabling condition in and of itself, so these patients are often the most poorly served as their whole life becomes affected. All variants can precipitate suicide or attempted suicide. In George's day depression was not a clear-cut diagnosis. The term 'melancholia' was used until the middle of the twentieth century to describe any depressive illness in old age and often in women. A particular form often associated with schizoid features is 'catatonia', a complete shutting down of the mind and bodily functions. Patients remain immobile, unresponsive and mute, and it becomes almost impossible for them to take in enough nourishment, sometimes leading to death from malnutrition. Development of useful treatments for these endogenous variants was not really possible until the advent of anti-depressives and the use of electro-convulsive therapy in the 1940s and beyond. In George's day, sedatives such as laudanum and chloral hydrate would be used to mixed effect as both can be mood depressants, like alcohol, which only cheers you up short-term.


A Lady Contemplating Suicide by Gilbert Stuart Newton c 1828

Two simple questions used to be rolled out as a pointer to determine which type of depression was at play: does the patient feel better in the morning or the evening, and does she/he sleep as usual? In reactive depression, you feel bad in the evenings and better in the mornings; have trouble falling off to sleep and then in getting up. If you have exogenous depression, you feel worse in the morning and better in the evenings, fall asleep easily but can't stay asleep and may wake at 3am and feel very tired late morning. George, we know, had trouble sleeping and was often awake early. However, latest clinical research click suggests sleep patterns are now not considered a useful diagnostic tool.


Ria Munk on Her Deathbed by Gustav Klimt 1912 (Ria committed suicide).

An influencing factor in a diagnosis of any type of depression is age of onset. If Ellen was right and George had been suffering depression in childhood (apart from the natural grief at his father's death) that would suggest the more long-term form of depression - possibly bi-polar affective disorder. We know George had tremendous longeurs of inaction and torpor, writer's block, pessimism (with a small p), lack of socialisation; indecision, self-pity, immobility, trouble sleeping, somatic  complaints, negative thinking, Thanatos-preoccupation, suicidal ideation (is that enough?) - all symptoms of depression and of anxiety. Certainly he had moments of low mood, but the everyday, bog-standard norm seems to me to be more one of neurosis rather than depression. Take a look at this:

According to CG Boeree click: 'Neurosis may be defined simply as a "poor ability to adapt to one's environment, an inability to change one's life patterns, and the inability to develop a richer, more complex, more satisfying personality".' 

Carl Jung said:  
I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life.
AND
The majority of my patients consisted not of believers but of those who had lost their faith. click

Lucretia Committing Suicide by
Lucas Cranach and his workshop 1512

Where does that leave us with George? I preceded this post with two about George and Egoism. I return to that theme with this quoted reminiscence so that you may consider the question: what was the primary force working on his nature?

James 'Jem' Gaussen who for a while boarded with George at 7K gave this account of an experience he had one night:

'Looking back Gissing must have been suffering at that time from melancholia and very nearly did a dreadfully cruel thing. I used to go to bed after our supper, and he used to sit up writing for ages, and as a rule (I) did not wake when he came to bed, - I forget if it was gas or tallow in the bed-room. One night I woke with a start and with horror saw him standing in front of the mirror in the act of cutting his throat with a razor. I called out, 'Mr Gissing! Mr Gissing!' and he closed the razor and handed it over to me, saying: - 'Boy, Boy! Keep it safely'. Next morning I slipped the razor quietly onto his table.'

What sort of man potentially traumatizes a child for life by making him witness the ultimate act of egoism?

For a very interesting article on the theory that the immune system causes mental illness click

Commonplace 40    George & Egoism PART TWO: The Owens Incident.

   

Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich 1817



The Owens Incident is often viewed as the defining moment of George's life. Before these thefts his life seemed to be on a steady course to success; after, life was a vortex of turmoil out of which he never really dragged himself. Anyone embarking on an understanding of George and his works has to spend time thinking about what happened at Owens, and why a seemingly upright young citizen could go so far astray.

George was arrested and charged with theft on 31st May 1876. He was 18 years and 6 months old. Some argue that he was sent straight to prison on remand, but that is unlikely as this period of incarceration would have been deducted from the length of his sentence, making his release date around July 1st, instead of the date we know he was discharged, which was July 5th. Still, a month of prison would have been a monumental shock to his constitution and his psyche. If George had been enjoying his adolescent carefree hedonistic heyday, Bellevue would have signalled that phase of his life was over. Was he ever again carefree?

