Commonplace 171  George & The Bard PART TWO.

George, a lifelong dabbler in writing poetry, took for inspiration several of Shakespeare's female characters. Some of these poems are to be found in the slim but valuable collection entitled 'Six Sonnets On Shakespeare's Heroines', all from 1876, the year he got rusticated from Owens College for the thefts and for associating (possibly cohabiting) with his girlfriend, served time in gaol for larceny and set sail to America for a gap year. This edition is taken from the Beinecke Library Gissing collection at Yale University. Who were these heroines and what significance is there in the choice of these women? 

First, a quick word in praise of a book George probably knew well. It contains many insightful studies of the women Shakespeare brought us and would have been a useful resource to a student of the Bard  especially one keen to impress his peers and college tutors. Here is the reference: Palmer, Henrietta L. The Stratford gallery, or, The Shakespeare sisterhood. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1859. Shakespeare Online. 20 Oct. 2009. (accessed April 2016 at http://www.shakespeareonline.com). Or click. 

Some thoughts from 'The Shakespeare Sisterhood':

Imogen from Cymbeline (written in August,1876). Imogen was falsely accused of adultery by a man who spied on her whilst she was asleep. She was finally absolved of this. She was also the victim of rape plot.  

Imogen In Her Bed-chamber Where Iachimo Witnesses The Mole Under Her Breast.
by Wilhelm Ferdinand Souchon 1872 (which certainly makes you study her bosom!)

What is said about her:
To Imogen has been awarded, almost without a dissenting voice, the high distinction of being the most admirable of her immortal company - a woman in whom all perfections meet in rare harmony - who never cloys, never disappoints. 

Of all Shakspeare's wives -- and he delighted in shaping models of conjugal fidelity -- she is the master-piece; chaste, ardent, brave, devoted, and beautiful, she is indeed 'best of wives, most delightful of women'.

Cordelia from King Lear (written in August 1876). Cordelia is cast aside by her father for not swearing how much she loves him in return for a third of his kingdom (as her two sisters had done). It ends with Lear finally realising the symbolism of her gesture - she loves him without the promise of riches.

Cordelia Comforting Her Father by George William Joy 1881

What is said about her:
Compared with any less perfect, but not less charming, lady of this sisterhood, Cordelia will appear transcendently superior, by as much as she who follows the dictates of true religious principle must ever take moral precedence of the creature of mere impulses, whether of passion or caprice; but side by side with Goneril and Regan -- those diabolical creations, who are women only physically -- she shines an angel of light. 

It is only by careful study of the few master-strokes with which Cordelia is delineated that we can make out a faithful portrait of this matchless daughter; in fact, throughout the moving record of madness and crime, of which she is the heroine, her "heavenly beauty of soul" is felt rather than seen; although she is almost excluded from the action, her purity is ever present to the mind's eye, in dazzling contrast to the outer darkness of her surroundings.

Miranda from The Tempest (written September 22nd 1876 - in Nantasket, Mass.) Miranda was banished along with her father, Prospero, to live on an island with Caliban, their servant.Miranda has a pure heart and has led a sheltered life, as she lacks worldly experience. She is known for her compassion.

Miranda by John William Waterhouse  1916

What is said about her:
In body, mind, and spirit, Miranda is essentially virgin; her grace, her beauty, her self, are as guiltless of any meretricious suggestion as in the hour when she was born: "society" is a sealed book to her innocent eyes -- the world, a myth. Her quick susceptibility to a love as pure as it is passionate seems the one only quality she possesses in common with her sisters; she is the child of Nature and super-Nature -- belonging to humanity, but a humanity so free from base alloy that it is but a step removed from the pure spiritual.
Portia from The Merchant of Venice (written September 22nd 1876). Portia is the heroine who has to choose between three suitors, and who ends up with the best one - the one she really wanted. She is also the woman who disguises herself as a man in order to defend the best friend of her betrothed, Antonio, from Shylock. (There is a Portia in Julius Caesar, but she doesn't seem to fit the sentiments of the poem.)

Portia by John Everett Millais 1886

 What is said about her - she comprises a
"heavenly compound of talent, feeling, wisdom, beauty, and gentleness," we must confess that to us it seems well chosen. "Clever" does not, indeed, imply the possession of illustrious powers; but it does signify that nice "dexterity in the adaptation of certain faculties to a certain end or aim" which is eminently graceful and feminine, and exactly describes the mental characteristics of Portia, as most conspicuously displayed in the trial scene, wherein her success is achieved, not by the exercise of inherent wisdom, or an educated judgement, but by the merely clever discovery of a legal quibble. 

Perdita from The Winter's Tale (written in October 1876). Perdita - which means The Lost One - was born in prison because her mother was falsely accused of adultery. As a young adult she falls in love with Prince Florizel - his parents think it an unsuitable attachment because Portia has been raised by simple commoners and so they do what they can to keep them apart, The couple flee to Sicily, but it all ends well. 

Perdita by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sands 1866

What is said about her:

Perdita, perhaps, of all Shakspeare's heroines, is the completest exemplification of the intuitive lady, whose inbred daintiness no accident of life can affect.

Frequent mention is made of her rare personal beauty, and not by her lover only. Florizel says to her, touching her holiday attire at the sheep-shearing:

These, your unusual weeds, to each part of you
Do give a life -- no shepherdess, but Flora
Peering in April's front; this, your sheep-shearing,
Is as a meeting of the petty gods,
And you the queen on't.

