Commonplace 148 George & His Uncle Paul. PART ONE
With works by the bona fide (and bona in the Polari sense) German genius that is Jonathan Meese.
Paul Rahardt was the German uncle who pulled strings so that George's first wife Marianne aka Nell could be admitted to the German Hospital (see commonplace 146). Not that Paul received effusive thanks from George, who hated being beholden to anyone, least of all those he considered to be his social inferiors. And George had other reasons for choosing to distance himself from his uncle, and his London family.
We know about Paul Rahardt mostly from Volume 1 of George's letters, and it's clear from his first appearance that Uncle Paul is going to be a perceived threat to George's peace of mind. Paul was married to George's father's sister, Aunt Maria. There was some communication between the older members of the Gissing family and the Rahardts, who lived in London, but George and his siblings had less physical contact.
After George's gap year in the States, his brother, William, wrote to suggest the Rahardts might be a useful source of support - George was intent on making a base in the capital. William was also worried about how to explain the recent past, with regard to the massive change in George's situation; he needed guidance on how to field questions from their relatives. So, we can assume George's shame at being convicted for theft and the gaol sentence was not widely known amongst the entire Gissing clan. The shame would reflect badly on the Wakefield Gissings, and so William wanted to know what the party line should be. As William was not naturally deceitful (unlike George), it is clear he would find this sort of malarkey stressful, but he was loyal and decent, and wanted to do the right thing for all of them.
In 1878, Paul Rahardt and his family were living in Hackney, then a semi rural part of north east London. Have a look at this click to get some sense of the place it was. Now, it is a wholly different sort of a thing, and can be truly appreciated by dipping into the book 'Hackney: That Rose-Red Empire' by psychogeographer Iain Sinclair click. George had some contact with them - he reported to Algernon (July 24th 1878) the birth of their child, though he seemed underwhelmed by it, himself.
On July 6th 1879, William wrote to George partly to thank Marianne for a violin bag she had made for him. A few months earlier that year, she had spent a very happy holiday with William (and his landlady!), and they were clearly very fond of each other. Anyone who believes the propaganda that George's first wife was some kind of degraded slut must take themselves to the letters from William, who was no fool and certainly no push over when it came to understanding human nature. Reading William's thoughts on Marianne, it is clear she is a much more refined and genuinely socially acceptable person than most of George's biographers allow. George's unheroic defamation of her character - to rationalise his own faults - is one of his greatest failings as a human being. Commonplaces 109/110 address this short holiday - do have a read. Both William and Marianne suffered very bad health and died in what should have been their prime, but what a thing it might have been if they had been a romantic couple, and she had never met George. We will never know how she might have fared if she had never been singled out for George's version of love.
On December 7th 1879, George writes to Algernon with something like sympathy for his Uncle Paul. It seems Paul had asked George's grandfather to lend him £30 so he could take up a position in engineering (presumably for tools). He was refused, but then, the grandfather lent £40 to a total stranger. George was incensed at the unfairness of it, and goes on to say he once had to borrow £10 from the man and was charged £1 interest over four months - an outlandish amount. The old adage 'blood is thicker than water' did not seem to apply to grandad. For all his faults, George was generally not tight - in the British sense of the word as in being mean with money - where his family were concerned, with the exception of the pittance he paid in alimony to Marianne aka Nell. Still, her dying in poverty preyed on his conscience (I hope) which is another reason he subsequently had to make her out to be a debauched waster and architect of her own misery after her death.
In January 1880, Paul is in Berlin and has written to say what a good time he is having. Relations are cordial, if not intimate, so George is happy to pass this snippet of family info on to Algernon. The trip was funded by a loan from George, but there are signs their relationship is about to change. In March, George explains all:
We have had rather unpleasant dealings with Rahardt lately. I think I told you he borrowed £20 of me to go to Germany with. Of this he paid back £10 some months ago. Now the other day he came to me with the news that he had receives £30 from his brother-in-law in Germany (a loan, I suppose,) & that he intended to set up Maria in a small grocer's shop, but wanted an additional £30 to do it. Would I lend? I regretted &c, but, of course, found myself quite unable to comply. And the man is grievously offended. He never made the least allusion to the £10 he owes me, & which I should be extremely glad of. We have been discovering lately that we have been somewhat deceived in his character. I am afraid he treats aunt very badly occasionally, & certainly he has a blackguard circle of acquaintances.
By April 23rd, Paul has repaid the £10 loan, which is a godsend as George is broke from publishing 'Workers in the Dawn'. But, that spat over the loan was just the beginning of the end, and Paul would soon be persona non grata.
JOIN ME IN PART TWO TO FIND OUT HOW PAUL BLOTTED HIS COPYBOOK FOREVER.
With works by the bona fide (and bona in the Polari sense) German genius that is Jonathan Meese.
