Commonplace 175 George & Veranilda PART TWO
As we saw in the previous post, Frederic Harrison, George's sometime patron and a good friend in need, wrote the preface to George's almost finished, posthumously published study of Rome in the time of the Ostrogoth king and military genius, Totila, who set about Rome in 546 AD.
It is to be remembered this story was George's primary fixation for a long time, and getting it down on paper was probably what kept him going during his last few years, especially during the unhappy times when he lived in southern France. Being with Gabrielle Fleury, his third wife, was often a trial, partly because he was not suited to intimacy on any level, and partly because he longed to be back home in England, but knew, deep down, that it was never going to happen. HG Wells, his friend, believed George was always planning to come back, and knew he and Gabrielle weren't soul mates - Wells couldn't stand her, and always thought she had misrepresented herself to George to appear to be well-connected to the French intelligentsia (George thought she might network him into literary success), and financially independent (so as to take off the financial pressure on his extended expenses for the family he had deserted back in Blighty), when she was far from either. George made an abortive attempt at remaining in England when he came back for medical treatment, but he returned to her and France because it was too late, and he was too ill to consider relocating. Veranilda took his mind off the inevitability of it all, and gave him an excuse for extended periods of reading and literary busywork away from annoying domestic arrangements.
A brief snippet from Harrison's preface:
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.
Judge for yourselves. Here is an extract that gives a real flavour of the book - for your literary... 'pleasure' is too strong a word:
George is often touted as a classical history scholar of the first order, and a bit of an authority on all things Roman. Being thrown out of Owens College, some claim, deprived the world of a great contributor to the study of the ancient world. Not so, according to William Barry.
William Francis Barry (1849-1930) was a man with a large portfolio - theologian, successful fiction writer (The New Antigone of 1887 is probably his most famous novel), academic, social commentator, lecturer, linguist, Catholic priest, ecclesiastical historian, friend of the Divine Oscar Wilde's chum, Robbie Ross. He was also a reviewer of books, particularly those that touched on classical history and the history of the Christian church. A good choice to give his opinion of Veranilda. In his review, Barry is complimentary but not gushing, and does not pull his punches when it comes to sloppy work. The review isn't included in the anthology The Critical Heritage, so here it is in full:
MR. GISSING'S LAST BOOK. It was the fortune of this remarkable writer to attempt great things, to suffer much, and to die at the comparatively early age of forty-six. He has been praised by critics to whom public opinion defers, and Mr. Frederic Harrison, in a feeling preface, recommends this posthumous but almost completed work as ‘a finished piece of sculpture,’ and as ‘most original'. In ‘Veranilda,’ he says, Gissing's ‘poetical gift for local colour, his subtle insight into spiritual mysticism, and, above all, his really fine scholarship and classical learning, had ample field.’ I do not say that there is any hopefulness in the treatment of ‘Veranilda’; there is, however, fine workmanship - and lending to it an inward life, there is the higher scope, the mellow tone which Mr. Harrison recognises. It belongs, emphatically, to literature ; it deserves to be called an historical romance; and it cannot fail to give pleasure when once we have thrown ourselves into the times and the atmosphere, so remote from our own, but to its author in no common degree familiar. He has boldly taken his subject from the forty-third chapter of Gibbon's ‘Decline and Fall,’ from the sixth century, and the adventures of the Gothic King, Totila. Old novel readers will compare his theme and its handling with Kingsley's ‘Hypatia’, to which this might form a sequel. The difference is great. Kingsley was in every fibre romantic; his ardour carried him a-tilt against degenerate Greeks, monkish Egyptians, and Cyril of Alexandria; but we feel that he is Christian as well as Teuton, and himself a part of the story. Not so Gissing. This man stands aloof, calmly noting the ways of declining Rome, of Imperial Byzantium, of Greeks and Barbarians, in a style which we admire, but which has little movement, so choice and dainty is it, so steeped in classic phrases, so bookish, even at its best. The whole treatment is classical, and we wonder if it would not have gained by imitating Kingsley, who has made of his Goths so many big boys, with large limbs, not unkind hearts, and the manliness that is bred of self-control. Gissing, too, sets forth Totila in a shining light; the hero round whom the story moves is Totila. We want to see more of him. Basil and Marcian, the two gentlemen of Verona, but in sterner mould than Shakespeare's, are firmly drawn; for the ends of tragedy Marcian is the more interesting; his too sudden fate leaves us only half-satisfied; nor has Basil the grand proportions that would keep him visible when such world-shaking events as the siege and capture of Rome were filling the stage. These youths who are born in