Commonplace 114 George & Love. PART TWO
With a mixture of flattery, lies and blatant emotional blackmail, George ploughed a desperate furrow in the untilled soil of Gabrielle Fleury's heart. As we have seen in the first toe-curling letter to include his declaration of adoration and intent, George was capable of saying anything to persuade his love object to succumb to his... charm. He wrote this:
But, - do you know how sensitive I am to kindness from anyone? And what can be the effect upon me of words such as these from a woman whose face has charmed me, whose voice has thrilled me, and in whom I divine something very like my ideal of womanhood?
Firstly, and without wishing to be unkind, if George hadn't marked her card as his last, desperate chance to secure a wife (despite the fact he already had one he was avoiding), and if he had met her in any social gathering, he would have lampooned Gabrielle's less than pretty appearance. He was always vocal about the shortcomings of womens' appearance and he always judged them by his ideal. We know he was a trichophiliac click because he mentions hair so often in his novels, and we know he cut off and retained some of his first wife's hair on her death bed. And, of course, he took great pride in his own mop, and, as Morley Roberts reported, when washing his face, kept it out of his eyes with a rubber band.
Only a few days into their 'relationship' (which had thus far consisted of several hours together and a few letters) George asked Gabrielle to send him some of her hair:. Then:
August 8th 1898
This morning comes your letter, with the little piece of your hair - infinitely dear to me. It has a sweet, subtle scent - it brings you here and for a moment eases the constant heartache from which I suffer.
Weird.
September 9th sees George in fine form as a lover :
Yet, the more I think of you as you show yourself in your letters, the harder it is that any terms of admiration can in this case be excessive. Speaking calmly, I find myself obliged to use the same language as when I lose myself in a rapture of worship... In spirit I fall on my knees before you, subdued by such a revelation of exquisite womanliness...
In or around September 9th he drops the S bomb - that if she left him he would commit suicide. Not in so many words, but the meaning is clear:
If I lost you , I have a terrible certainty that despair would make an end of me - yes, in spite of my strong sense of the duty I owe my poor little children. To live without you, is very hard, to live without hope of you would be impossible. I have had a warning of that despair in the sinking of the heart which comes upon me when, after a few days, a letter has not arrived.
No mention of why he went to America (following his time in prison) or the fate of his first wife, Nell, and how he abandoned her, or how he was never good enough or originally creative or inspired enough to be a professional painter, or how much he detested teaching, and being an ex-con, probably would never have found anything other than home tutoring. He was right about the pedant bit, though. However, I'm not sure it was the word George meant to give her, as it is a far from flattering term; here is a definition: a person who is excessively concerned with minor details and rules or with displaying academic learning. It's so true of him, but betrays his control-freakery and narrow-mindedness.
In late September, he is back on the charm offensive:
You think me guilty of great exaggeration when I call you the most beautiful woman living...
Well, first of all, remember every man has his own ideal of beauty; that beauty is a relative thing. Speaking with entire truthfulness (sic haha) I can say that, at the first moment of beholding you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. This a mere simple fact. I hope you will believe me. Another man might not have thought it; I, who was destined to love you, naturally saw in you my ideal type of beauty... Loving you for the beauty of your face, I came to love you for the perfection of your mind...
So, what did George really see in Edith aka Gabrielle? And, why would he go to France, when he had made it clear he was never a Francophile?
1)Well, he needed a nurse - he knew his health was deteriorating. He scored points in the sympathy/pity league by coming the old soldier initially, but soon changed tack and presented himself as a bicycling athlete, who had only a few brushes with mild ill-health, and was basically robust. All lies, of course. Gabrielle already nursed her father and then, her mother, so she had proved her abilities. George underestimated how long Maman would survive (Gabrielle's father died early in the relationship), because the old bat outlived him.
2) He needed someone who had a home for him to go to - so, no more putting a roof over anyone else's head. According to HG Wells' son, Anthony West, George assumed Gabrielle was independently wealthy and she assumed he was. Both were disappointed.