Urizen in Chains by
William Blake 1794

This is the biographers' collective party line: George stole money (and possibly books) from his fellow students to give money to Marianne aka Nell, his girlfriend. Remember, this is the party line, so we must ask: is it true that he did it for her? My answer is: it's not. I suggest it is, at worst, propaganda put about by the Gissing Massive to explain their homie's transgressions; at best, it is supposition, but it isn't fact: there is no evidence Marianne benefited from the crimes or even knew what George was up to.

At some point I presume, the Massive posse members have asked themselves: what was a middle class boy doing committing a working class crime? And, then they might well conclude what is so easy and what has been done since the Garden of Eden: it can't have been his fault; there must have been a woman behind it. Some even claim that, in his own head, George believed himself innocent of any crime because he didn't benefit from it directly. If he really did think this, well, that just shows how naïve and arrogant George was (and presumes he didn't spend the money on himself). I rail against the injustice of World Poverty, but I'm not stealing to send money to anyone in need. And, if I did, I could hardly blame the starving in Africa for making me do it! Of course, this view that George was able to rationalise his crimes away is pure supposition, as there is no record of his true motives - though it serves to make Marianne look like the person who profited from it, thus blackening her good name once again.

Mark Twain

Owens College Principal decreed George had been living 'a life of immorality and dissipation'. Lordy knows what this means - one person's concept of immorality and dissipation is another's idea of a good night out. However, we assume they were referring to George being a 'bit of a lad'. As he was 18, this is not exactly unexpected, but 'rules is rules' and no doubt the College felt it had cause to feel affronted. George was officially a bad influence. And a jailbird. Actually, George was let off pretty light in prison as flogging was often a punishment added to incarceration, particularly with new offenders who needed to be shocked into being good. Maybe his class and his sheepish, craven attitude prevented him from being taken for a hardened criminal, and they took pity on his lower middle class ass.

Is there any other possible explanation for this sort of maladjusted juvenile delinquent behaviour? Let us think for a moment about free will and free action again - for revision: click It can be argued (Hobbes, Hume) that free will leads to free action. But there are forces that impede this process: external force such as moral imperatives and legal and cultural restrictions - so, is free will always free?

George had free will to steal. Did he exercise free action? He was not compelled to steal by outside forces such as hunger, or having someone threaten to shoot his cat if he didn't (which would render it a not free action); it was a choice. His personal morality allowed him to set his own boundaries (unless he deferred to a Dice Man style Fate!). The Law usually acts to stop us, if Karma/God is watching us/social embarrassment/shame don't override free will and stop us. The perpetrator commits the crime and suffers the consequences. There is one general exception in Law: if the criminal was not 'compos mentis' - in full control of her/his mind - when the act was committed, then she/he is not considered responsible.

Dolmen by Alfred Kubin 1902

Ellen claimed George suffered from depression throughout his life. If we take depression in its everyday sense (ie not as a clinical diagnosis) we can say it is extreme unhappiness. Was George unhappy at Owens? He had (according to the legend) a fun social life, a sexy girlfriend, he found his studies a doddle, he didn't have his mother to censure his every move, he had an income from his prizes, and he was on the threshold of greatness. Was he not, therefore, deeply happy? Do happy people steal? Well, according to The Association of Psychological Science, yes, they do. click They tell us: '... positive affect (happiness, in everyday terms) could lay the groundwork for dishonesty by altering how individuals evaluate the moral implications of their behaviour'. Certainly in the term leading up to the fall from grace, George was on top of the world. His performance in his studies, the debates he chaired and participated in, and the sheer audacity of his flagrant disregard for college rules, were the endeavours of a happy egoist.

Perhaps George didn't think his actions would ever be uncovered. Academic success may have gone to his head and convinced him that he was on a roll in life and nothing could stop him. Judging from the banter in the letters to George from John Black they both had scant respect for their tutors, and deceiving them and playing tricks was the norm. Trips to Southport presumably with Marianne (we must be wary as this is supposition!) and the general social mayhem worked by a typical undergraduate (at least in my day whoohoo!) can be quite challenging to the cloistered world of a college - and George gave a good account of himself. However, he was not really cut out for the role of Victorian Rebel Without a Cause; he was more a flashy Icarus who flew too close to the Sun.

