Commonplace 112 George & 'The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll'

Possibly the only humorous anecdote ever told about George was the one where HG Wells taught him to ride a bike. Admittedly, it was more of a sight gag (in the style of the Keystone Cops!) and was probably funnier to see than to hear about, but it mentions George laughing uncontrollably, rolling round the floor with mirth, and so becomes a thing worth noting - a bit like rocking horse poop and hens' teeth. This was July 3rd 1898. HG was not afraid to take the mickey out of George - and if more folk had bothered to do that (to his face haha) then we might not have had to wade through Veranilda. Anyhoo, in his (mildly) amusing novel 'The Wheels of Chance', HG makes a reference to George in slightly piss-taking less than reverential tones, and so that is also worth noting. 

HG Wells was always a big fan of cycling. Did he take up the habit when he worked as an apprentice in the King's Emporium in Southsea? Portsmouth (Southsea is in Portsmouth) is one of the flattest places there is in England - in HG's time (as now), the steepest bits would have been the roads over the railway lines at what was called Somers Road Bridge and Fratton Bridge, and neither would present much of a problem to a cyclist because the main railway line is built in the excavations of the old canal system, and so are well below the road levels. Both are within easy reach of King's Road, where HG's store was then sited. The bicycle is almost queen in Southsea - here is a snap of the Portsmouth Annual Nude Cycle Ride click held in early summer, when the brave set out to amuse and delight

Strategically-placed railings a feature of Southsea seafront.
We also have a nudist beach.

HG's dedication to the two-wheel world went as far as to get the famous company Humber to design a tandem for himself and his wife Jane, where he would ride in the rear, and take control of the steering with special mid-section mounted handlebars - money being no object, obviously. And we will not make a Freudian analysis of it. At the end of his first ever extended cycling tour with Jane HG proposed to her and she accepted.

'The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll' was written in Woking, in a small house with so little space HG had to use the dining room as a study. In this small room, he wrote this light piece, plus the The War of the Worlds, and the Invisible Man, all within earshot of the main railways trundling past.

So, we find the male protagonist, Hoopdriver, setting off for his life-changing trip, a bicycle novice, wobbly and unsure of himself, a mere beginner in the great bike ride of life. Wheels starts with this: Literature is revelation. Modern literature in indecorous revelation.

Indecorous because it deals with 1) the emancipated art of cycling; 2) it concerns a single man and a single woman, unchaperoned meeting up and enjoying each other's company; 3) it crosses class barriers; 4) it shows a humble chap, in trying to rail against his class and place in the scheme of things, abandoning, albeit temporarily, his moral compass. 

Hoopdriver sets off on his annual holiday, bicycling the English South: Esher, Ringwood, Blandford, Midhurst, Guildford, and bits of the The New Forest where the Rufus Stone click reminds we Brits that royalty is expendable. And Portsmouth - almost to the King’s Road Southsea Emporium where Wells had worked as a drapery apprentice himself.

He meets a Young Lady in Grey (not a Woman in White - the book name-drops popular authors and literary references all the way) who turns out to be a bicycling expert, and something of a ‘New Woman’ determined to live life her way - and that means with few social constraints and financially independent of her family. She outrides him, cocks a snook at convention and renders him smitten, mainly because she initially seems so far above him and out of reach (she rides faster and he has to work to catch her). They team up, and set off together. But Hoopdriver is ashamed of his origins, and adopts a fake persona (a wealthy South African diamond mining, lion-wrestling man's man) in order to appear to be a better social prospect. He mangles the English language with his pronunciation, but as this could also be an attempt to render the character's native London-ish sound, it is difficult to work out if you, the reader, are meant to hear that distinctive South African twang.  

Now, I'm not accusing HG of plagiarism, but the novel is a sort of light-hearted Born in Exile - trust me, the two novels share some basic themes. It is not at all 'serious' in any of them, as it was probably intended for the sort of readership that would not have found a home between George's densely-packed, existentially wrought pages, and so is intended to appeal to the library member or Mudie's devotee click. Wells makes light of the disastrous situation - maybe George's 'Our Friend The Charlatan' learnt something from Wells' treatment of moral dilemma meets social opportunism in the name of shifting units off the shop shelf? And, in regard to the likes of Mudie's strict 'Hays Code', Wheels plays it very safe. 


Here is Hoopdriver, ashamed of his humble beginnings as a drapery store assistant, forced to think about the moral implications of making up unbelievable stories to win a girl from a slightly higher class:

At first Jessie had been only an impressionistic sketch upon his mind, something feminine, active, and dazzling, something emphatically ‘above’ him, cast into his company by a kindly fate. His chief idea, at the outset... had been to live up to her level, by pretending to be more exceptional, more wealthy, better educated, and, above all, better born than he was. 

It is at the start of Chapter 10 that George is mentioned: Hoopdriver is pondering his place in the system of things and the injustice of being trapped in a lowly job that he hates:

Mr Hoopdriver was (in the days of this story) a poet, though he had never written a line of verse. Or perhaps romancer will describe him better. Like I know not how many of those who do the fetching and carrying of life, - a great number of them certainly, - his real life was absolutely uninteresting, and if he had faced it as realistically as such people do in Mr. Gissing’s novels, he would probably have come by way of drink to suicide in the course of a year. On the contrary, he was always decorating his existence with imaginative tags, hopes, and poses, deliberate and yet quite effectual self-deceptions; his experiences were mere material for a romantic superstructure. In reality, and in a nutshell, this contrasts the essential character and personality differences between George and HG - HG the one to not over-think a situation, and George, his own worst enemy. 

