Commonplace 50 George & The Dodgy Marriage Club.
We know George craved 'sympathy' - in order for the best to be brought out in him. We know he ingratiated his way in with many of his associates - Mr and Mrs Frederic Harrison; Mrs Gaussen; Miss Collet; Miss Sichel; George Meredith; HG Wells and anyone he had hopes for in the sympathy-giving department. And always the position, the point of view, that he promoted was his own. How it chaffed him if someone took the other's side! But, he was amongst sympathisers, when he mingled with his literary pals as many of them knew all about the travails of marriage. Here are a few of them, the ones who knew a thing or two about love and the loss of it. It's odd how much these stories blend with our man's.
George spoke of Charles Dickens (1812-1870) with affection, though it's clear he was not unaware of the great man's literary faults. Perhaps less well known to him was Mr Dickens' private flaws - the way he treated his wife, for a start. Mrs Dickens was abandoned after their tenth child was born, and, despite living just round the corner from his family, Dickens had hardly any contact with them after moving in with Ellen (Nelly) Ternan, a woman twenty-seven years his junior. Read more about it in Claire Tomalin's 'The Invisible Woman' and 'Charles Dickens, A Life'.
Auguste Comte (1798-1857), the founder of Positivism seems to have been something of a role model for George - in the wife department. The relationship Comte had with his wife Caroline Massin is fascinating, and full of peculiar to George coincidences. It's difficult to be sure of the true facts - Comte was a paranoid and secretive man who rewrote some of his personal history when he needed to manage his philosophical legacy (sound familiar?). In their wedding contract his wife's wealth is shown to be much higher than his but Comte said he made up the figure of her financial worth to make her seem more respectable. Comte claimed the marriage was not happy, but Caroline was an intelligent and caring spouse who nursed him through several severe bouts of mental illness. When they separated, he bestowed upon her an annual payment of 3,000 francs. And, after the separation, they corresponded about his ideas and Caroline seems to have made many contributions to her husband's work. They did not divorce. Comte became fixated with a younger girl, Clotilde de Vaux and had a celibate relationship with her from 1844 until her death from TB in 1846. What makes his marriage mysterious is that he wrote a secret document to be read after his death claiming Caroline had been a prostitute whom he met in Paris at the Palais Royal - a place with historic links to high jinks of all stripes. However, Comte was an unreliable witness (as was George !) as he suffered from delusions and was often hospitalised with mental health problems. Towards the end of his life he believed clairvoyance and love would save the world. Comte was an influence on Annie Besant and the Theosophists. Say no more.
JM Barrie (1860-1937) was a small Scotsman with a beautiful wife - Mary Ansell a well known and talented stage actress. George quite fancied her - at least, he seems to be taken with her when he comments that he doesn't know how men like Barrie get away with it and attract far superior women! It seems Barrie was impotent and the marriage was never consummated. When she had a love affair with Gilbert Canaan, Barrie tried to bribe her out of it, then sued her for divorce on the grounds of adultery. When she was free to marry Gilbert, she did, in 1910. Barrie never remarried, and he remained bitter about women.
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) married twice. His first wife, Emma Lavinia Gifford was once a governess, who came from a respectable family fallen on hard times. They met in 1870 and married in 1874. The Hardys were not able to have children, and they drifted apart as Hardy turned to other women for comfort - such as Florence Dugdale, Bram Stoker's sister-in-law, thirty-nine years younger than the writer. By 1889, Emma was living the life of a recluse in the attic of their home, as their relationship floundered. Emma died in 1912, and left behind two small accounts of her life with Hardy. The first, 'What I Think Of My Husband', upset the writer who didn't realise how unhappy he had made her. In 1914. Hardy married Florence Dugdale, but it was not a love match - his obsessive guilt over the way he had treated Emma poured out in love poetry to his widow, and Florence became more a literary secretary than a muse. However, she adored him and was almost undone by grief when he died.