Desdemona from Othello (written in October 1876). Desdemona is the wife of Othello. Her father considered Othello to be an unsuitable match and so the couple eloped. She is subsequently wrongly accused of adultery by the treacherous Iago, who is eventually thrown from a high window by her murderous husband. 

Desdemona by Sir Frederic Leighton 1888

What is said about her:
The type of all gentle and refined beauty - "O, the world hath not a sweeter creature!" - Desdemona by her rare simplicity, her childlike artlessness of character, wins her way to the hearts of all who have conned the story of her woes and mourned her cruel fate.
In our own mind we class her naturally with Miranda and Ophelia; but she is less purely ideal than either of these; her dramatic condition differs from theirs in being simply domestic; though highly picturesque, it is dependent for its interest on no more romantic accessories than are afforded by the privacy of a sumptuous household, to the skilful management of which -- notwithstanding that she was "an admirable musician," and of "high and plenteous wit and invention" -- she does not scorn to devote a considerable portion of her time. With whatsoever of intense effects her married life is produced, herself is never part of them -- she, indeed, constitutes their principal figure, but she is never involved in them, never understands them; her identity is preserved intact throughout.

Subordination, in thought and word and act, is the prominent feature of Desdemona's character: not simply the non-resisting humility of a weak, spiritless nature, but that honourable submission to one having authority (whether God, king, father, or husband) which, then, as in the later day of English Margaret More, formed an essential part of the education of the gently bred, only less important than religion itself, or, rather, included in that. 

These six have been carefully selected - the likes of Juliet and Ophelia are left out, despite their suitability foe the project - to provide an opportunity for him to discourse on some salient at that time topics, concerning his relationship with his girlfriend, Marianne aka Nell Harrison. These are :- 
1) Women who have been wronged by society, often falsely accused of sexual impropriety.
2) Love between two apparently unsuited (by class) lovers.
3) The purity and innate goodness of the woman involved.
4) Naiveté and innocence in need of protection.

George's biographers assume that because Nell was described by the Owens College staff as 'unsuitable' they meant that she was a prostitute. Is that really what they meant? Wouldn't any working class girl be considered 'unsuitable' for a student at the college? If George had persuaded her to 'live in sin' with him - like he did with Gabrielle Fleury, his third 'wife' - did that make her a whore? If so, then Gabrielle should also be classed as that in biographies - at least Nell wasn't committing adultery, as was Gabrielle. It is a class-ridden affront to justice that Nell is regarded as immoral whilst Gabrielle is let off that charge. The same sort of emotional blackmail was used on both women, and both fell for it. In the case of Nell, George had the added bonus of crowing that he had 'saved' her from prostitution. But wasn't this because she was a naive and innocent girl being preyed on by the likes of George's friend, John George Black? Certainly according to Anthony West, HG Wells' son, writing from conversations with his father, it was Black who told George where he could find young and unsullied girls (Nell was 16 or 17 when she took up with George), emphasising how inexperienced they were. See Commonplaces 56-61 for more.

George was arrogant enough to think he had the strength of character and the unselfishness to deliver on his promises to Nell, but he was wrong, and Nell suffered for it. It's time his biographers made amends for their part in repeating the myth that she took advantage of him and that she was a working girl when they met - or at all, ever. There is no evidence for it, just their prejudice against the poorer classes, a lot of misogyny and a freakish need to explain the wrong deeds of George Gissing. Shame on them all.

Commonplace 170   George & The Bard PART ONE.

Happy Bardsday one and all. It's April 23rd!!! It's the 400th anniversary of the death of the World's greatest writer - no, not George Gissing, but William Shakespeare. It is also St George's Day - no, not St George the Wakefield saint and martyr, but the Turkish or Roman or whatever chap often depicted fighting a dragon - the one that is England's patron saint. Her Maj is just getting over her 90th birthday party (gawd bless you, ma'am ) and we Brits are deliberating whether or not to remain in the European Union. It seems this is the hour - the planets are aligning (the 9th one hoving into view even as I type click) - and so there has never been a better time to think about the Glory that is the Bard of Stratford: the Glory that is England.

From Richard II scene I, spoken by John of Gaunt click:

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, 
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 

This other Eden, demi-paradise, 

This fortress built by Nature for herself 

Against infection and the hand of war, 

This happy breed of men, this little world, 

This precious stone set in the silver sea, 

Which serves it in the office of a wall 

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,- 

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

Puck by Richard Dadd 1841

Now Let's address the George/Shakespeare connection. George often boasted of his familiarity with all of the Works. His father kept a Cambridge edition on his bookshelf, in later years, the memory of which gave George bitter-sweet pangs of nostalgia. One of George's party tricks, often performed for intimates was to recite great swathes of the text, or do impromptu readings to a captive audience. This was an age when reading out loud was considered a legitimate entertainment - Charles Dickens was a dab hand at it. George must have thought he knew the Bard's words well enough in meaning and delivery to perform them and risk the chance of looking a fool to anyone who knew them better.