They rode on to Cosham and lunched lightly but expensively there… Then the green height of Portsdown Hill tempted them, and leaving their machines in the village they clambered up the slope to the silent red-brick fort that crowned it. Thence they had a view of Portsmouth and its cluster of sister towns, the crowded narrows of the harbour, the Solent and the Isle of Wight like a blue cloud through the hot haze… Mr Hoopdriver… smoked a Red Herring cigarette, and lazily regarded the fortified towns that spread like a map away there…then the beginnings of Landport suburb and the smoky cluster of multitudinous house (one of these Charles Dickens’ birthplace). To the right…the town of Porchester (sic - Portchester is correct) rose among the trees.

Fort Widley, the closest Portsdown Anti-Napoleonic Fort to Cosham. click

Hoopdriver, intent on impressing Jessie, attempts to portray his version of a socially, and therefore, sexually, emancipated sort of noble savage, primal, untamed, feral - as befits one raised in the Colonies. He claims to have wrestled with lions, ridden giraffes and been a diamond miner. This is for comic effect as it stands in stark contrast to the weedy, mediocre, ineffectual character of an apprentice drapery assistant. Then, in more Godwin Peak mode:

He discussed church-going in a liberal spirit. ‘It’s jest a habit.’ he said, ‘jest a custom. I don’t see what good it does you at all, really.’ 

It seems Jessie is a fledgling writer and disciple of Miss Olive Schreiner click which is an arch way of mocking her free spirit nature as a 'Modern Woman', as Ms Schreiner was known for writing books about women who broke boundaries - she was a friend of Edward Carpenter's (see Commonplace 8 for more on Carpenter - and Eduard Bertz, George's other bicycling fanatic friend). But the narrator's/HG's chauvinism shines through: There are no graver or more solemn women in the world than these clever girls whose scholastic advancement has retarded their feminine coquetry.

Of course, keeping up this act becomes unworkable and futile - Hoopdriver begins to find it a strain to keep up his pretence (much as George and Godwin did), and, again in Godwin mode:

On Sunday night, for no conceivable reason, an unwonted wakefulness came upon him. Unaccountably he realised he was a contemptible liar.

In the end, just like Exile's Godwin Peak, he owns up to his humble origins. 

‘Miss Milton - I’m a liar.’ He put his head on one side and regarded her with a frown of tremendous resolution. Then in measured accents, and moving his head slowly from side to side, he announced, ‘Ay’m a deraper.’  

‘You’re a draper? I thought –'

‘You thought wrong. But it’s bound to come up. Pins, attitude, habits – It’s plain enough… I wanted somehow to seem more than I was… I suppose it’s snobbishness and all that kind of thing…’

And, like Exile’s Sidwell Warricombe, Jessie tells him she would not judge him by his class, but by his innate good qualities. 

‘Hundreds of men,’ she said, ‘have come from the very lowest ranks of life. There was Burns, a ploughman; and Hugh Miller, a stonemason; Dodsley was a footman –.’ As a further prompt, she asks him if he has read ‘Hearts Insurgent’ – which is the subtitle of Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’. The cruel harshness of Jude's fate seems lost on Jessie, thus rendering her a poseur at education for not realising it. 

No, he is not a serious reader, and Jude's trials are unknown to him but he has dipped into Besant, Ouida, Rider Haggard, Marie Corelli... ‘a lot of Mrs Braddon’s’. This is HG showing us his hero's so-called low brow tastes; referencing Mrs Braddon is intended to give the reader a deeper insight into Hoopdriver's sexual nature. Mrs Braddon's most celebrated novel is 'Lady Audley's Secret' click, a tale so charged with repressed, suppressed sex it should have had (for its time) an 18 or X rating. To read it was to transgress several moral boundaries and would give Jessie a sign he was a thrilling, daring and adventurous prospect, and a man not afraid to flaunt convention. Just what she was looking for, in fact. And, just to underline his modern man credentials, he is a cigarette smoker, not one of the fusty pipe-smoking or posh cigar-puffing sorts. Cigarettes were then a fashion statement of the bold and the brave, indicative of fearless individualism. And they have been marketed as that ever since. Incidentally, those Red Herring cigarettes are the same brand as used by Dr Watson... elementary, of course. (Wells knew Conan Doyle as a friend and they both had a Portsmouth connection.) 

But, Jessie - altogether better educated, better read, better bred - asks him if he only reads novels, and he tells her how woefully he has been educated, and how that is another area of shame. And how unhappy he is being a lowly draper - which is monumentally dreary as well as damned hard work. So she challenges him to rise to his potential, put in the work on his education (via night-classes and lectures, and books she can recommend), and then he can catch up. Here, we can see life is like a bike ride - you just have to pedal harder if you have set off on an inferior machine, but you can catch up and maybe overtake those lucky enough to afford a good quality cycle. But Hoopdriver is not rising to the challenge material yet. 

How does it end? Well, he doesn't do himself in, Godwin Peak style. And he doesn't get the girl - well, not straight away. Jessie, through a cunning plan set in place by her relatives, is forced back to the fold (women can't break out as freedom fighters yet!). She gives him six years in which to educate and better himself, they part and he goes back to work and the routine of his life takes over once more. It looks like the holiday will be relegated to a series of anecdotes he can tell his apprentice colleagues. But, the seeds have been sown... Jessie has promised to send him books... might he get back on his bike and start the uphill climb - this man who has done the long stretch past the Devil's Punchbowl at Hindhead click, or negotiated the South Downs click, or climbed Box Hill click and breasted Portsdown Hill click in pursuit of his True Love - might he use this exceptional drive to succeed in Life's cycle ride??? Reader, did she marry him?? What are the chances of that??