The Sun or The Fall of Icarus by Merry-Joseph Blondel 1819

The absences from lectures George racked up are illuminating - he seems to have had an awful lot of time off for piffling illnesses - does this suggest he was not fully engaged in the learning process? If we compare this performance to the boy who walked to school with a fishbone in his throat, George may well have gone off the boil where the studies was concerned. Or had he been leading a much broader life of immorality and dissipation than he usually given credit for, sleeping with as many girls as he could lay hands on, drinking like a fish, necking laudanum and visiting all the flesh pots that would permit him entry, so lectures will have seemed a little tame. Few young people seem to be preoccupied with illness believing as they do that they are immortal (which they are, right up to the day they die!), however, George was a bit of a hypochondriac, so petty illnesses could have preoccupied him and made him stay off college at the first sign of a sniffle. Sad or lonely people seem to fret more about their health than do those tripping over friends and company, so maybe he was feeling lost in the big city and sometimes felt he couldn't drag himself out of bed for a lecture he probably knew as much about as his tutor. This is also a sign of depression - it's called 'somatising': unconsciously converting one's mental health into a physical state.


Melancholy (L) and Raving Madness (R) by Caius Gabriel Cibber c 1646 These two chaps were formerly on the gates of Bedlam - the old name for Bethlehem Hospital (now the Imperial War Museum). Marianne lived just round the corner from Bethlehem Hospital, but the statues were removed in 1815 and put in storage, so she wouldn't have been terrified by them. 

Stealing - especially trifling amounts - is nowadays seen as a sort of cry for help - external signs of inner conflict. Was George enduring mental suffering brought about by missing his family, working too hard, the shock of hormones finally rising to the surface, the over-stimulation of a massive machine of a city breaking over him like a psychic tsunami? Many students have caved in under similar circumstances. Petty theft can, therefore, be a release of tension - the thrill of the crime can release endorphins that soothe and calm. Stealing from people you know can also be an act of power if you feel powerless. Was George self-medicating with small crimes as a means of offsetting the lack of power he felt at having equals or even betters as rivals for the money prizes? 

Powerlessness would have been extra hard for George to tackle as he had always been powerful - oldest child, successful scholar, top of the form etc etc. He had not really had much competition in life - certainly not from Will or Alg. Maybe he unconsciously relieved the pressure of now having equals to compete with in the symbolic act of small thefts that he thought would get one over on the competition, and besides, no-one would care about a few shillings. Not from a point of view that he was above the law, then, but because the endorphins soothed him and he could always deal with the guilt later. It may even have been that he didn't spend the money - perhaps he gave it away to charity or threw it in the Irwell on the way home. Those unfortunate to self-medicate with shoplifting often steal things they don't want and then bin them on the way home.

In Manchester, George was a very small minnow in a massive pond - bereft of anyone to love him except for the woman he had promised to care for. Perhaps this is why he so desperately wanted someone like Marianne on whom to focus his attention. My contention has always been that George sought out a girl who was ailing, lonely, desperate to be cared for when he found her. One of the interesting things about the role of carer - we are often drawn to caring for others because it is a way of caring for ourselves. Working on someone else (in the psychodynamic sense of the word, to 'work' means to address psychological issues usually in 'group') allows us to work on ourselves - as in to deal with our own psychological issues. Or it saves us from working on them, because it appears to the world we have no issues to deal with which is what enables us to set ourselves up as experts on the issues of others.

This might go some way to explaining why George felt so disinterested when Marianne's illnesses inevitably worsened. She had once been a form of therapy to divert him from inner and external torments of his life, but as he piled up success in the world that he wanted to inhabit - middle class aspirations on track, novelist ambition in train, intellectual equals engaged - he no longer had need of her because his destiny as an intellectual now became his therapy. Having a failed project like Marianne dogging his steps on the road to stardom was a shameful burden he had to jettison. He was an apprentice in a new milieu where success depended on impressing his new friends, not on impressing Marianne. Novels became the new cause and the therapy of choice; one where his efforts might lead to success, unlike poor Marianne, who, through no fault of her own, had failed him. And so the pure egoist was born.

Cimon and Pero by Peter Paul Rubens c 1630 (The role of the prison visitor was much changed by the time George got to Belle vue!)

Commonplace 39      George & Egoism. PART ONE

 

George claimed to be and was an egoist. He was also an egotist, but that's another post.
I can't define egoism any better than this, which I lift gratefully from the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy click and so you should rush there for all sorts of interesting things after reading this post. I've kept their links for your edification.