St George by Hans von Hulmbach 1510

Alongside the Gissing family Cambridge Works of Shakespeare, George kept a Furnivall's edition (as mentioned in the Pierre Coustillas biography Vol 1). Furnivall was a Shakespeare scholar George could endorse. He produced a two-volume edition first printed at the start of the nineteenth century, as a response to the publishing phenomena that was 'Tales From Shakespeare' by Charles and Mary Lamb (1807), their take on some of the Bard's works. Furnivall was a man intent on re-igniting England's flagging love affair with it's Number One Literary Son, and he felt the Lambs' edition trivialised the works. 'Lambs' Tails', as it was affectionately known at my school, was intended to broaden Shakespeare's appeal and readership (not unlike the aims of a certain Commonplace Blog!) to include children and the likes of me, and it worked - for me. Furnivall's version included works left out by the Lambs, who excluded the likes of Coriolanus and Julius Caesar from their list.  

Now, anyone with half an iota of knowledge of the cosmos will know that the Interconnectedness of Everything spoken of by Douglas Adams permeates our World on a Quantum level. So it should come as no surprise that the name 'Furnivall' or 'Furnival' is closely aligned with works by Shakespeare. Mr and Mrs Furnival were famous players who gave their Shakespearean performances in, amongst others, the Goodman's Field Theatre with Mr playing the Earl of Gloucester in 'The Tragical History of King Lear' in 1746. And Frederick James Furnivall (1825-1910) click was a man of many parts, one of them being he started the New Shakespeare Society in London in 1873. The New Shakespeare Society concerned itself with interpretations of the original language, giving explanations and definitions of contemporaneous, authentic usage, and historical context for when the plays were written. The Society preferred the old form of spelling Shakspere to the one in modern usage which would have appealed to George's love of history and the quaint old- fashioned.

Teena Rochfort-Smith in August 1882

It was whilst working for this that Furnivall met his future muse, Ms Teena Rochfort-Smith (1861-1883), remembered for her unfinished 'Four Text Hamlet', in which she compares varying textual versions. Their relationship blossomed and he eventually left his wife and child to live with the much younger Teena. Sadly, she was involved in a terrible fire when her dress caught a flame from a match - not the new fangled sort made later on by the Bryant and May girls of Bow, but you could see why there was a need for a decent safety match. See Commonplaces 166 and 167. This horrendous accident eventually ended her life after a week of intense pain, and the terrifying notion she was doomed. Frederick was distraught, and wrote this little book in celebration of her life click.
This was before her great work could be finished and published, but the MS was passed on to the New Shakespeare Society. Her family established the Rochfort-Smith Shakespeare Prize at her old school to commemorate her life. 

The Four Text Hamlet

A bit of Hamlet that might have suited George:
I am very proud, revengeful,
ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have
thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape,
or time to act them in.

Larry Oliver and his chum, Alice Poor-Yorick, deceased. Besties 4 eva. 

From Macbeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? Yes! It's a Commonplace Blog. 
or an interesting tour of places associated with Shakespeare click:


JOIN ME IN PART TWO AND EXPLORE HOW SHAKESPEARE HELPED PAY GEORGE'S TUITION FEES.

Commonplace 169  George & Being An 'Author By Profession'. PART TWO.

With works by Jean Arp (1866-1966).

'Calamities of Authors: Including Some Inquiries Respecting Their Moral and Literary Characters, Volume 1' by Isaac D'Israeli gives us an insight into the early nineteenth century views on the business of writing. George must have read it - one of the central themes of New Grub Street (Art versus commercialism) could have been lifted from it piecemeal! And George would have identified with the sentiments Isaac expressed on the poverty and neglect most writers experience when they are struggling for recognition. 

Shirt Front And Fork by Hans Arp 1922

Let's take a look at what Isaac says in his introduction. 

The chief object of the present work is to ascertain some doubtful yet important points concerning Authors. The title of Author still retains its seduction among our youth, and is consecrated by ages. Yet what affectionate parent, would consent- to see his son devote himself to his pen as a profession? The studies of a true Author insulate him in society, exacting daily labours; yet he will receive but little encouragement, and less remuneration

 It will be found that the most successful Author can obtain no equivalent for the labours of his life. I have endeavoured to ascertain this fact, to develop the causes, and to paint the variety of evils that naturally result from the disappointments of genius. Authors themselves never discover this melancholy truth till they have yielded to an impulse, and adopted a profession, too late in life to resist the one, or abandon the other.

Whoever labours without hope, a painful state to which Authors are at length reduced, may surely be placed among the most injured class in the community. Most Authors close their lives in apathy or despair, and too many live by means which few of them would not blush to describe.

Besides this perpetual struggle with penury, there are also moral causes which influence the Literary Character, fertile in calamities. I have drawn the individual characters and feelings of Authors from their own confessions, or deduced them from the prevailing events of their lives; and often discovered them in their secret history, as it floats on tradition, or lies concealed in authentic and original documents.

The title of Author is venerable; and, in the ranks of national glory, authors mingle with its Heroes and its Patriots. It was, indeed, by our authors, that foreigners have been taught most to esteem us; and this remarkably appears in the expression of Gemelli, the Italian traveller round the world, who wrote about the year 1700; for he told all Europe that “he could find nothing amongst us but our “writings to distinguish us from the worst “ of barbarians.” But to become an “Author by Profession,” is to have no other means of subsistence, than such as are extracted from the quill; and no one believes these to be so precarious as they really are, until disappointed, distressed, and thrown out of every pursuit by which he can derive a maintenance, the noblest mind often sinks to a venal dependant, or a sordid labourer. Literature abounds with instances of “Authors by Profession” accommodating themselves to both these inconveniences. By vile artifices of faction and popularity their moral sense is equally injured, whether in prose or verse, while the Literary Character sits in that study which he ought to dignify, merely, as one of them sings, “ To keep his mutton twirling at the fire.”