For a free copy of The Wheels of Chance click  

Commonplace 111 George & An Outburst On Gissing.

No, not me this time - but Douglas Goldring (1887-1960).

Douglas Goldring 
by Elliot and Fry 1920

Goldring was a fascinating bloke - his was the sort of social trajectory George would have envied, and would have cut his right arm off for. Born into an independently wealthy family, Douglas went through the usual middle class private school to university system, but didn't need to graduate as he came into a substantial inheritance - he left Magdalen College to become a writer. He took on the editorship of Country Life magazine - but you can't hold that against anyone haha. He worked for Ford Madox Ford (and if you haven't read Ford's 'The Good Soldier' - why are you wasting your time reading this when you could be reading that???) Then he opened his own magazine, the Tramp, and published work by Wyndham Lewis and the British Art movement known as the Vorticists by way of Italian fascist Futurist Marinetti. (Does having fascist friends make one a fascist? Discuss.) Douglas was instrumental in the publication of Blast click, the Vorticist group's manifesto-styled magazine, mostly written by Lewis.

He volunteered in WW1. was invalided out, then took up an anti-War position. He became involved with the Fabians and the Bloomsbury Group, and was a committed Socialist. He made use of the 1917 Club, so-called to commemorate the Bolshevik Revolution, where he took afternoon tea with the likes of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Ramsay McDonald, Aldous Huxley, HG Wells and DH Lawrence.

A prolific poet, writer, critic and editor, in 1920, Douglas wrote 'Reputations', the work the following piece is from. Enjoy. And maybe debate that parting shot about George's 'factitious' (ie made up) reputation. Bloody cheek of it!!

Commonplace 110 George & His Brother, William. PART TWO.

This is based on a piece that appeared in the July 2014 Gissing Journal. For details on the GJ click

Rose Cottage, Wilmslow, built in 1777, now a listed building.

On May 17^th 1879, five months before her marriage to George, Marianne aka Nell went to stay with her ‘brother-in-law’, William in his lodgings at Rose Cottage, Wilmslow, Cheshire. In William's day, Wilmslow was a medium-sized village with regular transport links to Manchester, a prime place for commuters to live far removed from that city's terrible dirt and industry click. Nowadays, Wilmslow is one of the most prestigious addresses in the north of England, the home of the nouveau riche, footballers and celebrities and is a sort of Northern version of Loughton click minus the Southern charm. (I would say that, as I am a Southerner haha) However, it is also renowned as the place where Alan Turing committed suicide in 1954, following the homophobic harassment he received at the hands of the Establishment.

Alan Turing lived in
Adlington Road, Wilmslow 

This little holiday was meant to improve the state of Marianne's health, but was mainly to give George a break from his role of carer. William, no stranger to illness himself (pulmonary tuberculosis had forced him to abandon working in a bank), demonstrated a marked degree of empathy towards Marianne, providing her with what might have been one of the happiest times of her life, if not in fact, the last happy time.

Marianne suffered from scrofula, the glandular form of tuberculosis. George's letters to Algernon and William explain how this manifested itself - convulsions, rheumatism, abdominal neuralgia, haemoptysis (spitting blood); tonsillitis, congestion; insomnia; tumours on her arm and face; toothache; ‘erysipelas-like’ facial lesions; confusion; weight loss; delirium; headache; and serious eye problems. These are, in themselves, debilitating and disabling - Marianne needed someone to care about the outcome of all this suffering, and George was no doubt demonstrating ambivalence, already wishing he could jump ship and leave her to it - which he eventually did, not long after they were legally married. George had taken on the role of carer reluctantly and resentfully, and his letters demonstrate this.

A cure for 'all diseases of the Breathing Organs'??
Creosote is possibly the worst-tasting medicine there is. 

In Marianne’s time, treatment for scrofula was ineffectual, bordering on the iatrogenic. Toxic substances such as antimony; mercury; baryta (bromide); hemlock; belladonna; and opium were prescribed. Ironically, even in the eighteenth century, these toxic substances were known to produce seizures and neurological damage. There was the option of surgery to remove the disfiguring pustules but this was often ill-advised as surgical intervention was known to carry the risk of spreading the disease to other organs. there was no cure for it until the advent of antibiotics in the middle of the twentieth century, but drug-resistant strains are making TB a formidable foe once more, especially in Africa and China.

Though we will never know exactly how spitefully his resentment manifested itself behind closed doors, the callous way George blamed her for her own, as well as his, predicament, remains one of George's vilest acts towards her, possibly only topped by the character assassination he regularly visited upon her that went on as far as the 1890s and his grovelling relationship with Miss Collet. In order to deflect his own guilt at abandoning his first wife (thereby adding to her great suffering), he destroyed his Diaries up the year 1888, the year that more or less started with her death. This was done to prevent any sympathy going Marianne's way - after all, he couldn't blame his wives for his miserable life if anyone could ever get to know and like them, could he? And, if anyone considered Marianne blameless, then his treatment of her might be taken as monstrous by his friends, family and posterity. Recall his reaction to HG Wells standing up for Edith, the second victim aka wife! If it wasn't for George's replies to William's (and, to a lesser extent, Algernon's) letters, we might believe George's finely crafted version of Nell's life. George writes angrily about how her physical condition affects his mental life - he makes no mention of how it affects hers.