the purple, handsome, attractive, and worshipped by the faithful heroine, have proved too much for their creators in fiction; they baffle Scott, and they leave the reader cold. But what shall we say of the women, Petronilla, Aurelia, Heliodora? They have their several merits; the wicked Heliodora is, however, less worth attending to than the pious Petronilla, whose features are taken from life—an unpleasant character, yet not unreal, mingling malice and devotion in the same cup. This brings us to the religious elements of the story. I cannot praise it in that light without reserve. Very admirably the figure of our great St. Benedict is shown, and his earthly Paradise on Monte Cassino, where the tormented Basil finds peace after storm. Had the author consulted our friends who live there still, he might have added some strokes to his picture and escaped a curious blot. St. Benedict was a deacon, not a priest; he did not possess, therefore, any claim to give absolution, and that episode is without warrant. I have said nothing about Veranilda, who bestows a name on the book. She is pretty enough and touching, but a good deal off the scene, hence we forget her easily. The true heroine is Rome, always fascinating, and though captured, unconquerable. Those who are well acquainted with Roman topography, with Naples and the Campanian coast, and the desert on which the Alban Hills look down, will travel along these pages contentedly. There is no very minute landscape painting in them, but a sobriety and a simple grace which we have learned to call antique. WILLIAM BARRY. The Bookman November 1904 No. 158. VOL. XXVII. NOVEMBER, 1904. PRICE SIXPENCE.
As we saw in the previous post, Frederic Harrison, George's sometime patron and a good friend in need, wrote the preface to George's almost finished, posthumously published study of Rome in the time of the Ostrogoth king and military genius, Totila, who set about Rome in 546 AD.
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| Totila by Francesco Salviati c 1549 |
A brief snippet from Harrison's preface:
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.
Judge for yourselves. Here is an extract that gives a real flavour of the book - for your literary... 'pleasure' is too strong a word:
Vast was the change produced in the Romans' daily existence by the destruction of the aqueducts. The Thermae being henceforth unsupplied with water, those magnificent resorts of every class of citizen lost their attraction, and soon ceased to be frequented; for all the Roman's exercises and amusements were associated with the practice of luxurious bathing, and without that refreshment the gymnasium, the tennis-court, the lounge, no longer charmed as before. Rome became dependent upon wells and the Tiber, wretched resource compared with the never-failing and abundant streams which once poured through every region of the city and threw up fountains in all but every street. Belisarius, as soon as the Goths retreated, ordered the repairing of an aqueduct, that which served the transtiberine district, and was indispensable to the working of the Janiculan mills, where corn was ground; but, after his departure, there was neither enough energy nor sufficient sense of security in Rome for the restoration of even one of the greater conduits. Nobles and populace alike lived without the bath, grew accustomed to more or less uncleanliness, and in a certain quarter suffered worse than inconvenience from the lack of good water.
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| The Romans Cause A Wall To Be Built To Protect The South by William Bell Scott 1857 |
William Francis Barry (1849-1930) was a man with a large portfolio - theologian, successful fiction writer (The New Antigone of 1887 is probably his most famous novel), academic, social commentator, lecturer, linguist, Catholic priest, ecclesiastical historian, friend of the Divine Oscar Wilde's chum, Robbie Ross. He was also a reviewer of books, particularly those that touched on classical history and the history of the Christian church. A good choice to give his opinion of Veranilda. In his review, Barry is complimentary but not gushing, and does not pull his punches when it comes to sloppy work. The review isn't included in the anthology The Critical Heritage, so here it is in full:
MR. GISSING'S LAST BOOK. It was the fortune of this remarkable writer to attempt great things, to suffer much, and to die at the comparatively early age of forty-six. He has been praised by critics to whom public opinion defers, and Mr. Frederic Harrison, in a feeling preface, recommends this posthumous but almost completed work as ‘a finished piece of sculpture,’ and as ‘most original'. In ‘Veranilda,’ he says, Gissing's ‘poetical gift for local colour, his subtle insight into spiritual mysticism, and, above all, his really fine scholarship and classical learning, had ample field.’ I do not say that there is any hopefulness in the treatment of ‘Veranilda’; there is, however, fine workmanship - and lending to it an inward life, there is the higher scope, the mellow tone which Mr. Harrison recognises. It belongs, emphatically, to literature ; it deserves to be called an historical romance; and it cannot fail to give pleasure when once we have thrown ourselves into the times and the atmosphere, so remote from our own, but to its author in no common degree familiar. He has boldly taken his subject from the forty-third chapter of Gibbon's ‘Decline and Fall,’ from the sixth century, and the adventures of the Gothic King, Totila. Old novel readers will compare his theme and its handling with Kingsley's ‘Hypatia’, to which this might form a sequel. The difference is great. Kingsley was in every fibre romantic; his ardour carried him a-tilt against degenerate Greeks, monkish Egyptians, and Cyril of Alexandria; but we feel that he is Christian as well as Teuton, and himself a part of the story. Not so Gissing. This man stands aloof, calmly noting the ways of declining Rome, of Imperial Byzantium, of Greeks and Barbarians, in a style which we admire, but which has little movement, so choice and dainty is it, so steeped in classic phrases, so bookish, even at its best. The whole treatment is classical, and we wonder if it would not have gained by imitating Kingsley, who has made of his Goths so many big boys, with large limbs, not unkind hearts, and the manliness that is bred of self-control. Gissing, too, sets forth Totila in a shining light; the hero round whom the story moves is Totila. We want to see more of him. Basil and Marcian, the two gentlemen of Verona, but in sterner mould than Shakespeare's, are firmly drawn; for the ends of tragedy Marcian is the more interesting; his too sudden fate leaves us only half-satisfied; nor has Basil the grand proportions that would keep him visible when such world-shaking events as the siege and capture of Rome were filling the stage. These youths who are born in the purple, handsome, attractive, and worshipped by the faithful heroine, have proved too much for their creators in fiction; they baffle Scott, and they leave the reader cold. But what shall we say of the women, Petronilla, Aurelia, Heliodora? They have their several merits; the wicked Heliodora is, however, less worth attending to than the pious Petronilla, whose features are taken from life—an unpleasant character, yet not unreal, mingling malice and devotion in the same cup. This brings us to the religious elements of the story. I cannot praise it in that light without reserve. Very admirably the figure of our great St. Benedict is shown, and his earthly Paradise on Monte Cassino, where the tormented Basil finds peace after storm. Had the author consulted our friends who live there still, he might have added some strokes to his picture and escaped a curious blot. St. Benedict was a deacon, not a priest; he did not possess, therefore, any claim to give absolution, and that episode is without warrant. I have said nothing about Veranilda, who bestows a name on the book. She is pretty enough and touching, but a good deal off the scene, hence we forget her easily. The true heroine is Rome, always fascinating, and though captured, unconquerable. Those who are well acquainted with Roman topography, with Naples and the Campanian coast, and the desert on which the Alban Hills look down, will travel along these pages contentedly. There is no very minute landscape painting in them, but a sobriety and a simple grace which we have learned to call antique. WILLIAM BARRY. The Bookman November 1904 No. 158. VOL. XXVII. NOVEMBER, 1904. PRICE SIXPENCE.
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| Hypatia by Julia Margaret Cameron 1867 |
Frederic Harrison, in his preface, had already mentioned a
similarity to the novel Hypatia by Charles Kingsley, another polymath, and
writer of The Water-Babies (who, as a child, hasn't shed a tear over Tom and
his sad life? If you haven't get you here click.) Hypatia click was about the life of the female Greek
philosopher, mathematician and astronomer who was murdered by zealous
Christians and those jealous of her gifts and angered by her influence. She was
demonised as a witch and seducer of men's minds, which is usually how men deal
with women they either find sexually beguiling or intellectually intimidating.
A woman mounting a challenge to the patriarchal status quo rarely
does well - you only have to read the personal comments about Hillary Clinton
from that buffoon Donald Trump to know this.
It was not unusual for George to take from the work of fellow writers and fashion something of his own - nothing in Art, as they say, is original. Barry makes the observation that the story of Veranilda (a made-up character) is taken from events laid out in the forty-third chapter of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire click, one of George's favourite works, one he reread several times from volumes he treasured. Any privately educated person worth their salt (!) would have a comprehensive knowledge of Gibbon's Decline and Fall, and would have treasured copies on their bookshelf, as a sort of badge of culture and right-mindedness.
George would have been mortified to know his knowledge of ecclesiastical matters was so publicly awry, mixing up his deacons with his priests. I suppose we can assume lack of access to the British Library was to blame for that one. Maybe if he had chance to get a first draft finished he would have had an opportunity to rethink it, but it may also be a sign of his waning powers of recall or even concentration. But, it is a serious error in a book that seeks to place itself so firmly into historic events - even an historic novel needs to be truth, much as a biography of a writer needs to be historically accurate, even if that biographer can't be relied on for impartiality.
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| The Last Day of Pompeii by Karl Bryullov 1833 |
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