And, as another said, that “he is a fool ‘who is a grain honester than the times’ he lives in.”

Let it not, therefore, be conceived that I mean to degrade, or vilify, the Literary Character, when I would only separate The Author from those pollutors (sic) of the press, who have turned a vestal into a prostitute; a grotesque race of famished buffoons or laughing assassins; or that other populace of unhappy beings, who are driven to perish in their garrets, unknown and unregarded by all, for illusions which even their calamities cannot disperse. Poverty, said an Ancient, is a sacred thing—it is, indeed, so sacred, that it creates a sympathy even for those who have incurred it by their folly, or plead by it for their crimes.

Arranged As To The Laws Of Chance 1917

How George would have agreed with the part about poverty being such a 'sacred thing' that it creates 'sympathy' in others even if it was caused by 'crimes' - which pretty much sums up George's early failures, doesn't it? After a high-flying start in his youth, he blew chances for a university education by stealing from his peers at Owens College, for which he was briefly jailed. And remember all the mileage George got from his early days when he claimed to have lived in poverty and great want (later debunked by Austin Harrison, son of Frederic and one of George's pupils)? And then there is George's notorious need for sympathy?? In fact, the whole of his early adulthood is encompassed here! 

In Volume I, Isaac reserves particular scorn for William Guthrie who described himself as ‘An Author By Profession’. According to Isaac, he was a sort of literary mercenary, who sold his services to George III for an annual fee of £200. Guthrie was prepared to rewrite history so as to better represent his employer at a time when Revolution was in the air, and the People needed to be kept on the King’s side. Isaac goes on to say this sort of playing with facts was rife during the English Civil War when the better educated Royalists circulated black propaganda about the Parliamentarians that the latter couldn't counter because of their lack of literacy. This was also the beginning of ‘tabloid journalism’ where partisan publications slanted their stories to suit a particular faction. Isaac mentions Sir John Birkenhead (1615-1679), described here as ‘bantering and profligate’, one of the first to make use of editorial influence to voice his pro-Royalist sympathies. Another mention goes to Marchmont Needham (1629-1678) ‘the Cobbett of his day…versatile and unprincipled’ who did the same for Cromwell, and Robert L’Strange (1616-1704), another Royalist, and a literary cove who published a translation of Aesop’s Fables. All are early versions of spin doctors who fed stories to the press to influence public opinion, but to read even their entries in Wikipedia is to realise they don’t make ‘em like they used to. L’Strange led such an interesting life of adventure characterised by enormous chutzpah, that to have known him must have been a fascinating journey. A downloadable copy of L’Strange’s 'Aesop' is available free on Google Play, and it’s well worth a look. Note to Andrew Motion or Peter Ackroyd – a biog please. And, to read more about Cobbett, who 'bestrode his narrow world like a Colossus', click. (I am limbering up for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death with this Julius Caesar Scene II quote!). 

Six White Forms And One Grey Make A Constellation On A Blue Ground 1953

Isaac includes his cautionary tale about the rise and fall of Nicholas Amhurst (1697-1742):

Look on the fate and fortune of Amhurst. The life of this “Author by Profession” points a moral. He flourished about the year 1730. He passed through a youth of iniquity, and was expelled his college for his irregularities: he had exhibited no marks of regeneration when he assailed the university with the periodical paper of the Terrae Filius; a witty Saturnalian effusion on the manners and Toryism of Oxford, where the portraits have an extravagant kind of likeness, and are so false and so true that they were universally relished and individually understood. Amhurst, having lost his character, hastened to reform the morals and politics of the nation. For near twenty years he toiled at “The Craftsman,” of which ten thousand are said to have been ‘sold in one day’. Admire this patriot! An expelled collegian becomes an outrageous zealot for popular reform, and an intrepid Whig can bend to be yoked to all the drudgery of a faction! Amhurst succeeded in writing out the minister, and writing in Bolingbroke and Pulteney. Now came the hour of gratitude and generosity! His patrons mounted into power - but - they silently dropped the instrument of their ascension. The political prostitute stood shivering at the gate of preferment, which his masters had for ever flung against him. He died broken-hearted, and owed the charity of a grave to his bookseller. Note: a 'Terrae Filius' was an undergraduate at Oxford recruited to deliver an amusing speech.

In commercial times, the hope of profit is always a stimulating, but a degrading motive; it dims the clearest intellect, it stills the proudest feelings. Habit and prejudice will soon reconcile even genius to the work of money, and to avow the motive without a blush. “An Author by Profession,” at once ingenious and ingenuous, declared that, “Till fame appears to be worth more than money, he would “always prefer money to fame.” 