click

At the time of the holiday with Will, it was epilepsy that dominated her health concerns. Epilepsy is a sudden, recurrent episode of sensory disturbance and loss of consciousness generally associated with abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Typical seizures present a range of observable behaviours immediately before unconsciousness sets in. This ‘fugue state’ may bring slurred speech, problems with balance, the appearance of stupefaction, and hallucination-like sensations of touch and sight which may result in bizarre reactions and behaviours. In the classic grand mal fit there is sudden collapse often resulting in injury producing bleeding wounds (particularly to the head), frequently accompanied by disturbing, frightening, sounds. Unconsciousness follows, then a process of bodily rigidity, uncontrolled thrashing movements, possible incontinence, and tongue-biting with bloody frothing saliva. Clothes may have become torn or dishevelled, embarrassing for all when undergarments or intimate body parts are inadvertently displayed. Seizures of the 'grand mal' type are usually single events, but in ‘status epilepticus’ the sufferer does not regain consciousness but returns to the restart the fit process perhaps several times. This is often a life-threatening situation due to problems with getting enough air to the lungs. Anyone with, for example, underlying lung disease is particularly vulnerable.

On regaining consciousness there may be confusion and disorientation and the sufferer might exhibit ‘post- seizure automatism’, a situation sometimes leading to potentially socially inappropriate behaviours, such as removing clothes or interacting in an uncharacteristically sexually provocative way with strangers. Belligerence and aggression with swearing and shouting are also possible, pre- and post-seizure. Today, as in George's, more often than not, the ignorant would assume the victim of these attacks is paralytically drunk and so leave the victim possibly suffocating in the street, unable to regain consciousness. We now know there are many forms of epilepsy that produce a broad range of signs and symptoms. The causes of epilepsy are largely still a mystery, but damage to the brain by injury, infection, genetic abnormality, or environmental factors is often a precursor. It is exacerbated

William, aged about 18

by stress - Marianne certainly had her fair share of that, living with George.

William was more than sympathetic to her plight - he displayed a degree of empathy that was never at any time to be found in George's make-up. To this was matched the practical application of his own personal philosophy of what contributes to a picture of good health: good personal hygiene, tasty and adequate nutrition and diverting mental stimulation. Added to this was his total belief in PMA - Positive Mental Attitude - and there was no more efficacious way for the human body to tackle the adversity of illness. Will may have dabbled with the philosophy of Samuel Smiles and his 'Self Help' here, but he always believed in facing up to life's challenges, and he was not one to make a health mountain out of a molehill. Being the opposite of George in many ways, he played down the parlous state of his own health and never sought out that dratted 'sympathy' George so cravenly needed. In fact, he would have been embarrassed to find others feeling sorry for him or thinking he was in need of special treatment.

St Bartholomew's Wilmslow 

William obviously got on well with Marianne, which, if we were gullible enough to believe all that George's biographers write, would seem to be be a nigh on impossible thing for any decent chap to be capable of. They shared a love of music, not George's snobby stuff, with its emphasis on judging it in terms of good or bad Art, but with simple heartfelt appreciation; William would have found a rapt audience for his violin, and he enjoyed performing and liked social company, so entertaining at home would have come naturally to him. Marianne had a fine speaking voice - as reported by one of George's relatives who knew her (I bet that shocked you!) and so she may have accompanied his playing with singing. As her strength improved, they enjoyed walks together, and reading poetry. One of Marianne's favourites may have been Thomas Hood's The Last Rose of Summer, which was set to a traditional Celtic air (click to hear it). Maybe this was because they were staying at Rose Cottage.

It is worth stopping and thinking about the significance of this short holiday, for what it tells us about William's character, and what it possibly suggests about Marianne's. I do not subscribe to the lie that Marianne aka Nell was ever a prostitute. There is no evidence for it, and, considering the times in which she lived, with its focus on vice and retribution for vice, there would have been evidence of arrests, charges and penalties for soliciting - and there aren't any. There was no evidence in September 1883 when George was duped into hiring a 'detective' to spy on her with the view to making a case for divorce, despite the 'detective' being a police sergeant who was well-paid to follow her, observe her behaviour, and report back all misdemeanours. In spite of his efforts and being in the sort of place where searching through police records was a possibility, and regardless of speaking to her neighbours, local publicans and sundry shop-keepers, the man could not find anything untoward in Marianne's life -  except for dire poverty, loneliness and the effects of neglect by a husband too selfish to live with her.

No doubt they bonded over their shared ill-health, and their joint understanding of the impossibility of expecting George to care. It is my contention that William would not have responded as emotionally freely as he did to Marianne if he had thought she was ever a prostitute. His mother had blamed Marianne for George's fall at Owens - though there is no evidence she either benefited from his crimes or even knew what he was doing - and William was probably bravely going against his mother's wishes in supporting George's choice in his 'marriage', but, sharing a house and helping to nurse a woman who had earned a living from prostitution was a huge commitment to human decency, compassion and unselfishness, and a courageous stand against the stereotypic mores of the times. Although he was a young man who was not in any way officially 'bohemian', he was a person not afraid to think for himself, and follow his own philosophy of life to the extent of following through with his beliefs to challenge the status quo, but in practical ways. If Nell was considered 'unsuitable' because of her class, and because his mother would have strong views on them cohabiting before marriage (whilst at Owens College) perhaps William realised love and the changing times demanded new approaches to relationships - even though he would probably not have been so unconventional with his own love affairs. To a mother - especially the mother of a spoilt rotten brat like George - would see any prospective daughter-in-law as suspect; but if that girl had been indulging in sexual relations with the precious son - well, she would be branded a trollop 'quick as knife'.