'In philosophy, egoism is the theory that one’s self is, or should be, the motivation and the goal of one’s own action. Egoism has two variants, descriptive or normative. The descriptive (or positive) variant conceives egoism as a factual description of human affairs. That is, people are motivated by their own interests and desires, and they cannot be described otherwise. The normative variant proposes that people should be so motivated, regardless of what presently motivates their behaviour   Altruism is the opposite of egoism. The term “egoism” derives from “ego,” the Latin term for “I” in English. Egoism should be distinguished from egotism, which means a psychological overvaluation of one’s own importance, or of one’s own activities.

People act for many reasons; but for whom, or what, do or should they act—for themselves, for God, or for the good of the planet? Can an individual ever act only according to her own interests without regard for others’ interests?  Conversely, can an individual ever truly act for others in complete disregard for her own interests? The answers will depend on an account of free will. Some philosophers argue that an individual has no choice in these matters, claiming that a person’s acts are determined by prior events which make illusory any belief in choice. Nevertheless, if an element of choice is permitted against the great causal impetus from nature, or God, it follows that a person possesses some control over her next action, and, that, therefore, one may inquire as to whether the individual does, or, should choose a self-or-other-oriented action. Morally speaking, one can ask whether the individual should pursue her own interests, or, whether she should reject self-interest and pursue others’ interest instead: to what extent are other-regarding acts morally praiseworthy compared to self-regarding acts?' click



Woman in Beret and Checked Dress by Picasso 1937

There are many examples of egoism in George's life - that is, of George acting to satisfy his own needs with disregard of how others might be affected. Here are some of the most significant egoistic choices he made:

Stealing money at Owens (see next post)
Choosing semi poverty as a writer over a regular paying job
The treatment of his first wife, Marianne aka Nell
Abandoning Marianne
Marrying Edith
The treatment of Edith
Sending Walter to his sisters and mother in Wakefield
Abandoning Edith and Alfred
Pursuing Gabrielle despite being a married man and a father
Going to live in France beyond the reach of his children

The key issues here are that George acted to satisfy his own needs and to solve his own problems, with scant concern for the way the fallout of these actions would impact on others. The Diaries and Letters are records of his predicament or how he felt, and hardly anything at all about how the other was affected or the consequences of his actions. His capacity for changing horses midstream and never looking back is almost sociopathic, as was his capacity for not owning his mistakes, and, yet, he was a man crippled by concern for how the world saw him. He seems to have fretted over the tiny, insignificant things of life that he could be visibly judged by (regional accent, correct dress form, social climbing, class, etiquette) and been completely blind to the momentous things (honesty, truth, being true to the promises he made - as in the sanctity of marriage - paternal responsibility) that would define him as a human being. This is one of the contradictions of George Gissing: he set himself high standards in low subjects and succeeded, and low standards in high subjects and triumphed. A case of win win?

Portrait of a Woman by Picasso 1936

Now, if we follow the definitions of descriptive and normative variants of egoism, it is clear George's tendency to a personal philosophy always held fast to the descriptive view that individuals should, for want of a better term originating in the twentieth century, 'self-actualize'. This is a concept associated with the psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), who famously said, 'What a man can be, he should be' (I think he forgot to mention us females but probably intended to include us). Now, this is all very well with the majority of humankind (!) but what about psychopaths? Or serial killers? Or Adolf Hitler? Should they be encouraged to self-actualize? You see how difficult the problem gets if morality isn't factored in to regulate actions and behaviour.
Can we live without a personal morality? Some, of course, abdicate their free will (see above link for very good definition) to a form of theistic leadership which comes with a readymade morality, but those with no god to guide them have to take responsibility for their own actions with no-one to blame or forgive them for their trespasses.

Head of a Woman (Olga) by Picasso 1935

Egoism is always a balance of free will and free action - I am free to make a choice and I choose to act this way. Free will means I am free to murder but will be penalised for it - so there is a lack of free action because of the laws against homicide. But, I am still free to murder if I choose it. If we assume we are all capable of the act of murder (I know I am!) what stops us? Do we choose not to murder because we don't want to be deprived of freedom, or because we believe it is morally wrong? If it's the latter, what about murdering Hitler before he became powerful and saving millions of lives? Morality, then, is mutable.