Forest 1916

Isaac also mentions the old Samuel Johnson quote about it being only a fool who writes for anything but money. This tackles head on the contradiction endemic to the debate, because the majority of writers want to be read and one way they know if they have readers is sales of books. Or library borrowings - back in the day when there were libraries haha. In fact, a little bit of George, even when he really needed the money, was secretly pleased his books didn't sell, because that underlined the specialist niche he occupied on the literary scene (much as he does today haha). Another small part - maybe quite a big part! - railed against the fecking Philistines for ignoring him. He often looked at the opposition aka his 'peers' on the literary scene and wondered at how they got away with their work - the success of Thomas Hardy and Robert Louis Stevenson in particular irked him because he considered both to be unremarkable. In a piece of irony he might not have enjoyed, both of these great writers are widely read today and their works are frequently adapted for films. 

One wonders what George would have made of enormous popularity? Would it have closed him down and shrivelled up his mojo - more than lack of success did haha? 

Commonplace 168   George & Being An 'Author By Profession' PART ONE.

Isaac D'Israeli

Most of us have heard of Benjamin Disraeli, two-time British prime minister (Feb-Dec 1868, and 1874-80), a member of the Conservatives, and man beloved platonically, if somewhat flirtily, by Queen Victoria (read more about that here click). He had a second career as a novelist but has rather fallen out of fashion and few read his work nowadays. Less well known is his father, Isaac D'Israeli (1766-1848), an historian and man of many literary endeavours, and someone who deserves to be read any time by everyone interested in Literature.

One of his many works is a discourse on the travails of being a writer, a sort of prototype New Grub Street. 'The Calamities of Authors: including some inquiries respecting their moral and literary characters' (published in two parts, in 1812-3 and available free on Google Play) is a commentary on the job of being a writer, composed in an age when the business of writing was being carved up into two factions - those who wrote from innate necessity, demonstrating artistic expression; and those who used their literacy skills as a means of making a living: New Grub Street's Edwin Reardon versus Jasper Milvain, if you will. In this, rather than being in on the scrum of a living debate, George was harking back to previous battles fought by others and adding his two penn'orth from the sidelines, long after the event broke off from boredom. I blame his reading habits - trawling though books looking for ideas for reworking into others... recycling, but not stealing. George never did that, did he? Not plagiarism. Definitely not plagiarism. That would be very bad, if he ever did that. Which he never did. Ever. 

Making money from writing was acceptable in Isaac D'Israeli's day, but the elite amongst writers considered themselves to be above such crass vulgarity as to be caught doing it exclusively for the dosh - this elite usually comprised those with enough independent wealth to support themselves. We know one of George's many inner struggles was bringing congruence to the writing for pay/writing for Art dissonance. Though he would have hated to admit it, he really was too lazy to diversify or learn another skills-set; writing, like walking, is a bit of a soft option when it comes to earning a living (note to athletes: it's just running, jumping, swimming, playing with your balls... and you get knighthoods for it???), but being an author was a bit of an odd choice for a man who never found it easy to write anything (possibly with the exception of letters). Surely if you are a natural born writer, you don't have to birth every book with maximum mental bloodshed, each book a Giger alien exploding from you brain?? However, he cloaked it all in arty-farty camouflage, and preferred to pedal the old myth that Art has to be wrenched from the inner psychological depths if it is to have validity and power and beauty. Hmmm. Not sure Picasso would have agreed.

The Muse of Writer's Block? HR Giger's original design for the 1979 Ridley Scott film 'Alien'.

'Selling out' was a phrase much used in the hippy days of the 1960s, often by those who preferred to paddle their own canoes rather than work in an office or factory. When Bob Dylan went electric in 1966 (click), you would not believe the rage that caused in some reactionary British fans who accused him of 'selling out' and being a 'Judas' - to our never-ending shame, and all just for his transition from acoustic to electric for part of the gig!!! As history tells us, we could not have had 'Like a Rolling Stone', the best 'pop' song ever (click) without him incorporating electric - and he never abandoned acoustic, did he? (Another Artist mistakenly tarred with the selling out brush is Andy Warhol, usually by people who don't know their Art or their Artists)

The Divine Oscar Wilde once said:

It is to be regretted that a portion of our community should be practically in slavery, but to propose to solve the problem by enslaving the entire community is childish. Every man must be left quite free to choose his own work. No form of compulsion must be exercised over him. If there is, his work will not be good for him, will not be good in itself, and will not be good for others. And by work I simply mean activity of any kind.

Rather laughingly, and a little disingenuously, George mentioned not wanting to appeal to a wide audience - say, the shop workers who read their Mudie's borrowed volumes on t'omnibus to and from work - because only an elite minority could appreciate his Art. He turned down many journalistic commissions because he didn't want to be caught 'selling out' his 'genius', which just goes to show how out of touch with the real world he could be. But, if you are trying to promote elitism as your artistic USP, you have to keep yourself aloof from the crowd. Part of George's probably unconscious game plan was to be unavailable socially and appear mysterious which is always catnip to an appreciative audience. Fans of Harper Lee, Thomas Pynchon, J D Salinger and to some degree Northampton's 'Watchman' writer, Alan Moore, all want to see their favourite writers out and about more. Well, maybe not Harper Lee and J D Salinger quite so much these days, being as how they are both dead.