Consider this: If Marianne had been a former prostitute, don't you think William's landlady would have sussed? Her lodger, bringing a trollop into her respectable house - and, if she sussed, then wouldn't the neighbours? In such a small world as Wilmslow, that suspicion would be worth passing round the village. A woman reads people much better than a man does - the subtle, little things that give away motives, background, character, morality. And, she would have been outraged if she found William deceiving her. But, we know his landlady thought the world of William and helped wholeheartedly with Nell - would she have demonstrated such compassion to a 'fallen angel'? And, would she have allowed her to stay under the same roof as a single man if she had not taken Marianne aka Nell for his sister-in-law? William later wrote that he assumed George and Marianne were married (he was not invited to the ceremony, and only found out about it later). George didn't seem to consider that he was potentially threatening William's good name by asking him to organise the accommodation in his excellent digs - if she found out, would the landlady have allowed a girl 'living in sin' to live under her roof, especially as she was in such close proximity to her existing lodger? And would she have housed a former prostitute? Whatever Marianne's origins - and these are still a mystery - she must have passed inspection by a woman determined to maintain the good name of her establishment - the seat of her financial security - and been accepted as a believable sister-in-law of posh William. When you read that Marianne was a destitute whore plucked from the mean streets of Manchester by an heroic redeemer - think again!

Tristan and Iseult by Edmund Blair Leighton 1902

William wrote to George detailing four episodes of convulsions on the first night of her stay, which he attends personally with his landlady. Over the next few weeks, he feeds Marianne up – much as the Wells’ do with George in 1900 and 1901 – and makes sure she enjoys herself. The change of environment, tasty food and free and easy occupation work their magic on Marianne. William has to put a good deal of pressure on George to join them for a few days, but Marianne eventually has to go back to London and her man. Not unexpectedly, the fits returned when she goes home. Stress seems to trigger the worst of her convulsions, and we will never know how much she suffered under George's dominion. We know he displayed Sado-masochistic tendencies especially where women were concerned, and it would take a woman in robust physical and mental health to withstand him. That he never married a woman who was his equal in terms of match weight (to borrow a boxing term) intellectually, meant he could decimate them in the field of debate - and recall the way Waldron exults his superior physical strength over Phyllis in the recent posts George & The Honeymoon). He liked tiny women with frail, consumptive aspects - though he was not afraid to wield a big stick, if HG Wells' son, Anthony West is to be believed.

After returning home to George, Marianne maintains her affectionate relationship with William by asking to be remembered to him in George's letters, adding her own notes, and making needlework gifts, including a violin case. In April 1880, when William finally succumbed to pulmonary TB, Marianne must have been distraught. When his effects were being divided amongst the Gissings, Marianne asked for a small poetry book that she was very fond of. It is described erroneously in the Heroic biography Vol 1 as The Junior Book of Poetry, for Schools and Families edited by William Davis - no doubt to insinuate that Marianne was simple-minded and couldn't have appreciated anything else - but it was (see above illustration), The Book of Poetry for Families and Schools - available here for free click. It contains the Thomas Hood poem 'Tis The Last Rose of Summer. William was a few days dead when George wrote this to Algernon:
Kindest regards from Nell. She has had a recurrence of very severe fits lately. By the bye, she says she should extremely like, as a memento if Will, who was so kind to her, that little Davis' Poetry Book he had. Do you think she could have it sent to her some day?

Her champion had gone and Marianne aka Nell was truly alone in the world. I wonder if she realised her days were numbered? William did such extraordinary things with his short and never easy life, and he behaved with decency, generosity and modesty. George's biographers have him down as some sort of priggish, dull Mr Normal, but he really was a very exceptional chap who turned words into actions and made his own way despite his disadvantages. Unlike his older brother, he did not think the World owed him anything. In a multiverse/parallel universe click I hope he is living with Marianne and both are in the pink, in an existence full of music and happiness.   

A Bush Idyll by Frederick McCubbin  1893

When George wrote to Algernon on August 8th 1881 he mentioned the gravestone put up for William: 'I am glad to hear you like the memorial which has been put up at Wilmslow. The very plainest & simplest in such cases is always the best, if there must be one at all. I personally should prefer none at all, but that is a matter of opinion & sentiment.'  We learn from the editors' footnotes that William's gravestone read: 'William Whittington Gissing - Died April 16th 1880 - aged 20 years.' George did not pay for a headstone for Marianne; this has been left to her well-wishers to provide. The cemetery is in Blackshaw Road, Lambeth. Her grave number is 731 3J CONS.

Commonplace 109 George & His Brother, William. PART ONE.

September 15th is William Gissing's birthday. Happy Birthday, Will. click

On his 17th birthday, he spent the day lathered in sulphur ointment desperately trying to rid himself of a skin disorder that took upwards of three weeks to cure. As sulphur is an ancient and very effective cure for a number of maladies, it isn't possible to know what troubled him, but, it might have been an allergic reaction to fleas or lice, or maybe a reaction to rubbing shoulders with a wider group of fellow-workers and the Great British public (much as new nurses get a rash from attending incontinent patients). Put a chunk of sulphur in your dog's drinking bowl to maintain good blood health and soothe itchy skin.