We know George craved 'sympathy' - in order for the best to be brought out in him. We know he ingratiated his way in with many of his associates - Mr and Mrs Frederic Harrison; Mrs Gaussen; Miss Collet; Miss Sichel; George Meredith; HG Wells and anyone he had hopes for in the sympathy-giving department. And always the position, the point of view, that he promoted was his own. How it chaffed him if someone took the other's side! But, he was amongst sympathisers, when he mingled with his literary pals as many of them knew all about the travails of marriage. Here are a few of them, the ones who knew a thing or two about love and the loss of it. It's odd how much these stories blend with our man's.
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| Ellen Ternan and Charles Dickens |
Auguste Comte (1798-1857), the founder of Positivism seems to have been something of a role model for George - in the wife department. The relationship Comte had with his wife Caroline Massin is fascinating, and full of peculiar to George coincidences. It's difficult to be sure of the true facts - Comte was a paranoid and secretive man who rewrote some of his personal history when he needed to manage his philosophical legacy (sound familiar?). In their wedding contract his wife's wealth is shown to be much higher than his but Comte said he made up the figure of her financial worth to make her seem more respectable. Comte claimed the marriage was not happy, but Caroline was an intelligent and caring spouse who nursed him through several severe bouts of mental illness. When they separated, he bestowed upon her an annual payment of 3,000 francs. And, after the separation, they corresponded about his ideas and Caroline seems to have made many contributions to her husband's work. They did not divorce. Comte became fixated with a younger girl, Clotilde de Vaux and had a celibate relationship with her from 1844 until her death from TB in 1846. What makes his marriage mysterious is that he wrote a secret document to be read after his death claiming Caroline had been a prostitute whom he met in Paris at the Palais Royal - a place with historic links to high jinks of all stripes. However, Comte was an unreliable witness (as was George !) as he suffered from delusions and was often hospitalised with mental health problems. Towards the end of his life he believed clairvoyance and love would save the world. Comte was an influence on Annie Besant and the Theosophists. Say no more.
George Meredith (1828-1909) (above, posing as Chatterton in this Henry Wallis painting) married a friend's widowed sister, Mary Ellen Nicholls, in 1849 when he was twenty-one and she was twenty-eight. In 1853, their son Arthur was born. Mary then suffered many miscarriage and stillbirths, and nursed Meredith through severe episodes of gastric trouble that required a special diet. The couple were not happy, partly because they faced the daily grind of an uncertain financial situation and partly because Meredith was highly strung and somewhat hypochondriacal. In 1856, Meredith posed for Henry Wallis' painting 'The Death of Chatterton' (above). Mary became pregnant, but Meredith denied paternity, and the couple split up, with Mary going to live with Wallis. The next year, Mary ran away with Wallis and their son, and they settled in Italy. This relationship ended, and Mary subsequently became very ill, and when she returned to England, Meredith would not allow
her to see their only child, Arthur. click He relented just before she died in 1864. He would not have anything to do with her child by Wallis. After her death, Meredith married Marie Vulliamy despite her father being against the match. Meredith was twelve years older than Marie, and exaggerated his income to appear more successful as a writer. However, Mr Vulliamy was concerned about Meredith's first marriage and its controversial undertones. Meredith was secretive about his origins and this first marriage, and seems to have posed as a widower before Mary actually died. Marie's father demanded a list of referees he could consult about Meredith's character - one of these 'friends' had known Meredith for three years and had no idea he had previously been married! When pressed, Meredith described his late wife: 'To say that she approached near madness without being quite mad is to express her mental and moral character'. I doubt if anyone was around to give a more accurate account. click
HG Wells (1866-1946) married his first cousin Isabel Mary Wells in 1891, but they were sexually incompatible and the relationship ended amicably in divorce when he fell in love with one of his students, Amy Catherine Robbins (aka Jane). He married her in 1895. Later, he claimed she consented to him having a string of sexual affairs usually with younger women, including the writer Rebecca West, twenty-six years his junior. He suggested one of George's problems was an inability to be able to afford to pay for sex. At times, it's difficult to know if Wells was a pioneer on the frontiers of the sexual revolution or a common-or-garden sex pest. You pays your money and you takes your choice. George was never going to be as free as Wells when it came to intimacy - he was too uptight for that. As Wells puts it: 'His home training had made him repressive to the explosive pitch; he
felt that to make love to any woman he could regard as a social equal would be
too elaborate, restrained and tedious for his urgencies, he could not answer
questions he supposed he would be asked
about his health and means, and so, for
the second time, he flung himself at a
social inferior whom he expected to be
easy and grateful'. I have no idea what 'too elaborate, restrained and tedious for his urgencies' means - but it sounds creepy.