This was the sort of debate that raged in the nineteenth century when religion was losing its vice-like grip on western minds, and people were fashioning a personal morality to live by. George was deeply concerned with the issue, but failed to make the leap into what might be termed pure egoism (free will) because he constantly deferred to Fate, a form of lack of free action. For example, when he wrote about his own religious beliefs he said he was (when pushed to define it) a Manichean. Which is basically someone who believes light/dark; good/evil; spiritual/materialistic forces balance the world. A typical path for one so steeped in reading about ancient civilizations, but not much help when it comes to exercising nineteenth century developments in ontology and epistemology!


Seated woman (Marie-Therese) by Picasso 1937

As usual, George allowed his characters to contemplate these ideas not to any great conclusion (George doesn't do endings half as good as his beginnings so things often peter out rather than climax in his books). His narrow social life meant he needed these characters to discus ideas with, as much as to have fully-formed things for them to say - Harvey Rolfe is an example with the education debate George was having with himself about Walter and Alfred's learning. As George set the bar very low for both these boys and had no ambition for them to achieve academically (another egregious abuse of his own free will as a parent) this debate seems to have been fruitless. Both boys were cast adrift to make their own way in the social class war, and if either achieved any self-actualization, it would not be with the help of their father or Oxbridge. Was it a case of, well, if he couldn't go to university, why should his boys?????!!!!

Portrait of a Woman by Picasso 1937



JOIN ME IN PART TWO FOR MORE





Commonplace 38  George & His Tendency to Tyranny.



Part of the Jake and Dinos Chapman Installation
at White Cube Gallery Summer 2011

Like many of those caught between two social classes, George had difficulty in expressing his true feelings to equals and those by whom he strove to be accepted. But he was, by nature, secretive and his need to control others' perceptions of him and his doings made the class thing so much worse. Caught between a variety of worlds both internal and external, he struggled with personality and character flaws (aloofness, lack of empathy, pride, arrogance) and set himself almost unwinnable goals - such as a happy marriage to an ordinary working class woman.

Many converts become zealots and George was lured into the frenzy of middle class aspirational dogma - but embraced it wholeheartedly. There are no other words for it: he was a snob. The very worst snobs are those so ashamed of their roots they have to prove they are, despite financial elevation, not still mired with their origins
I qualify it as middle class because there are also working class snobs and presumably, all cultures and all peoples have snobs, too. Snobbism, like the creation of the Universe, is not a steady state. Like the Universe, it is expanding relative to place and time click ;) It's essence is about classifying selected others as inferiors but it requires a constant evaluation of everyone who is U and Non-U, as they say.

An example of George's snobbery is his criticism of Edith's accent. How hard he must have worked to rid himself of his Yorkshire one! This, I believe might go some small way to explain why Edith's accent offended him so. Neither of George's parents were from Yorkshire, so his 'mother tongue' was not infected with a Wakefield twang - for info on the varieties of Yorkshire accent click. There is in England a north-south social divide, between the more affluent south and the poorer north. In George's time, this would have been a significant marker of social class, despite the money being made by northern industrialists, many would have been looked down upon for their native accent.  Then there is the regional difference in accent between Yorkshire and Lancashire - the county where George went to school and college. These two counties have their own internecine conflicts based on historic claims to the English crown, but accent is a sign of which camp you are in. Both are united in their mistrust for and hatred of, southerners. Again, accent comes into play. Generally, southerners think northerners are oiks; northerners think southerners are snobs. Southerners have variations in accent with layers of inbuilt snobbery which will quickly mark out the rich from the poor - and the U from the Non-U - hence, the fear of being mistaken for a cockney. Edith's north London accent would have sounded 'cockney' to George. As a southerner with excellent RP (Received Pronunciation), myself, I have no idea why it matters haha. click for examples and more info.

Pollice Verso by Jean-Leon Gerome 1872

Born in Exile - of which George said the hero Godwin Peak 'is myself... one phase of myself' (in a letter to Eduard Bertz, May 20th 1892) is the epitome of this torment of enforced social mobility at a time when there were few ways for a lower middle class boy to rise. Godwin is eventually crippled by his self-loathing and disgust at having to become someone else in order to win the limp tiny hand of Sidwell Warricombe, who didn't give a hoot about his class, but did care about his lying, scheming ways.

