Commonplace 174 George & Veranilda PART ONE
You can't get far into the land of George Gissing without tripping
over Frederic Harrison (1831-1923. In spite of George's best efforts, Harrison
was a permanent feature in the literary life of our man; there at the
beginning, in the Workers In The Dawn days, and at the end, with Veranilda and
beyond to helping with George's estate and looking out for the two boys, Walter
and Alfred. According to his Wikipedia page:
As a religious teacher, literary critic,
historian and jurist, Harrison took a prominent part in the life of his time,
and his writings, though often violently controversial on political, religious
and social subjects, and in their judgement and historical perspective
characterized by a modern Radical point of view, are those of an accomplished
scholar, and of one whose wide knowledge of literature was combined with
independence of thought and admirable vigour of style.
Which is a helluva sentence.
George's first doings with Harrison were via Auguste Comte, the originator of the Positivist philosophy. Aggrieved at the poor response to his self-published novel, Workers In The Dawn, which drew for some of its themes on Positivism, George sent a copy to Harrison enclosing a letter blatantly looking for approval, and, by extension, sympathy and the chance of some useful contacts in the world of publishing. (This is yet another example of that 'jobbery' George always claimed to despise yet never failed to make use of.) He even claimed it was Harrison's writings that led him to Comte and then on to writing Workers In The Dawn.
Poor Harrison must have felt guilty about being held partly responsible by its author for Workers In The Dawn because he kindly responded and promised to pass news of the book to whatever useful contacts he could muster, and made several encouraging remarks, though, overall, he disapproved of such 'brutality' in a novel. One wonders what his thoughts were when George wrote back making the claim that the book concerned the very poor uneducated and ignoble people, and the utter apathy (with which) these natures regard the most horrible manifestations of mental and moral depravity. According to Pierre Coustillas in the fist volume of his biography of his hero, George truthfully traced his own hideous experiences of low life. Of course, George would have failed to mention his direct 'experience of low life' concerning the month with hard labour he did in Bellevue Prison for the series of thefts he carried out whilst a student in Manchester, and the syphilis he suffered from. George certainly knew a thing or two about 'moral depravity' haha.
But he had done well with this bit of jobbery, because Harrison also offered him a place as tutor to his sons. Eventually, George would be included in a modest way with their family life, which he would have taken as a sign they accepted his 'aristocratic' superiority - whereas in fact it was more likely to be the progressive-minded Harrisons demonstrating their liberal beliefs and tolerance towards the lower orders. The Harrisons were not aristocrats, but the benefactors of business empires established by their forefathers, but these well-heeled upper middle classes were very much living the dream so envied by George; they were rich, sophisticated, elegant, educated, influential, culturally important - above all, relevant. In fact, all the things George aspired to being.
After a while, George fell out of love with Positivism and eventually, the Harrisons, and moved on. All those times he was on the receiving end of their hospitality and being included in on family events like day trips and walks, even meals after teaching sessions, will have eventually made him envious and chafed his social sensibilities. George was little more than a hanger-on who was indulged by socially progressive bone fide wealthy class 'nice people', the sort of invidious position George foisted on many of his characters who existed in situations they took to be a source of shame and condescension. The Whirlpool's Mrs Abbott, the odious situation in which he placed The Unclassed's Ida Starr, and Emily Hood from A Life's Morning come to mind. However, he returned to Frederic Harrison when he needed advice or wanted sympathy - always one for the sympathy, was our George haha. Harrison always treated him generously whilst not for a minute swallowing hook, line and sinker everything he had to say, as we shall see.
When George died, his family (not including Gabrielle Fleury, his common-law French wife, who was 'persona non grata') and friends were desperate to summon up some sympathy for him themselves. HG Wells, in order to make the posthumously published and not very marketable Veranilda a financial success (for the benefit the two Gissing boys) hit upon a scheme to make the book profitable. Wells, whose own literary stock was high and who was a 'coming man' of fiction (as well as extra-marital affairs haha) offered to write a preface that would do a good sales job but also a bit of a whitewash on George's reputation - rumours of prison, syphilis, adultery, wife beating and child abandoning were circulating. Partly from guilt at not being there right at the end of George's life, Wells offered to help sort out his literary legacy and see to it each of the Gissing sons Walter and Alfred received a proper middle class education. However, George's sister Ellen and brother Algernon didn't like what he wrote (which was not quite the unfettered eulogy they were expecting), and so the task was given to Frederic Harrison to put something together to present the work as a triumph of scholarly erudition.