3) He could move as far from his second wife, Edith, as was workable. She would have to negotiate the English Channel to find him, and that, he assumed, was beyond her.
4) He wrongly assumed European readers appreciated his books more than did UK ones. He was wrong.
5) He never really thought it was a long-term event. If he lived in France with Gabrielle, she would not follow him back to the UK when he got round to abandoning her - as he was planning to do, up until he realised he was on a death watch and he had missed his chance.
6) It would be unlikely the two boys, Walter and Alfred, would ever visit him in south France. George did not want them to come and live with him in France, even though they might have had a much better start in life there - but he did not want his boys, and so he could use geography as his excuse for abandoning them.
7) He could leave behind all the morally dubious things he had done, and all his dirty little secrets. Both Frederic Harrison and HG Wells (when comparing notes after his death) had gone off George by this time. Who else was on his side, apart from Morley Roberts (a man he had never respected)? ) However, he did assume the cavalry would arrive and rescue him - alas, he left it too late for that. He used his time in France to redact his Diaries and manage his legacy. As usual, he assumed all of us would be dumb enough to believe every word he allowed through. He was wrong.
8) He could live cheaply (assuming Gabrielle had her own money) and thus save enough to return to the UK and follow his dream of buying his own house.
9) He could slide into oblivion without having to bump into people who wanted to know what he was currently working on. His novels were no longer of the quality that New Grub Street had been, and so George, tied to making a living by writing, had to endure the critics pointing this out when they reviewed his books.
10) Gabrielle knew some associates and distant relatives of tenth-rate artists and writers, but never anyone in the top league. George assumed he would be a very big fish in a small pond in this group, but he really never found an intellectual home in France.
If he had lived another couple of years, he might have returned to the UK alone, and set up as a critic and given up the fiction. He might have lived down Veranilda, and written something better as his parting shot. And he might have abandoned his petrified attitudes to all the truly important things in his life - like his children.
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| Beautiful Girl With Flowers In Her Hair by Albert Lynch c 1890 |
But, - do you know how sensitive I am to kindness from anyone? And what can be the effect upon me of words such as these from a woman whose face has charmed me, whose voice has thrilled me, and in whom I divine something very like my ideal of womanhood?
Firstly, and without wishing to be unkind, if George hadn't marked her card as his last, desperate chance to secure a wife (despite the fact he already had one he was avoiding), and if he had met her in any social gathering, he would have lampooned Gabrielle's less than pretty appearance. He was always vocal about the shortcomings of womens' appearance and he always judged them by his ideal. We know he was a trichophiliac click because he mentions hair so often in his novels, and we know he cut off and retained some of his first wife's hair on her death bed. And, of course, he took great pride in his own mop, and, as Morley Roberts reported, when washing his face, kept it out of his eyes with a rubber band.
Only a few days into their 'relationship' (which had thus far consisted of several hours together and a few letters) George asked Gabrielle to send him some of her hair:. Then:
August 8th 1898
This morning comes your letter, with the little piece of your hair - infinitely dear to me. It has a sweet, subtle scent - it brings you here and for a moment eases the constant heartache from which I suffer.
Weird.
September 9th sees George in fine form as a lover :
Yet, the more I think of you as you show yourself in your letters, the harder it is that any terms of admiration can in this case be excessive. Speaking calmly, I find myself obliged to use the same language as when I lose myself in a rapture of worship... In spirit I fall on my knees before you, subdued by such a revelation of exquisite womanliness...
In or around September 9th he drops the S bomb - that if she left him he would commit suicide. Not in so many words, but the meaning is clear:
If I lost you , I have a terrible certainty that despair would make an end of me - yes, in spite of my strong sense of the duty I owe my poor little children. To live without you, is very hard, to live without hope of you would be impossible. I have had a warning of that despair in the sinking of the heart which comes upon me when, after a few days, a letter has not arrived.