Is it possible to say how George became first the over-achieving scholar and then the bullying weak and vacillating creature he was post-Owens? Perhaps the trauma and shame of imprisonment discombobulated his mojo and turned him into a passive-aggressive with deep undercurrents of resentment and frustrated rage. People who don't feel powerful often bully those they believe to be powerless beneath them. Amongst what he saw as the 'inferiors' - such as working class people, servants, children, wives - he could be quite the martinet. Sadly, he seems to have lacked leadership qualities of charisma and dynamism which might have inspired others to willingly follow; generally, 'might was right' to our man, and this was exacerbated by his point of view that the deference of others was his birthright.

For example, take his holiday in Paris and Italy with his German Friend Plitt. George invited himself along and then spent the trip telling his Diary what a rubbish travel companion Plitt was turning out to be. He moaned about all sorts of trivial things - see Commonplaces 20 and 21 for more. George could not bring himself to say what he thought and so he had to stew in his own juices. Plitt seems to have been a much more authentic communicator, which George wrongly attributes to vulgarity and stupidity.

And, then there is his bullying treatment of Marianne aka Nell; when she failed to comply with his house arrest orders he locked her up. This was for his good, not hers. And when she became an invalid he dictated she must live apart in a separate dwelling when her epilepsy confounded him once too often. Not because she wanted to live alone or with totally inappropriate strangers, but because George wanted to have her out of the way. Of course, he no doubt dressed it up as 'wanting the best for her' - to her face.

Mr Gissing Meets Miss Underwood and Won't Take 'No' For an Answer.

Edith was also a victim of his Darwinian need to dominate. I suspect in the late 1890s George carefully redacted the Diaries to reduce future censure when posterity read of his increasing unreasonable and obsessional rage at Edith's failure to come up to his snobby standards. With Gabrielle in France, when he was reviewing his Life's achievements, did he read the picky, spiteful, hate-fuelled entries and decide to edit out the worst of it? He claims he didn't make thorough entries because they would all be the same, but that's nonsensical as he was such a moaner, and needed a sympathetic listening board, and the Diary was the one friend on tap who wouldn't talk back. HG Wells had once told him not to be so hard on Edith and to treat her better; Marianne's friends had made a similar plea in response to his neglect of her. After George's death, a darker side to our man began to come into focus - more of that another time! No wonder George thought maybe he needed a better version of his life for posterity to absorb. Was Ryecroft supposed to balance the yin/yang thing and show the old bully was a softie inside? If so, it didn't work - well, not on me. And not on HG Wells.

Before redaction, was this a typical entry circa Summer 1892:
'Very trying day. Had to address two incorrect uses of the possessive apostrophe on Edith's shopping list. She refuses point blank to comply with standard usage. I said to her, 'If in doubt, leave it out, because to leave it in - and it be wrong - you prove to the world you are an ignoramus'. Made her do one hundred lines: 'I am an ignoramus'. She made four spelling mistakes with that simple task! Had to resort to a fair whack of Heine and several bowls of Cavendish Old Black Shag packed hard into my pipe to regain equilibrium. How I bless the Fates for making me a smoker. Thought about how the Romans in the Colosseum dealt with female dissenters and wondered if Edith would have arm-wrestled a tiger to the ground, or just make a lunge for its windpipe. Made me wish we lived in those days and could settle things once and for all with the jab of a trident. Noticed a smear on the hall mirror and cursed Edith (silently) for not managing the servants to a higher standard. Put my unused postage stamps in order of value, which took much longer than planned, then in colours of the spectrum, from red to black. Noticed I am very short of the 2d. How I rail against the Fates that omitted to remind me to buy more when I slipped out this morning to purchase tobacco. Fretted for a bit over why no-one wants to read my books - just because I think they are shit doesn't mean everyone else should. The monstrous cheek of it! Wondered at the number of turnips we are using - three since last Tuesday fortnight, which is a disgrace. The cost of turnips is astronomical; advised Edith to be more economical with them as they don't grow on trees. Noticed a pimple on my bell end; took me right back to the old Owens days. Mused a bit on why Fate made me dip my hand into the pockets of others when it just as easily could have found me a Saturday job at the Dog Inn in the city centre. I suppose Fate didn't have me down as a barman - it had me down as a 'tea leaf', as Edith would be wont to say if she ever found out about it. Felt a bit shivery and feeble after supper (lentil sandwich and cold tea - if only women could learn to enjoy lentils we would have harmony in this world) then coughed up some yucky stuff. Fate decreed it wasn't red, just yellowy-green. Chastised Gubbins for noisily slurping his rusk - that boy takes after his mother, poor wee common as muck mite that he is. Cursed the Fates that made me fertile. Moaned at Edith a bit for not teaching the boy more Greek nursery rhymes. She charmingly told me to 'do one'. O, why did Fate make me offer marriage to this totally-unsuited-to-my-particular-peculiar-pernickety-needs girl? After tea, penned letters to Alg; Nelly; Madge; Mother; Bertz; Roberts; Hick; Wells; Alg again, Nelly again and a post card to Alg's Katie's cat who is three next Monday. Quite overcome with writer's cramp after that, so took a nap. Odd dream where Bertz, wearing a spectacular black off the shoulder evening gown, came round to fix the gas boiler - not sure what it means, but it certainly woke me up. All these distractions keep me from the sacred art of book writing! Kismet, I suppose.'