After the debacle of HG Wells travelling to the south of France to be at George's death bed, and the abuse he had at the hands of Gabrielle Fleury, Wells was in no mood to pander to the Gissing family. He published his unwanted preface later, and never really forgave George's relatives for their public insult. In fact, he decided to research George's life, and got together with Frederic Harrison to compare notes. Harrison was one of the few people who knew George in his pre-1888 days, 1888 being the start of what remained of the Gissing Diaries. George had destroyed those up to 1888 so as to protect his image and impair his literary legacy by stopping anyone know how badly he treated his first wife, Marianne aka Nell. Luckily, we have the Letters to fill in some of the gaps. In later years, Wells told his son, Anthony West, that Frederic Harrison thought George was not quite as hard done by or as poor as he liked folks to believe, and was often a fantasist, and exaggerated his woes. It was no secret to Harrison or Wells - or to most of the literary world - that George had been to prison, and that he died of syphilis-related problems, that he drove out his first wife and allowed her to die in dire poverty, that he made his second wife's life hell and drove her mad; that he abandoned his children to take off to France with his mistress, and that he was capable of embroidering fact and tell outright lies in order to manage others' perceptions of his behaviour. Wells was of the opinion George physically abused his first two wives, and lured them both into relationships that would never be anything other than acrimonious and miserable. Harrison tended to agree.
Harrison's preface to Veranilda is well-intentioned, and, as such, doesn't really demonstrate the awfulness of the book. For a start, it races out of the gate with this: I judge it to be by far the most important book which George Gissing ever produced: that one of his writings which will have the most continuing life. As Harrison goes on to admit he hasn't read all George's books, you have some sense of how potty - or dishonest - this is. As it is clearly a real drag for anyone but the most ardent French fan to read, maybe Harrison had a high boredom threshold. Whatever books you are forced to read (for studies, for work) in your life, always thank the gods you aren't forced to be reading Veranilda. Anyhoo, Harrison spent half his preface talking about something completely other than Veranilda (or even George!), you can appreciate even he found it hard to remember any of it.
In a companion piece to the preface, Harrison covered the book in the Positivist Review, the august organ of that group. You can get a flavour of the magazine here click. In his article, he makes it clear George was 'an old friend', and that he has already written the preface to the book. Partiality declared, he goes on to say:
It is a most conscientious study of a time very little understood, by a scholar of rare and curious learning, something of a poet, and something of a philosopher.... In a book to compare with Hypatia, though entirely without the fire and pomp, the polemics or the moralising of that brilliant romance. Gissing writes more as a historian, as a sympathetic student of religious phenomena, old or new, gentle or fierce, fanatical or tolerant... I know no book in which all the elements in this vast cataclysm (ie the last days of Rome), the contrasts of race, of creed, of ideals of life, are painted with more profound insight and more impartial sympathy.
JOIN ME IN PART TWO TO SEE IF EVERYONE AGREED WITH THE CLAIM GEORGE WAS 'A SCHOLAR OF RARE LEARNING'.
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| Frederic Harrison photographed by Bassano |
Which is a helluva sentence.
George's first doings with Harrison were via Auguste Comte, the originator of the Positivist philosophy. Aggrieved at the poor response to his self-published novel, Workers In The Dawn, which drew for some of its themes on Positivism, George sent a copy to Harrison enclosing a letter blatantly looking for approval, and, by extension, sympathy and the chance of some useful contacts in the world of publishing. (This is yet another example of that 'jobbery' George always claimed to despise yet never failed to make use of.) He even claimed it was Harrison's writings that led him to Comte and then on to writing Workers In The Dawn.