Sir Galahad With An Angel
by Sir Joseph Noel Paton c 1888

William wrote long letters to George when the latter was exiled in America. The one he sent on October 29th 1876, gives us some good clues into this pleasant young man's inner workings. He gave George news that he had found digs in the Lancashire village of Withington click within easy travelling distance of Manchester; he lodged with the Clark family, a father and daughter, and one other lodger. He describes it as: we all live together like one family. They are very kind & I am extremely comfortable - which is a very William statement as he is eternally optimistic and a glass half full sort of a chap (unlike you know who!). Even disappointment from the lack of access to the piano (the room where it is situated is let to a German chap) is smoothed over, and he mentions he doesn't over-practise his violin so as not to disturb the neighbours - Of course, I do not think the violin squeaky or disagreeable, but it may be a matter of opinion. His lodgings was in St Paul's Place which was probably very close to the church click and which housed a very good organ he might have been interested to hear - it had been recommended as 'an excellent instrument' by no less than Felix Mendelssohn, the composer.

St Paul's Church, Withington, built in 1841. 
Famed for its organ. Enlarged in 1863. The church, not the organ.

William tells George he has joined the local library (at the cost of a shilling a quarter). This was not the purpose-built building we now have (that was built in 1927), but back then, a part of the Withington Public Hall click. As he owns up to a sneaking admiration for the book 'Self Help' by Samuel Smiles, he may well have borrowed it from there. For a bit of self help click. For more on some surprisingly famous old Withingtononians click. Samuel Smiles in a nutshell can be summed up in one word: Perseverance!

click

Both of George's brothers are poorly served by biographers. Algernon is usually portrayed as a sponging inadequate who dragged round George's neck like a wannabe literary albatross. In fact, he was a modestly successful novelist who might have been more widely read if he had been the recipient of effective literary representation. Lack of opportunity must not be confused with lack of ability, and though Algernon's sort of fiction is not popular with today's Gissing snobs, it could well appeal to a wide audience of those who turn to reading as a bit of light relief from the monotony of life. That his work did not find an audience does not mean an audience was not there.

George always felt closer to William, almost two years younger. They both seem to have teamed up to regard Algernon as an outsider to their little set, but we mustn't make too much of that. Threesomes in sibling groups are difficult to maintain in terms of equality, and some children find partisanship empowering, especially in times of turmoil and threat. The role of youngest boy meant Algernon was forever the butt of older brother competitiveness, but he was the third child, and so became a master of compromise - see Commonplace 11 for an overview of how place in sibling hierarchy can impact on personality. Neither William nor Algernon over-valued academic attainment over personal happiness, and neither had a weakness for the false allure of fame. Perhaps watching form the sidelines as George crashed and burned cured them of those sorts of ambitions.

Victory, A Knight Being Crowned With A Laurel Wreath
by Frank Dicksee c 1890

William was a proud chap who would have been deeply wounded by the blot on the Gissings' good name brought about by his older brother's prison term, following those thefts at Owens College. He might well have considered he had something to prove above and beyond the usual round of life's achievements, and so working in a bank - which paid him about 16/6d a week - might have seemed like a respectable future. However, his lodgings (more or less all in) was 18/- a week, and so he needed financial support from his mother, though he had plans to supplement his wages with some part-time music teaching. Contrast this with George's attitude to how to solve a problem like being strapped for cash! How long would he have lasted in a bank before dipping his hand in the till!! But, William was a different kettle of fish altogether - from his money-making schemes, you will appreciate how responsible William was, and how diligent in his desire to be independent whilst remaining honest.

Unlike George, he speaks wanting to make friends with his fellow-lodgers; he felt lonely at times - the close bonds of the ready-made social group at school was gone, and he missed the company: At present I see no chance to get to know any more people than I do now for I go through precisely the same routine day after day. At 17, this must have been hard to bear, especially if nothing was looming on the horizon, fun-wise, because William was sociable in ways George was not; it also meant his potential for recruiting pupils for his teaching would be limited.

One of William's great disappointments must have been the lack of exposure to music tuition in his very young years - he always felt behind in terms of technique, which he knew has to be hard-wired in childhood in order to be intuitive and truly  accomplished.
From references he makes in the Letters to his working conditions, the long hours, the responsibility of the work, it's clear the role did not accurately represent his personal qualities or his need for a creative outlet. But, he was not a quitter and this courageous and dutiful young man, who did not complain much about his lot, looked to the future to make things right for all his hard work. However, he knew that progress through the ranks at the bank were unlikely - again, it was 'who you know' not 'what you know' (which makes a nonsense of thinking meritocracy actually works!). Indeed, William says 'excellence goes for nothing, or very little, perseverance and patience are all that is required. I am already getting up my name for a hard worker (unlike you know who!) & that is a good point gained. But, an advantage to this job was that it provided him with the certainty that, being trusted with other people's money, he was absolved of any larcenous taint (unlike you know who!), and so it might have been a good idea to stick it out. He was given a raise in salary (a stunning £5 per annum!) quite quickly, mainly because of his diligence and willingness to apply himself to any task, which must have seemed like a sign he had ambitions.

Beethoven by Andy Warhol 1987

When his health began to deteriorate, and the true seriousness of his situation became clear, William seems to become more mature and determined. Too ill to work in a bank, he took up teaching music, but there was a very small gene pool of would-be pupils, and he could not make a living at it. He tried to make a place for himself playing the organ in churches, but a combination of croneyism and lack of options did for that. It's interesting to note he never went home to Wakefield to find work - perhaps the shame he felt at his brother's disgrace kept him in Lancashire, and safely away from gossip. It would have been easy for Will to go back there - he would have had the support of his family and the benefit of free nursing care - but he heroically struggled on, not wanting to give anyone any trouble and not wanting to be a burden, and, whilst keeping himself independent, trying to live some sort of an ordinary life. When 'heroism' is linked to the Gissing name, it is William who should be so honoured.  