When George and HG Wells first got together in that now famous Omar Khayyam dinner (20th November 1896, two days short of George's 39th birthday), HG confessed he felt he had lived a bit of the same life as Edwin Reardon - by having a wife he called Amy and living in a dump of a flat flat in Mornington Terrace in Camden Town (now renamed Mornington Terrace). George would have smiled to himself and thought 'Ah, yes, but have you starved?' as he was wont to do when younger, fitter (in the Darwinian sense), more versatile writers loomed into view. He might also have said, in his superior way, that, Wells being a non-aristocrat at heart (and in his waters, his bones, and every cell of his being) and only the child of servants, starving in a garret wouldn't have affected him as much as it would someone who regarded themselves to be an aristocrat. It's the 'Princess and the Pea' click argument he often thought held water. But it doesn't.

HG Wells lived in this blue house in 1894, number 12. 

For George, making money from writing was akin to writing advertising copy. He found advertising hoardings an affront to his tender sensibilities - the preoccupation with piles, constipation, all manner of sickness and fatal diseases, the brash colours, the insistent 'in your face-ness' of them was in opposition to his love of harmony and order. His one-time travelling companion, Herr Plitt, who went to Paris with him, brought out some of the best of George's humour - Plitt collected adverts and preferred these to the Artworks in the Louvre. Obviously, Plitt was a man of the future, and would have been happy to find himself in the twentieth century in ways George never would.

This snobbery about all things aesthetic found its way into his fiction - both writing for children (the domain of educated, under-used women) and writing or drawing for pay (many characters, notably Jasper Milvain of NGS and those implicated souls of In The Year of Jubilee). He equated this sort of carry on as one of the worst traits anyone could be guilty of: Philistinism, a term coined by Matthew Arnold to describe anyone not in love with high-brow culture. We now (rightly IMO) see these fuddy-duddy coves as reactionary and pretentious but social markers such as the one that makes you think you know what Art is meant to do or be, served in George's day to separate the wheat from the chavs haha. Much as it does, today.

JOIN ME IN PART TWO TO SEE WHAT ISAAC D'ISRAELI SAID ABOUT THE LOT OF THE 'AUTHOR BY PROFESSION'.

Commonplace 167 George & The Fight For What's Right In Which He Did Not Participate. PART TWO

With paintings by Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970)

We saw in the last post that George took himself off to observe two of the meetings convened to support the striking workers of the Bryant and May match factory (July 1888). The morning meeting was held in Mile End Waste - in his letter to Algernon, he makes a sarcastic reference to its name, possibly because he is unfamiliar with its historic significance. Mile End Waste was not a dump or a soil pit; the term 'waste' when referring to urban land means undeveloped. Another English term for such an open space is 'common' - but that doesn't mean it's dog rough; it means it is for the common use. Mile End Waste was where large public meetings were held, just as Hyde Park was often used in a time when many of the populace were illiterate, for passing on information and discussing important ideas. A forum for the masses.

Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech-Ring 1943

In this fascinating account of the area click we learn:
Between Mile End Gate and the famous music hall known as the 'Paragon' there was the area known as 'The Waste'. On here was an open market, with itinerant traders of all types, - baked chestnut barrow, hot baked potatoes, the toffee maker, the old clothes man, the negro sword swallower, 'jellied eels', cheap jack crockery, the whole lot was just one confusion, illuminated at night by countless flaring 'Naphtha' lamps which frequently conked out, and released a cloud of paraffin vapour over all and sundry. In one spot were rolls of sheet lead belonging to the builders merchant shop. I often wonder how long sheet lead would lay safe without protection on that spot today. The same stretch of pavement contained also the ancient almshouses of Trinity House, the Great Assembly Hall, and the ancient weather-boarded hostelry 'The Vine Tavern', the only pub in the Mile End Road, which was literally true, - it was actually in the road, isolated and alone.

Back to the striking workers. To recap, the women were being exploited and when the new cost-cutting practices introduced by management brought increased concerns for health and safety the workers complained, and they were fined or sacked. Luckily, the girls had some powerful friends, among them the socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, free-thinker, newspaper publisher and writer Ms Annie Besant. If ever there was a person deserving of the title 'hero' it is she and in the annals of Feminism, she has few equals. Such was her impact on Victorian society that many towns have streets named after her - I was raised just round the corner from Besant Road in my home town.

Beulah The Gypsy c 1925

George didn't really know why the girls were striking, and neither do the editors of his Complete Letters Vol 1, who wrongly attribute the cause of the strike to uppity girls whining about having to work harder despite the threat to their health and being resentful over fines imposed by employers. The implication here is that fines are justified where feckless working class girls are concerned. Luckily, we have some primary source material to make our own judgement.

When activist Annie Besant got to hear about it, she reported what was going on in the weekly publication she ran with WT Stead, The Link, as included here click:

From: Issue no. 21 (Saturday, 23 June, 1888)

White Slavery in London.

At a meeting of the Fabian Society held on June 15th, the following resolution was moved by H. H. Champion, seconded by Herbert Burrows, and carried nem. con. after a brief discussion:

"That this meeting, being aware that the shareholders of Bryant and May are receiving a dividend of over 20 per cent., and at the same time are paying their workers only 2¼d. per gross for making match-boxes, pledges itself not to use or purchase any matches made by this firm."

In consequence of some statements made in course of the discussion, I resolved to personally investigate their accuracy, and accordingly betook myself to Bromley to interview some of Bryant and May's employees, and thus obtain information at first hand. The following is the outcome of my enquiries:

Bryant and May, now a limited liability company, paid last year a dividend of 23 per cent. to its shareholders; two years ago it paid a dividend of 25 per cent., and the original £5 shares were then quoted for sale at £18 7s. 6d. The highest dividend paid has been 38 per cent.

