George Gissing: A Fan's Commonplace Blog

Commonplace 63 George & Syphilis PART TWO How it Blighted Him

Self Portrait with Carnation
by Otto Dix 1912

In Commonplace 62 we looked at the John George Black letter sent to George that addressed his own venereal infection, and the one George had contracted earlier. I suggested the JGB description of his own ailment plus the evidence available in the first of the set of letters presents a picture of a secondary syphilitic infection. This indicates JGB did not catch it when he visited the girl in the boarding house (the girl that George had his eye on), because he would have already had it for some weeks, based on his symptoms. However, there is no way of knowing what George's infection was, based on JGB's infection (unless they slept with each other haha.) However, it doesn't discount that possibility. Of them having the same sort of infection - not of them sleeping together!

My own contention is that George caught an infection of some sorts probably in about November 1875. Two reasons suggest this: 1) by the time of the JGB second letter George was already familiar with the treatment, and so probably caught his infection (if it was syphilis) about 3-4 months earlier than the letter was written (March 26th). And JGB is asking if theirs are the same - if they had both caught it from the same person, he would not need to ask that question. 2) November 22nd 1875 was George's 18th birthday, that time when childhood has officially, legally ended. He was not old enough to vote, but he was old enough to assume some of the responsibilities of adulthood. It was also the age at which he moved out of Alderley Edge school, where he had boarded and worked part-time as a teacher, and into digs in Manchester. What better way to celebrate your 18th, than by casting your fate to the wind? Like most of us do when we are desperate to prove to the world (and ourselves) that we are all grown up. For the purposes of this section, let's assume it was syphilis - based on the reasons given in the previous post.

Sunrise by Otto Dix 1913

A few months after the first John George Black letter, George was arrested and sent to prison. As a brand-new prisoner, he would have been processed and documented. The prison admission record is where a prisoner's physical condition is noted - all identifying scars, signs of illness and disabilities or deformities would be logged. This was not just to make sure any ailments are treated, but to stop the spread of infection and disease, and to prevent any attempt at blaming the institution for any disease or injury that might emerge whilst in custody. There is, on record, mention of George's physical condition in terms of a general description of him (height, distinguishing features - moles, etc) when he was processed at Belle Vue, but no mention of disease or incapacity. If George had been treated with mercury within the past several months before admission to prison, there would probably be physical signs apparent of both the mercury and the disease itself still apparent - we would expect to find that in the prison record. If it is not there, then the disease (if present) had progressed beyond the secondary, very visible, stage, and gone underground to do its tertiary worst. If he has signs of syphilis, these would have been logged. Chancre leaves a scar on the affected site of infection - if George had been thoroughly examined, this should have been logged. Is absence of this evidence also evidence for absence of syphilis?

The Match Seller by Otto Dix 1920

It is interesting to consider that George's decision to settle down and to find himself a girlfriend and so give up his philandering ways might have been a reaction to the fact he had contracted a venereal disease - and not because he fell madly in love, as some biographers and romantics suggest. It would seem to be a pragmatic, cool-headed decision; if he looked for a girlfriend it was to keep him on the straight and narrow and out of harm's way, and not because he was a hopeless doofus who fell in with a scheming female, a poor wee sap who gave it all up for love. As Anthony West says, Marianne aka Nell came a cropper when she met George - she was singled out for disaster.

We know (if Anthony West's account of what HG Wells told him about it is correct) John George Black recommended a place where George could find a girl with little or no sexual experience. Would this mean, to George, she might fit the bill as wife? He certainly always spoke of the girl he was interested in as 'wife material', but was it - as it was with Edith - the fact that any girl would do, and it didn't really matter who she was as a person? Did he think: 'Any girl who is not too picky, is what's required - a middle class one would find syphilis a bit too much of a challenge to accept - but a working class girl won't be so choosy - she'll thank her lucky stars to be picked by one who is her social better. And the working classes are enured to venereal disease - at least, the ones who came into father's shop were'. If this was George's rationale, it might throw some light on why he considered middle class women out of his range as potential mates - the shame of an incurable venereal disease would put them off. (His notion no decent woman would marry a man who earned less than £400 pa is a crock as women are very sympathetic to the pathetic in a man... look to yourselves, boys!!)

Portrait of Max John
by Otto Dix 1920

In George's time, attitudes to the sexes commingling (that's the google approved spelling of co-mingling, apparently) amongst the working class were not as driven by fears of the stigma of promiscuity, when compared to the strict segregation practiced by the middle classes. Indeed, part of George's attraction for mixing with the working classes could have been to have informal and free and easy access to girls. But that does not mean women who socialised freely worked as prostitutes. In fact, you only have to read George's Workers In The Dawn, Thyrza, The Nether World, etc, to appreciate how the sexes met and mingled and socialised - and very few of the women were ever paid, or charged a fee for it. Maybe the fixation amongst Gissingites that George married a prostitute is a male myth (or fantasy! You know what Freud would say about it haha) made flesh? As Jerry Hall notoriously said: My mother said it was simple to keep a man; you must be a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom. Is this how George saw it? It seems to sum up all he expected from Edith!