Saint William (George) And The Dragon by Franz Pforr 1811

William seems to have been a real gem of a youth, the sort of lad you could bring home to your mother without fear he would let you down, and the sort any mother would encourage a daughter to favour. He was only 17 when he wrote this to George (January 17th 1877):
I am very glad you are settled now, though I hardly expected from your previous letter that it would be as a master; nevertheless I am very glad to hear it, as there seems something in the quiet routine of teaching which is very pleasing - having none of that hardening influence which business has & which even I, I fear, begin to feel already, for ordinary business can produce very little satisfaction, generally having only, for its foundation, that mean money-making spirit which is the bane of the world - no music, no poetry, no love in it, only one everlasting stubborn fight...   

JOIN ME IN PART TWO FOR A LOOK AT WILLIAM'S AFFECTION FOR MARIANNE AKA NELL.

Commonplace 108 George & The Honeymoon PART TWO.

In the previous post, we left Phyllis reeling from the shock news that her husband married under false pretences: that he did not love her for her Self, and that he did not value her creativity or her natural character, and that he married intending to mould her to his preferences when she was legally and powerlessly bound to him. If this sounds like how George went about wooing Edith, and probably Marianne aka Nell, we must accept we are wandering into 'leopards don't change their spots' territory: George was always of the mindset that a woman really only becomes a woman with the intervention of a man, the way Eve was conjured from Adam's unwanted body parts.

 The Witches Sabbath: Muse of the Night
by Luis Ricardo Falero 1880 

So, Phyllis is stunned and Waldron looks at her and thinks:
It was not a face of pure refinement. Rude ancestry might still be discovered in certain of the lines, which, in their unison, tended to a noble type of beauty; and stress of harsh feeling naturally gave prominence to this impress. Moreover, the features announced a character yet unripe – a girlishness which lingered too long – a prey waywardness that called for the restraint of circumstance.

Here, George is working through all his thoughts on the laws of heredity – the expression on Phyllis’ face is evidence of a throwback to a more humble past. Her family are described as merchants, and so are ‘new’ money, and not long-established ‘aristocracy’. George is channelling the work of Alphonse Bertillon, one of the fathers of forensics, and the ‘science’ of anthropometry – the diagnosing of moral characteristics by measuring aspects of the body, especially the face. It was believed villains subscribed to types – that a prospective criminal or ruffian could be identified by certain measurable features. This chimed with George’s interest in social sciences, and social science’s need to measure and produce evidence in the form of statistics. In Commonplace 101 we touched on this. Now, George was a smart fellow (up to a point!) and must have, at some stage, taken himself off for a bit of introspection and wondering where did his own thieving, lying ways originate. 

His mother seems to have been a solid rock on which the Gissing family was built; his father seems much less stable. certain biographers have it in for Mrs Gissing the mother, but we know so little about the woman, it would be unfair to attribute to her any specific characteristic. In many ways, father and son were similar – had George inherited some trait from his father that produced erratic, even dysfunctional, behaviour? In 1870, when George was thirteen, his father took him for a phrenological test. Now, why would a parent do that? Amongst the results was this less than prophetic offering: that the boy would 'always be a good judge of his own conduct' - so, presumably, all that insomnia suffered in later years by our man was down to a guilty conscience haha. George always reckoned he was a boy who needed a firm hand, which he never seems to have been given. Are we left with a child who was a wilful, selfish, arrogant prig? Or, did that sort of thing come out much later in his life? haha.

Could all George’s various defects be laid at the door of inheritance by bad blood? In this case, it would be possible that the shame of it presented via his fiction as projection – the mental mechanism of seeing and criticising in others, one's own faults. 

Bertillon's own results 

So, we have Phyllis and Waldron face-to-face debating his extraordinary views on their marriage, which includes the abandoning of her literary ambitions. She is studying him and he, her:

Waldron, who had never seen her in anything but radiant humour, studied this expression before continuing the dialogue; it did not perturb him.

The conversation continues with Waldron obviously showing his hand at being a controlling sadist.

‘…are you prepared to accept my advice in this matter of the novel?’

‘Advice?’ She laughed with disdain. ‘It didn’t sound like advice.’

‘Good. Then let us say: are you willing to obey me?’

Phyllis is aghast, and suggests she doesn't know him at all – ‘I feel as if I were talking with a total stranger.’

Waldron says in reply: ‘…You may give me a kiss, Phyl, if you like.’

She walked away.

He eventually follows, demanding an answer about her novel. She states that he has never loved her; that he is guilty of deceit, and she can’t respect him.

‘Good. But all that is no reply to my distinct question.’

She tells him she has to think about things – he suggests he leave her alone for a while – ‘In the meantime you will do nothing, merely reflect; that’s understood.’ He sets off for an overnight trip.

Phyllis is left alone to contemplate her future. Eventually, she calls her maid and they spend an evening discussing Phyllis’ predicament. As she unburdens herself to her maid::

The well-meaning, but fussy and effusive listener, poured forth sympathy and counsel; much study of penny fiction provided her with unctuous phraseology, soothing to the ears of one whose literary erotics had just been so rudely criticised.

But, Phyllis is dreaming up a cunning plan, with her maid's help. George quickly has Phyllis abandon her life's work purely because Waldron’s opinion of it was so low, so it is now a matter of:
The question which tormented her was, whether she had been wooed and wedded out of mere interest, with mockery of love. Twelve hours ago, she had imagined herself a potentate, infinitely beloved, profoundly admired. Sheer shock of astonishment left her indifferent to the loss of admiration; the poignancy of that disaster was still to be tasted; but if not even love remained to her? Why, that meant an exchange of boundless rule for lowest servitude, and all the instincts of a long courted heiress rose in revolt. 