Is This Really Worse Than Marriage To A Totally Unsuitable Woman?

So, what is passive-aggressive behaviour? How could we recognise it in our hero?

Here is a table formulating Theodore Millon's 4 sub-types of negativism (the 'passive' bit) from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive-aggressive_behavior   I've left the links in for your enjoyment.

Subtype	Description	Personality Traits
Vacillating	Including borderline personality disorder features	Emotions fluctuate in bewildering, perplexing, and enigmatic ways; difficult to fathom or comprehend own capricious and mystifying moods; wavers, in flux, and irresolute both subjectively and intrapsychically.
Discontented	Including depressive personality disorder features	Grumbling, petty, testy, cranky, embittered, complaining, fretful, vexed, and moody; gripes behind pretence; avoids confrontation; uses legitimate but trivial complaints.
Circuitous	Including dependent personality disorder features	Opposition displayed in a roundabout, labyrinthine, and ambiguous manner, e.g., procrastination, dawdling, forgetfulness, inefficiency, neglect, stubbornness, indirect and devious in venting resentment and resistant behaviours.
Abrasive	Including sadistic personality disorder features	Contentious, intransigent, fractious, and quarrelsome; irritable, caustic, debasing, corrosive, and acrimonious, contradicts and derogates; few qualms and little conscience or remorse. (no longer a valid diagnosis in DSM)

A passive-aggressive personality is 'often overtly ambivalent, wavering indecisively from one course of action to its opposite. They may follow an erratic path that causes endless wrangles with others and disappointment for themselves'. Characteristic of these persons is an 'intense conflict dependence on others and the desire for self-assertion. Although exhibiting superficial bravado, their self-confidence is often very poor, and others react to them with hostility and negativity'.

Monarch of the Glen by Sir Edwin Landseer 1851

We also have this: http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellor-articles/what-is-passive-aggressive-behaviour
'Passive aggressive behaviour takes many forms but can generally be described as a non-verbal aggression that manifests in negative behaviour. It is where you are angry with someone but do not or cannot tell them. Instead of communicating honestly when you feel upset, annoyed, irritated or disappointed you may instead bottle the feelings up, shut off verbally, give angry looks, make obvious changes in behaviour, be obstructive, sulky or put up a stone wall. It may also involve indirectly resisting requests from others by evading or creating confusion around the issue. Not going along with things. It can either be covert (concealed and hidden) or overt (blatant and obvious).

A passive aggressive might not always show that they are angry or resentful. They might appear in agreement, polite, friendly, down-to-earth, kind and well-meaning. However, underneath there may be manipulation going on - hence the term "Passive-Aggressive".

Passive aggression is a destructive pattern of behaviour that can be seen as a form of emotional abuse in relationships that bites away at trust between people. It is a creation of negative energy in the ether which is clear to those involved and can create immense hurt and pain to all parties.

It happens when negative emotions and feelings build up and are then held in on a self-imposed need for either acceptance by another, dependence on others or to avoid even further arguments or conflict.

Some examples of passive aggression behaviours might be:

Non-communication when there is clearly something problematic to discuss 

Avoiding/Ignoring when you are so angry that you feel you cannot speak calmly

Evading problems and issues: burying an angry head in the sand

Procrastinating: intentionally putting off important tasks for less important ones

Obstructing: deliberately stalling or preventing an event or process of change

Fear of Competition. Avoiding situations where one party will be seen as better at something

Ambiguity. Being cryptic, unclear, not fully engaging in conversations

Sulking. Being silent, morose, sullen and resentful in order to get attention or sympathy.