Let us see how the money is made with which these monstrous dividends are paid. (The figures quoted were all taken down by myself, in the presence of three witnesses, from persons who had themselves been in the prison-house whose secrets they disclosed.)

The hour for commencing work is 6.30 in summer and 8 in winter; work concludes at 6 p.m. Half-an-hour is allowed for breakfast and an hour for dinner. This long day of work is performed by young girls, who have to stand the whole of the time. A typical case is that of a girl of 16, a piece-worker; she earns 4s. a week, and lives with a sister, employed by the same firm, who "earns good money, as much as 8s. or 9s. per week". Out of the earnings 2s. is paid for the rent of one room; the child lives on only bread-and-butter and tea, alike for breakfast and dinner, but related with dancing eyes that once a month she went to a meal where "you get coffee, and bread and butter, and jam, and marmalade, and lots of it"; now and then she goes to the Paragon, someone "stands treat, you know", and that appeared to be the solitary bit of colour in her life. The splendid salary of 4s. is subject to deductions in the shape of fines; if the feet are dirty, or the ground under the bench is left untidy, a fine of 3d. is inflicted; for putting "burnts" - matches that have caught fire during the work - on the bench 1s. has been forfeited, and one unhappy girl was once fined 2s. 6d for some unknown crime. If a girl leaves four or five matches on her bench when she goes for a fresh "frame" she is fined 3d., and in some departments a fine of 3d. is inflicted for talking. If a girl is late she is shut out for "half the day", that is for the morning six hours, and 5d. is deducted out of her day's 8d. One girl was fined 1s. for letting the web twist round a machine in the endeavor to save her fingers from being cut, and was sharply told to take care of the machine, "never mind your fingers". Another, who carried out the instructions and lost a finger thereby, was left unsupported while she was helpless. The wage covers the duty of submitting to an occasional blow from a foreman; one, who appears to be a gentleman of variable temper, "clouts" them "when he is mad".

One department of the work consists in taking matches out of a frame and putting them into boxes; about three frames can be done in an hour, and ½d. is paid for each frame emptied; only one frame is given out at a time, and the girls have to run downstairs and upstairs each time to fetch the frame, thus much increasing their fatigue. One of the delights of the frame work is the accidental firing of the matches: when this happens the worker loses the work, and if the frame is injured she is fined or "sacked". 5s. a week had been earned at this by one girl I talked to.

The "fillers" get ¾d. a gross for filling boxes; at "boxing," i.e. wrapping papers round the boxes, they can earn from 4s. 6d. to 5s. a week. A very rapid "filler" has been known to earn once "as much as 9s." in a week, and 6s. a week "sometimes". The making of boxes is not done in the factory; for these 2¼d. a gross is paid to people who work in their own homes, and "find your own paste". Daywork is a little better paid than piecework, and is done chiefly by married women, who earn as much sometimes as 10s. a week, the piecework falling to the girls. Four women day workers, spoken of with reverent awe, earn - 13s. a week.

A very bitter memory survives in the factory. Mr. Theodore Bryant, to show his admiration of Mr. Gladstone and the greatness of his own public spirit, bethought him to erect a statue to that eminent statesman. In order that his workgirls might have the privilege of contributing, he stopped 1s. each out of their wages, and further deprived them of half-a-day's work by closing the factory, "giving them a holiday". ("We don't want no holidays", said one of the girls pathetically, for - needless to say - the poorer employees of such a firm lose their wages when a holiday is "given".) So furious were the girls at this cruel plundering, that many went to the unveiling of the statue with stones and bricks in their pockets, and I was conscious of a wish that some of those bricks had made an impression on Mr. Bryant's - conscience. Later they surrounded the statue - "we paid for it" they cried savagely - shouting and yelling, and a gruesome story is told that some cut their arms and let their blood trickle on the marble paid for, in very truth, by their blood. There seems to be a curious feeling that the nominal wages are 1s. higher than the money paid, but that 1s. a week is still kept back to pay for the statue and for a fountain erected by the same Mr. Bryant. This, however, appears to me to be only of the nature of a pious opinion.

Such is a bald account of one form of white slavery as it exists in London. With chattel slaves Mr. Bryant could not have made his huge fortune, for he could not have fed, clothed, and housed them for 4s. a week each, and they would have had a definite money value which would have served as a protection. But who cares for the fate of these white wage slaves? Born in slums, driven to work while still children, undersized because underfed, oppressed because helpless, flung aside as soon as worked out, who cares if they die or go on the streets, provided only that the Bryant and May shareholders get their 23 per cent., and Mr. Theodore Bryant can erect statues and buy parks? Oh if we had but a people's Dante, to make a special circle in the Inferno for those who live on this misery, and suck wealth out of the starvation of helpless girls.

Failing a poet to hold up their conduct to the execration of posterity, enshrined in deathless verse, let us strive to touch their consciences, i.e. their pockets, and let us at least avoid being "partakers of their sins", by abstaining from using their commodities.

ANNIE BESANT.