Boadicea and Her Daughters by Thomas Thorneycroft 1856-83 click

The next day, she watches him walking back up the road after his trip.

Perhaps he had hardly given a thought to her since they parted. A cold, deceitful, tyrannous man! 

And, then George completely trumps the neutering of Phyllis as an Artist - Art, not being woman's work in his opinion - by whipping her back into the female's submissive role: 

And, on that account, doubtless the very man to succeed brilliantly.

Then we have one of George's weather metaphors:

Sunshine was breaking through the clouds; the thin rain would presently cease.

He offered her a kiss, but it was disregarded. Phyllis had not quite made up her mind to this course; with a feeling of surprise at herself she passed straight on, and went upstairs. 

Later, they chat and she seems to defer to him about small things, as if the shock of his revelation has deflated her. She declines his offer of a walk, and plans to go out on her own. 

And, so the cunning plan is put into operation. Late that night, Phyllis goes for her walk, and doesn't come back as expected. The maid becomes anxious and suggests that she go to look for her mistress. When she doesn't find her, she wants to raise the alarm and find others to help in the search, but Waldron affects indifference. He strolls out to walk around, ostensibly to look for her. There follows a drawn-out filler of paragraphs describing the landscape, and the meandering walk round until Waldron bumps into Phyllis. She accuses him of not loving her, of lying about his affections for her, and probably wishing she had fallen off a cliff. He responds via the medium of condescension:  

‘Well, no; I didn’t.’ He drew nearer, and leaned on his stick (George’s use of sticks as symbols of the male phallus are in force here.) ‘The possibility just crossed my mind; which is much as saying that I felt uncertain of the measure of your folly. Had such a thing happened, I should very soon have congratulated myself on release from a crazy person. As you are merely a simpleton, I am for better things.’

‘Is it possible for a man of your intellect to speak – to think- so brutally?’

‘Evidently…’ 

It is certainly possible for George to speak this way - and to use his stick as a weapon on his first wife, and probably his second.

He walks off and she follows behind, then he grabs her, sweeps her up in his arms... 

A cry of alarm, a useless struggle, and Phyllis surrendered. When she had become perfectly quiet, he carried her for a few yards further, then set her down.

‘Now answer me: which of us two is stronger?’

‘In brute force?’ she returned bitterly.

‘In human force. As much as I excel you in bodily strength, so much, and more, am I your superior in every other quality. When you have learnt that, we shall get on admirably.’

‘Oh, I deny it – a thousand times!’

‘Continue to do so, dear girl, till you have learnt the truth of what I say.’

‘How dare you call me dear?’

‘Why, because I like you very much, and wouldn’t lose you for a good deal.’

‘You love no one but yourself.’

‘I didn’t say ‘love’. I don’t love you.’

.Now – now you are speaking the truth! Oh, what man have I married!’

‘A very good sort of man. A capital fellow, in his way.’

‘A hypocrite – a base…’ her tongue checked itself.

 ‘And you,’ he continued, ‘do you love me?’

‘No!’

‘Then we start on equal terms. In love with me you certainly were; as I was with you….It is more than likely that some day we shall love each other; in five years’ time, say. Love is slow in growing. I want to love you, if possible, and I hope you will love me. But I can’t love a girl who hasn’t got over her girlish conceit and silliness.’

‘Nor I a man who is heartless.’

‘Heaven forbid!’

They walk on, then he says:

‘I don’t like that maid of yours. She must go.’

‘Go? Oh, that she shall not!’

‘She will leave us tomorrow,’ said Waldron quietly.

‘Why?’

‘Because she entered into a silly plot with her silly mistress. It was your fault, of course; but she must suffer for it…. Come, little girl, take my arm, and let’s get ahead sharply….’

He drew her towards him, and she was passive. So without further speech they walked homewards through the divine night.

I can't think of anything good to say about this short story. But, sad as it is that George believed in what he was writing down, he must have taken it for granted that there was an audience for it - that like-minded fellows would nod in agreement and swallow every misogynistic sentiment piecemeal. 

If you ever wondered what sort of a life George's first two wives had, read this sort of amoral filth, masquerading as Art. Gabrielle was spared the worst of him because she had witnesses, and he dare not (durst not haha) overstep the line. But Marianne and Edith, always prevented from making friends or having social intercourse out of George's control, must have suffered terrible loneliness and despair with no one but their tormentor to know of their suffering. He removed them both from the outside world, and denied them existence by failing to integrate either into his life - the one he lived to the outside world. Marianne was expunged from the record when he destroyed his Diaries up to the year she died; his account of her is not as harsh as the one constructed for him by his biographers. Edith, reviled by George and represented to the world as almost sub-human, ended her days in isolation and madness. Overwhelming a woman's natural character - 'civilising' them by force - he considered a moral obligation to the human race, and an imperative of Darwinian thinking.

Saint Rita of Cascia, patron saint of, amongst other things, abused wives.

It was New Grub Street's Jasper Milvain who said: As a rule, marriage is the result of a mild preference, encouraged by circumstances, and deliberately heightened into strong sexual feeling... the same kind of feeling could be produced for almost any woman who wasn't repulsive.

You may well believe some essence of George exists in his characters and that Arthur Golding, the hapless Workers In The Dawn doofus, is a thinly-veiled portrait of our man. I would suggest that a more authentic George lurks in the characters who populate his short stories. Waldron is just one of them, and one of the most repugnant.