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| The Yellow Baron 2004-5 |
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| SAALKONDITOREI STOFFWECHSEL de LOLLYLOLLYLOLLY 2008 |
After George's gap year in the States, his brother, William, wrote to suggest the Rahardts might be a useful source of support - George was intent on making a base in the capital. William was also worried about how to explain the recent past, with regard to the massive change in George's situation; he needed guidance on how to field questions from their relatives. So, we can assume George's shame at being convicted for theft and the gaol sentence was not widely known amongst the entire Gissing clan. The shame would reflect badly on the Wakefield Gissings, and so William wanted to know what the party line should be. As William was not naturally deceitful (unlike George), it is clear he would find this sort of malarkey stressful, but he was loyal and decent, and wanted to do the right thing for all of them.
In 1878, Paul Rahardt and his family were living in Hackney, then a semi rural part of north east London. Have a look at this click to get some sense of the place it was. Now, it is a wholly different sort of a thing, and can be truly appreciated by dipping into the book 'Hackney: That Rose-Red Empire' by psychogeographer Iain Sinclair click. George had some contact with them - he reported to Algernon (July 24th 1878) the birth of their child, though he seemed underwhelmed by it, himself.
On July 6th 1879, William wrote to George partly to thank Marianne for a violin bag she had made for him. A few months earlier that year, she had spent a very happy holiday with William (and his landlady!), and they were clearly very fond of each other. Anyone who believes the propaganda that George's first wife was some kind of degraded slut must take themselves to the letters from William, who was no fool and certainly no push over when it came to understanding human nature. Reading William's thoughts on Marianne, it is clear she is a much more refined and genuinely socially acceptable person than most of George's biographers allow. George's unheroic defamation of her character - to rationalise his own faults - is one of his greatest failings as a human being. Commonplaces 109/110 address this short holiday - do have a read. Both William and Marianne suffered very bad health and died in what should have been their prime, but what a thing it might have been if they had been a romantic couple, and she had never met George. We will never know how she might have fared if she had never been singled out for George's version of love.
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| BLUTHUNDINNINBABY mit STOFFTIERWECHSEL IM SAALBLUT 2008 |
William's July 6th letter includes his views on Paul Rahardt. He wrote:
I was pleased to hear you had been to Aunt Maria's. I think I like Paul the best, his talking powers are great. Have you ever noticed a little peculiarity of his? It struck he had a strange habit of wetting his finger ends in his mouth & drawing his handkerchief through the fingers.
Perhaps George hated Paul's funny little habits... or maybe he was jealous of his centre of attention speaking skills. Pierre Coustillas (in the Heroic Life volume1) suggests this is exactly the sort of flashy cove George disliked, but he also suggests George's lack of affection for Paul was based on the latter being less than left-wing. As George was going through his Socialist phase, maybe this is true, though it doesn't really hold water when you think of the deeper strain of reactionary right-wingness George always held in his heart. But, George was trying to make a small wave for himself in Socialist circles, so perhaps he felt association with an outed right-winger might tarnish his embryonic political career. As hardly any politician really believes what they espouse, it shows George could be very naive when it came to the real world - the right and left are in bed (figuratively and literally!) with each other all the time.
On December 7th 1879, George writes to Algernon with something like sympathy for his Uncle Paul. It seems Paul had asked George's grandfather to lend him £30 so he could take up a position in engineering (presumably for tools). He was refused, but then, the grandfather lent £40 to a total stranger. George was incensed at the unfairness of it, and goes on to say he once had to borrow £10 from the man and was charged £1 interest over four months - an outlandish amount. The old adage 'blood is thicker than water' did not seem to apply to grandad. For all his faults, George was generally not tight - in the British sense of the word as in being mean with money - where his family were concerned, with the exception of the pittance he paid in alimony to Marianne aka Nell. Still, her dying in poverty preyed on his conscience (I hope) which is another reason he subsequently had to make her out to be a debauched waster and architect of her own misery after her death.
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| Fish Baby Food With Fixed Stars (the closest google translate came up with) 2008 |
We have had rather unpleasant dealings with Rahardt lately. I think I told you he borrowed £20 of me to go to Germany with. Of this he paid back £10 some months ago. Now the other day he came to me with the news that he had receives £30 from his brother-in-law in Germany (a loan, I suppose,) & that he intended to set up Maria in a small grocer's shop, but wanted an additional £30 to do it. Would I lend? I regretted &c, but, of course, found myself quite unable to comply. And the man is grievously offended. He never made the least allusion to the £10 he owes me, & which I should be extremely glad of. We have been discovering lately that we have been somewhat deceived in his character. I am afraid he treats aunt very badly occasionally, & certainly he has a blackguard circle of acquaintances.
By April 23rd, Paul has repaid the £10 loan, which is a godsend as George is broke from publishing 'Workers in the Dawn'. But, that spat over the loan was just the beginning of the end, and Paul would soon be persona non grata.
 |
| HighNoonNonnyNay 2012 |
JOIN ME IN PART TWO TO FIND OUT HOW PAUL BLOTTED HIS COPYBOOK FOREVER.
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