Chronic Lateness: a way to put you in control over others and their expectations

Chronic Forgetting: shows a blatant disrespect and disregard for others to punish in some way

Fear of Intimacy:  problems with trust issues and guarding against becoming too intimately involved or attached will be a way for them to feel in control of the relationship

Making Excuses : tending to come up with reasons for not doing things

Victimisation: unable to look at their own part in a situation; will turn the tables to become the victim and will behave like one

Self-Pity: the poor me scenario

Blaming others for situations rather than being able to take responsibility for your own actions or being able to take an objective view of the situation as a whole.

Withholding usual behaviours or roles for example sex, cooking and cleaning or making cups of tea, running a bath etc. all to reinforce an already unclear message to the other party

Learned Helplessness where a person continually acts like they can’t help themselves – deliberately asking others to do their dirty work for them or doing a poor job of something for which they are often explicitly responsible

Mask II by Ron Mueck 2001/2

One of the clearest indicators for assessing George's tendency to passive-aggressive behaviour is the way he looked to others to make his decisions for him, thus relieving himself of all personal responsibility for the outcome - classic learned helplessness. I mentioned this in the previous series of posts looking at the time he thought to divorce Marianne. In this, if we are to take his version as authentic, we can see he suspected the police spy/detective was immoral and corrupt and yet still employed him - George did not ask himself if such a tripe hound was reliable and trustworthy because then he couldn't be blamed tor making a wrong call if things went badly. He doesn't seem to have spoken to Marianne herself. He preferred to sneak around behind her back employing a dishonest policeman (who could also take the blame for doing the actual sneaking around) hoping to find evidence against her. He admits he does not want to be unfair (with her alimony) whilst plotting behind her back (did he really want her out of his life or was he looking to gain more control over her?), going to Fred Harrison for guidance, though in fact he was just looking for someone to agree with him as he had already made up his mind. Harrison would have taken the rap for instigating the divorce proceedings, and, if George had subsequently regretted it, he could have said, 'Fred Harrison made me do it'.  
When no evidence materialised, George doesn't seem to have cared one jot. He seems to have embarked on it with a sort of distanced indifference and when it fizzles out, he just grieves for the money it cost him, not for the moral implications of his actions, or the existential emptiness of his passivity. One wonders if he ever thought of apologising to Marianne for his bad faith. But, did he ever really want her out of his life? I think not. Marianne was still very much his girl until the day she died -  and then, she haunted him. Having her in the background would have been an immense totem of sadistic control - and we should never underestimate George's penchant for retributive cruelty especially towards his first and second wives. If you find that 'heroic', I pity your damned soul.

The Eagle Slayer by John Bell 1851

You can see the bind George was in: to appease his peers in this middle class world he could not be authentic - just in case that authenticity turned out to be naturally lower middle class with working class traits! However, he stopped being authentic to himself when things didn't go his way quickly enough, and he degenerated into the bully who blamed Marianne for his failings and her lack of good health. Whatever tendency she had to scrofula would have been exacerbated by poor nutrition in damp, cold houses, and so George, inadvertently would have contributed to her decline.

But, who did he have to guide him? He felt himself surrounded by nonentities who were not up to his high academic standard, and that is why thinking movements like Pessimism and Socialism appealed, but he soon gave up on them. Demos was creeping up on him left right and left again. I like to think he wanted to be honest with his communication but he confused good manners with deceit - most people prefer the truth to lies, don't they? Suppression of rage is debilitating and counter-productive. We know from Maslow the self-actualised life requires authenticity of communication. The endless acute sense of having to edit every word - no wonder redacting the Diaries came easily to him. The nervous energy required to maintain a front at all times, and the assault to his sense of self-esteem at being a base liar must have dented his pride in his manliness. Poor George (for a change) indeed... 

So, we now know more about passive aggressive personality. Does any of it sound familiar? Where is the line between this and just being polite or easy-going or that dreaded concept 'nice'? It's very British to be this way - we favour politeness and making the other gal or fellow feel good. White lies, irony, manners, good-naturedness, kindness... maybe we all passive aggressives at heart - all except for you psychopaths!
So, where does this leave us? There is another explanation... One that is not often considered as a cause for this sort of rank awfulness - syphilis. Sounds fanciful, I know, but the disease causes rampant personality changes, enough to mar a life. Easy-going dufuses become tyrants; good men become bad; gentle souls develop vices. Something to think about!