JM Barrie (1860-1937) was a small Scotsman with a beautiful wife - Mary Ansell a well known and talented stage actress. George quite fancied her - at least, he seems to be taken with her when he comments that he doesn't know how men like Barrie get away with it and attract far superior women! It seems Barrie was impotent and the marriage was never consummated. When she had a love affair with Gilbert Canaan, Barrie tried to bribe her out of it, then sued her for divorce on the grounds of adultery. When she was free to marry Gilbert, she did, in 1910. Barrie never remarried, and he remained bitter about women.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). Dr Arthur Doyle (only later was he Conan-ed) married the sister of one of his patients, Mary Louise Hawkins. His 'Louisa' became increasingly ill with tuberculosis, and for solace, Doyle turned to Jean Leckie, whom he met in 1897. He claimed their relationship was platonic, out of respect for his wife's tender feelings. After Mary's death in 1906, Doyle and Jean married.
Apart from being a
writer (and creator of that darned detective), Arthur was a political animal (a
Liberal, but they were more.... in those days) and a champion of the underdog -
read how he stood up for George Adalji click in 'Arthur and George' by Julian Barnes. A damned fine read. Arthur was a man of principle and got involved in conflicts in a very hands on way - by volunteering to go to war zones and help out. He was a keen sportsman and helped found amateur football clubs in Portsmouth - Doyle was, himself, an effective goalie.
Doyle was always interested in the paranormal, as many were in the late nineteenth century, and he became very involved in the spiritualist movement. He attended seances and open circle gatherings of Spiritualists and wrote on the paranormals. His investigation into the 'Cottingley Fairies' of Cottingley near Bradford almost scuppered his credibility in 1920 when it was revealed to be a hoax perpetrated by two adolescent girls click.
Doyle was always interested in the paranormal, as many were in the late nineteenth century, and he became very involved in the spiritualist movement. He attended seances and open circle gatherings of Spiritualists and wrote on the paranormals. His investigation into the 'Cottingley Fairies' of Cottingley near Bradford almost scuppered his credibility in 1920 when it was revealed to be a hoax perpetrated by two adolescent girls click.
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) married twice. His first wife, Emma Lavinia Gifford was once a governess, who came from a respectable family fallen on hard times. They met in 1870 and married in 1874. The Hardys were not able to have children, and they drifted apart as Hardy turned to other women for comfort - such as Florence Dugdale, Bram Stoker's sister-in-law, thirty-nine years younger than the writer. By 1889, Emma was living the life of a recluse in the attic of their home, as their relationship floundered. Emma died in 1912, and left behind two small accounts of her life with Hardy. The first, 'What I Think Of My Husband', upset the writer who didn't realise how unhappy he had made her. In 1914. Hardy married Florence Dugdale, but it was not a love match - his obsessive guilt over the way he had treated Emma poured out in love poetry to his widow, and Florence became more a literary secretary than a muse. However, she adored him and was almost undone by grief when he died.
There we have it: George and his role models. As the divine Oscar Wilde said, 'When a man has once loved a woman he will do anything for her except continue to love her'. And, also: 'Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.'
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