To anyone interested, here is the Wikipedia definition of Positivism:
Positivism is a philosophical theory stating that positive knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations. Thus, information derived from sensory experience, interpreted through reason and logic, forms the exclusive source of all authoritative knowledge. Positivism holds that valid knowledge (certitude or truth) is found only in this derived knowledge.
The likes of Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers would not have agreed, but there we are - great minds don't always think alike. Two of the failings inherent to Positivism, as seen from a modern perspective: the notion that everything is only valid if it received via sensory experience - psychoses and brain disorders often bring malfunctions of sensory experience as in hallucinations and delusions; the second being that human behaviour can be reduced to a checklist of motivations and impulses. As George Orwell proved with 1984's Doublethink, reason and logic can be twisted by despots to create new realities. You only have to look at YouTube to understand this haha. |
| Eternal Springtime by Auguste Rodin conceived 1884, cast before 1917 |
But he had done well with this bit of jobbery, because Harrison also offered him a place as tutor to his sons. Eventually, George would be included in a modest way with their family life, which he would have taken as a sign they accepted his 'aristocratic' superiority - whereas in fact it was more likely to be the progressive-minded Harrisons demonstrating their liberal beliefs and tolerance towards the lower orders. The Harrisons were not aristocrats, but the benefactors of business empires established by their forefathers, but these well-heeled upper middle classes were very much living the dream so envied by George; they were rich, sophisticated, elegant, educated, influential, culturally important - above all, relevant. In fact, all the things George aspired to being.
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| Fugit Amor by Auguste Rodin 1891 |
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| Leda And The Swan by Albert-Ernst Carrier-Belleuse c 1870 |
After the debacle of HG Wells travelling to the south of France to be at George's death bed, and the abuse he had at the hands of Gabrielle Fleury, Wells was in no mood to pander to the Gissing family. He published his unwanted preface later, and never really forgave George's relatives for their public insult. In fact, he decided to research George's life, and got together with Frederic Harrison to compare notes. Harrison was one of the few people who knew George in his pre-1888 days, 1888 being the start of what remained of the Gissing Diaries. George had destroyed those up to 1888 so as to protect his image and impair his literary legacy by stopping anyone know how badly he treated his first wife, Marianne aka Nell. Luckily, we have the Letters to fill in some of the gaps. In later years, Wells told his son, Anthony West, that Frederic Harrison thought George was not quite as hard done by or as poor as he liked folks to believe, and was often a fantasist, and exaggerated his woes. It was no secret to Harrison or Wells - or to most of the literary world - that George had been to prison, and that he died of syphilis-related problems, that he drove out his first wife and allowed her to die in dire poverty, that he made his second wife's life hell and drove her mad; that he abandoned his children to take off to France with his mistress, and that he was capable of embroidering fact and tell outright lies in order to manage others' perceptions of his behaviour. Wells was of the opinion George physically abused his first two wives, and lured them both into relationships that would never be anything other than acrimonious and miserable. Harrison tended to agree.
 |
| Buste de Fantaisie, Marguerite Bellanger by Albert-Ernst Carrier-Belleuse 1866 |
In a companion piece to the preface, Harrison covered the book in the Positivist Review, the august organ of that group. You can get a flavour of the magazine here click. In his article, he makes it clear George was 'an old friend', and that he has already written the preface to the book. Partiality declared, he goes on to say:
It is a most conscientious study of a time very little understood, by a scholar of rare and curious learning, something of a poet, and something of a philosopher.... In a book to compare with Hypatia, though entirely without the fire and pomp, the polemics or the moralising of that brilliant romance. Gissing writes more as a historian, as a sympathetic student of religious phenomena, old or new, gentle or fierce, fanatical or tolerant... I know no book in which all the elements in this vast cataclysm (ie the last days of Rome), the contrasts of race, of creed, of ideals of life, are painted with more profound insight and more impartial sympathy.
JOIN ME IN PART TWO TO SEE IF EVERYONE AGREED WITH THE CLAIM GEORGE WAS 'A SCHOLAR OF RARE LEARNING'.
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