So, we have young George, a veteran of venereal disease and fresh from prison. There is one strong piece of evidence that might indicate George did suffer from syphilis at that time. According to Anthony West, George willingly went to America and even thought up the idea. A question always worth asking is, why didn't Marianne go with him? The answer generally given is that George's sponsors would not have been too keen on paying for her one-way ticket. This is rubbish. If he was going to America forever, what did they care if he took her with him? The few extra pounds her fare would cost would be a bargain if it got him off on the right footing in his new homeland - after all, they wouldn't want him getting lonely and getting himself in trouble. And, he had promised to marry Marianne - and that was seen as a completely binding contract at the time - you will recall when he had promised to marry Edith and Morley Roberts' rescue plan for George marrying one of Roberts' sisters was scuppered because George took his promise - morally binding - seriously. George and Marianne were seen as a partnership, even if his mother disapproved of his choice, and it makes no sense to keep Marianne in England. Was it to break them up? He was already damaged goods - Mrs Gissing would accept he couldn't marry anyone from his own class; in America, the young couple could start together with a clean slate and build some social credibility in a more democratic society. Did his mother know about his infection? Was that second letter from JGB made known to her?

Prage Strasse by Otto Dix 1920

Some suggest Marianne stayed behind in England to get 'finished' in the middle class sense of being made socially acceptable. Remember, at this time, she already was socially acceptable - to George - and would have been acceptable to the more democratic Americans. My theory is that the decision George (though probably not in consultation with Marianne) took to separate and spend time apart was based on him having a syphilitic infection that he did not want to pass on to Marianne - or any children they might have. For some time before the 1870s, many (predominantly male) sufferers, following infection with the disease, made the decision to abstain from sex and deny themselves marriage, for the whole of their lives, a decision taken on the recommendation of medical experts. As more came to be known about the highly contagious primary and secondary stages of syphilis, and the relatively benign later stages, it was determined that, after a reasonable period free from overt signs of disease, a person might be able to marry - when the dreaded secondary stage was completed and the sufferer was no longer able to pass on the disease. This appropriate length of this period was debated, but four years was considered a reasonable benchmark - two years for the disease to fully pass both its two worst stages and two years to prove the disease was definitely absent in its contagious form. In 1880, Alfred Fournier, the renowned French syphilologist, delivered his ground-breaking Paris lecture on 'Syphilis and Marriage', advocating the length of abstinence from marriage for syphilitics as four years - which became the standard advice given by physicians from then on. So, if George contracted his syphilis in November 1875, then he would be eligible to marry four years later in around November 1879. And, when did George and Marianne get married? 27th October 1879.

Working Class Boy by Otto Dix 1920

We know George and Marianne split up and eventually, she died of acute laryngitis in 1888. In Commonplaces 31-34 I state as firmly as I can that I do not think Marianne ever contracted syphilis, because of what George describes at her death scene and the diagnosis she had of scrofula, a form of TB that attacks the glands. Syphilis and TB are so similar, it is possible to confuse them in terms of how they present (see previous post) - differentiation is always tricky, even today, if you factor out modern blood testing as a diagnostic tool. However, there isn't any hard evidence Marianne ever contracted the disease, but we do have George's letter to Algernon mentioning she has TB in the form of scrofula. Of course, she might have had both diseases, but there is no evidence for this. At her death, she was cachexic but her teeth were perfect - according to George. Treatment for syphilis was very hard on teeth and tended to rot the gums - the correct dose of mercury was assessed by its effect on the gums - teeth became loose and often wobbled and then fell out when too much mercury was administered, or the correct dose was used, but treatment given for too long. The physician attending Marianne's death did not attribute her death to syphilis, which he would have done if that had been the cause of death, or a significant contributory cause. In 1888, causes of deaths were required to be reported for statistical purposes to the parish health board (and contagious diseases in particular), so if the disease contributed to her death, it would have been described as such on the death certificate. Both Morley Roberts and Pierre Coustillas suggest 'acute laryngitis' is a euphemism for syphilis - which is a leap of imagination from two non-medical minds who bat for George with good, if misguided, intentions.

Skat Players by Otto Dix 1920

After Marianne's death. George began to pine for female company. When she was alive, this loneliness wasn't mentioned. Was this because he still had a sexual relationship with her almost up until the end of her life, because he was legally entitled? (That would explain why news of her death was such a shock). It is unlikely he was entirely celibate during all this time - he was young, and vigorous in the days before the decline set in. In The Odd Women (1893), George put these words in Rhoda Nunn's mouth: 'What man lives in celibacy? Consider that unmentionable fact.'

If he contracted syphilis in 1875, then by 1888 he had gone 13 years with the threat of it emerging in its tertiary stage. When he went to Paris with Plitt... did he take in all the sights and experience all the sensual pleasures of this zestful city? Plitt liked Italy (but not Rome - the philistine! haha) possibly because it afforded unlimited sex - did he show George the places he knew of in Paris and did George imbibe? (Was this why George disliked Paris with Gabrielle? Everything so near, yet so far...) Because, it is possible to contract a second dose of syphilis - you are not immune just because you already have it in its third stage. It seems quite likely that he was, for some time throughout the 1890s, suffering from the exacerbations and remissions typically associated with the disease. Take his trip to Italy and the time he wrote about being treated with quinine - for malaria?

JOIN ME IN PART THREE FOR MORE ABOUT THIS ITALIAN BUSINESS AND HOW IT POINTS TO A DIAGNOSIS OF SYPHILIS.