Then:

Messrs. Bryant and May
From: Issue no. 22 (Saturday, 30 June, 1888), p.2

I was called out of a meeting against the sweating system on Wednesday night, by a workman friend of mine, who came to me from Bow with the news that Bryant and May's factory was in a state of commotion, and the girls were being bullied to find out who had given me the information printed last week. Cowards that they are! why not at once sue me for libel and disprove my statements in open court if they can, instead of threatening to throw these children out into the streets? But they hope thus to terrorise the girls from giving evidence, and so prevent their treatment of them from leaking out. They will not succeed in their despicable policy, for work will be found for the girls they "sack", and dismissal thus robbed of its terrors. On Wednesday Mr. Conybeare, M.P., gave me £1, a member of the Merchant Tailors Company 10s., another sympathiser 10s., and I had other promises of support, in defending any victims of Bryant and May, and carrying on the war. A big meeting to protest against the White Slavery will be called.

ANNIE BESANT

The meeting was the one held at Mile End Waste on July 8th 1888, the one George attended. So, it's clear that the girls were striking because of intimidation by their bosses. They had been threatened with dismissal because they had given information on their working conditions to Ms Besant, not, as George states, because they were being fined - which they were, egregiously, but that wasn't their reason for striking. And it wasn't because, as implied by the editors of the George Gissing Collected Letters Vol 1 because they resented the new rules on packing matches. That was part of their complaints because it required them to double productivity but at a cost to their physical wellbeing, but it wasn't why they came out.

The Great Parade 1928

In the July 23rd edition of The Link, Ms Besant reports that the system of fines levied on the girls for what the management determined were misdemeanours, had been stopped after the Factory Inspectorate ruled it unlawful. Bryant and May threatened to sue Ms Besant for libel - bullies and the self-important don't like anyone disagreeing with them, or pointing out their mistakes, do they? And then there was the money they were losing because customers were boycotting the product, which hit them where it really hurt - in their dividends. The girls who spoke about their working conditions to Ms Besant were sacked and left penniless, but money was raised by public donation to support ongoing action and to compensate strikers. Bryant and May hit back with the imposition of compulsory signing of gag orders for the remaining workers. Such was the general uproar caused by the public reaction to this that the girls were eventually reinstated and Bryant and May had to climb down and mend their ways. A real landmark in British social and political history, and every bit as significant to women's rights as the work of the Suffrage movement. For more contemporaneous coverage click.

From the paltry entries in the Diary and Letters, it seems the true significance of this piece of direct action passed George by. His jaded views don't really do justice to the raging debate the girls'action caused, and neither does he cover what the outcome was - all positive, and a genuine triumph of justice, a topic he claimed to care about. Speaking of justice, 1888 was the year George's first wife had died in deprivation and want - partly caused by his miserly alimony payments. George went into a deep depression and couldn't work for several months afterwards, a form of impotence that hit him where it really hurt - his ego and then his pocket. In July, he was in the the throes of finishing The Nether World, and perhaps the depression plus the writers' block he mentions (the night of the strike meeting July 8th) forced such things as a triumph for natural justice from his mind. However, he wasn't likely to report on positive outcomes for demands for workers' rights because of his long-standing dislike of the British poor and working class. For ordinary people to win a battle with their employers didn't fit with his anti-Demos mindset, and his political sensibilities were always with the bosses, never the workers - you only have to read 'Demos' to know that. And there was another social evil he despised - the rise of women's having a voice. He saw women's suffrage as the thin end of the wedge that would end in men having to change in order to make themselves acceptable to women's demands for fairer treatment and political and social freedoms. He definitely wouldn't have approved of working class women making demands - look what happened to his second wife, Edith, when she did that sort of thing!

What he doesn't mention about the positive result of this successful piece of political activism speaks to the false position George is often accorded as some sort of expert on the plight of the disadvantaged. He is often mentioned as one who rubbed shoulders with poverty and who thought he understood what made the poor happily accept their squalor - which could be summed up, according to George, as the natural order according to Charles Darwin meets the total lack of intelligence and innate laziness of the wasters at the bottom of the social pile.

Perhaps his lack of opinion was caused by a lack of reading matter - George often reserved opinion until he had researched what others said, so that he could welly in with his backing of the horse that won because it saved him sticking his neck out and risking looking like a fool when he was wrong. And then there is the jealousy. He was envious of those in the middle class who were Socialists and who succeeded in helping the poor or disadvantaged. When he was a Socialist he never really had much clout in the group and had to get at the back of the line, which is probably why he gave it up. The advantages of a public school education and the lower middle class start in Wakefield meant nothing when jostling for glory with the likes of Cunnighame Graham, Ms Besant and William Morris, because their backgrounds and independent wealth caused George to feel great inferiority and resentment - which is why he accused them of hypocrisy and self-serving motives. He once suggested William Morris should voice his political opinions in verse and not in activism, because poetry is the better enterprise!

The adjoining factory sites

The Nether World was George's last 'slum' novel. Maybe he did realise how his position as expert on the poor was no longer tenable and he quit whilst he was ahead. And what of the Bryant and May factory site? Nowadays, it is referred to as The Bow Quarter (pretentious or what haha) a gated community for the super rich - a typical one-bed studio apartment is half a million quid. You can see from the photo the factory was large, two contiguous sites, now looking like this: click

The front entrance with a blue plaque celebrating the association with Annie Besant (left side of door) - not commemorating any named Match Girl. Such is class.