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| Alexa Wilding by Dante Gabrielle Rossetti 1977 |
September 14th, he apologises that his letters stink of tobacco and says he has given up smoking, but in the end, has had to obey his doctor's orders to recommence it for the sake of his health. Perhaps she believed this tall tale - I doubt it. His story (and he stuck to it!) was that he did it for the sake of his health. (Did Maman allow him to carry on with the habit?) The next day, he writes about his tricky start in adult life, and mentions what happened after his gap year in the States:
Returning, I began a life of terrible struggle in London. For many years I really lived by teaching (privately)... If my good father had lived, I should probably never have known hardship. In those early days it was my ambition to be a painter; but much more likely I should have followed an academic career, and have become a University professor! There is a great deal of the pedant in me, as you know, and I was always able to teach.  |
| Venetian Beauty On A Balcony by Eugene de Blaas c 1910 |
In late September, he is back on the charm offensive:
You think me guilty of great exaggeration when I call you the most beautiful woman living...
Well, first of all, remember every man has his own ideal of beauty; that beauty is a relative thing. Speaking with entire truthfulness (sic haha) I can say that, at the first moment of beholding you, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. This a mere simple fact. I hope you will believe me. Another man might not have thought it; I, who was destined to love you, naturally saw in you my ideal type of beauty... Loving you for the beauty of your face, I came to love you for the perfection of your mind...
 |
| A French exponent of Tromboning (!! look it up!!). Poster by Louis Acquetin 1899 |
1)Well, he needed a nurse - he knew his health was deteriorating. He scored points in the sympathy/pity league by coming the old soldier initially, but soon changed tack and presented himself as a bicycling athlete, who had only a few brushes with mild ill-health, and was basically robust. All lies, of course. Gabrielle already nursed her father and then, her mother, so she had proved her abilities. George underestimated how long Maman would survive (Gabrielle's father died early in the relationship), because the old bat outlived him.
2) He needed someone who had a home for him to go to - so, no more putting a roof over anyone else's head. According to HG Wells' son, Anthony West, George assumed Gabrielle was independently wealthy and she assumed he was. Both were disappointed.
3) He could move as far from his second wife, Edith, as was workable. She would have to negotiate the English Channel to find him, and that, he assumed, was beyond her.
4) He wrongly assumed European readers appreciated his books more than did UK ones. He was wrong.
5) He never really thought it was a long-term event. If he lived in France with Gabrielle, she would not follow him back to the UK when he got round to abandoning her - as he was planning to do, up until he realised he was on a death watch and he had missed his chance.
6) It would be unlikely the two boys, Walter and Alfred, would ever visit him in south France. George did not want them to come and live with him in France, even though they might have had a much better start in life there - but he did not want his boys, and so he could use geography as his excuse for abandoning them.
7) He could leave behind all the morally dubious things he had done, and all his dirty little secrets. Both Frederic Harrison and HG Wells (when comparing notes after his death) had gone off George by this time. Who else was on his side, apart from Morley Roberts (a man he had never respected)? ) However, he did assume the cavalry would arrive and rescue him - alas, he left it too late for that. He used his time in France to redact his Diaries and manage his legacy. As usual, he assumed all of us would be dumb enough to believe every word he allowed through. He was wrong.
8) He could live cheaply (assuming Gabrielle had her own money) and thus save enough to return to the UK and follow his dream of buying his own house.
9) He could slide into oblivion without having to bump into people who wanted to know what he was currently working on. His novels were no longer of the quality that New Grub Street had been, and so George, tied to making a living by writing, had to endure the critics pointing this out when they reviewed his books.
10) Gabrielle knew some associates and distant relatives of tenth-rate artists and writers, but never anyone in the top league. George assumed he would be a very big fish in a small pond in this group, but he really never found an intellectual home in France.
If he had lived another couple of years, he might have returned to the UK alone, and set up as a critic and given up the fiction. He might have lived down Veranilda, and written something better as his parting shot. And he might have abandoned his petrified attitudes to all the truly important things in his life - like his children.
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Change of Residence by Paul Gauguin 1899
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