Commonplace 210 George & Writing.

'Loneliness is a cloak you wear...' sang the Walker Brothers in 1966 click

Loneliness by Hans Toma c 1900

Writing is generally a solitary occupation. Though many a good book must have been written with others in the room, the archetype of the writer as a single soul battling to communicate a story or an idea in solitude is what we run to when we think of the role - though it is difficult to think of Shakespeare or Boswell shacked up in their garrets eschewing company. Nowadays, writing using digital media means anyone can write anywhere - though I am sat here in isolation so as to be able to concentrate, access my resources, and make some coffee whenever I choose.

George seems to have been a self-indulgent, temperamental, over-sensitive soul not really cut out for any job of work, inasmuch as work generally requires rubbing shoulders with fellow humans. Its not them as physical bodies that is so challenging, its the adapting to their funny little ways. George did not do 'adapting' and was intolerant of others' 'funny little ways'. People, as a concept, generally left him wanting - he felt superior in intellect to most people he met (he moved in quite a narrow circle haha), was not good at small talk, and had no conscious fondness for gossip - though he enjoyed it surreptitiously by dressing it up in his letters as 'information' - news passed on, is still gossip when it involves others' doings. He refused social invites but that was an attention-seeking pose more than a reflection of his 'genius', as, by declining, he made a bid for that dratted 'sympathy' he so craved, plus pointed the finger of blame at either Marianne aka Nell or Edith so that others would not hold his foibles against him.

Solitude Idyll
by Sir Frederick Leighton 1881-3

It was as if he chose the trade of writing as a solution to his misanthropic tendencies - few jobs offer greater opportunities for being alone and provide less chance of coming up against people you don't like. The downside, of course, was the crucifying loneliness he claimed to feel, though this is somewhat over-stated, and will be forever linked to his sexual longings for sexual company. Did he really feel lonely in other ways? He liked socialising when he chose the time and the place - his Letters are peppered with requests to meet up, suggestions his wider family relocate to be closer, and the futile attempts he makes to lure Algernon into his geographical circle (all rebuffed, as Algernon had more sense than to move in with George unless he had to very briefly for practical reasons). But always on his own terms - which is the way he did everything, especially the unheroic stuff.

Wives were not really welcome in his domestic set-up because they got under his feet too much, and children, well, they had better not be too demanding. Guests such as Eduard Bertz and Morley Roberts were welcome in strictly controlled chunks of time, and Herr Plitt was allowed entry to the inner sanctum on occasion, but all three were men George felt intellectually superior to, so they would have not been too threatening for his fragile ego defences. It was also what helped keep him lonely - no wife can compensate a writer when the writer is so miserable whilst they are writing about misery.

George seems forever trapped in the late adolescent pose of suffering solitude; others have to come and find him - like he is a buried treasure they must excavate. Actual writing as work generally lays him low, he develops his man flu and 'seediness' - his term for feeling below par - and every word is wrenched out of him as an act of exorcism, more than a product of creative flow. The mental exhaustion he feels both during and at the end of the process that makes you wonder if it was all worthwhile - and maybe he should have found some other form of employment, if only for the sake of his health. A 'square peg in a round hole' might be the phrase used for one so woefully misplaced in their choice of profession. This is said out of meanness - much of George's personal unhappiness and dissatisfaction with his life can be laid at the door of his chosen profession. But he was not well-equipped for any other job; he hated teaching, and would have always hated it. He was not a physical type, he lacked people skills, and detested the sort of pen-pushing desk jockey he mocked in his novels and short stories. Shopwork? - imagine that! He lacked the patience or generosity of spirit for that.

Automat by Edward Hopper 1927

Work was for him, a form of masochistic therapy. Whatever would he have done without the lash of money-making to keep him focused away from his natural tendency to gloom? His greatest strength was in his ability to read for extended periods (not everyone can do this!), which requires a skills set not easily transferable to other callings. If you add up all the hours he spent reading and then compare them to the hours he spent writing, you will see he did more of the former than the latter. But he got more enjoyment out of the former. It's not just the writing that requires a place of solitude - probably, reading even more so demands we be left in peace. All those days in the British Library 'under the dome' would have required silence and a lot of private head space. It is much harder to feel entitled to interrupt reading - it''s like you break some sort of spell. Whereas, unless you are a writer yourself, you think anyone having to write something lengthy would welcome the diversion of chat. And as the interruptor, you feel you are saving the interuptee from themselves just be selflessly diverting them from their task.

Of course, George was producing 'Art' and this was bound up, in his mind, with suffering. So, not only was writing the ideal occupation for his self-pitying solitary ways, it was an excellent fit with his daft notion that 'there is no gain without pain' where Art is concerned.
Do Artists 'agonize'? Apart from the reaction to the grief of his best friend's suicide, Picasso never claimed to do more than work very hard. Did the divine Oscar sweat blood over that 'Ernest' play? Is it not true that if a work is such a strain to produce, it can only show in its execution? Not that there isn't hard graft and applied skill involved; it's just the grace of the thing has to be apparent, and the words have to slide off the page and into the brain and soul, without the awareness that you are actually reading something made up. If it was hard to write, it will be hard to read!

Solitude by Guillaume Seignac (not for very long haha)

There is a generally held feeling in psychotherapy that individuals always act in their own interests - even when short-term gains are meagre and long-term consequences negative - then disguise it in order not to appear 'self-centred'. Accordingly, even those who choose altruism (see Commonplace 51 for an overview of Ayn Rand and Objectivism) are acting from self interest, though they cloak it in terms of 'compassion' and 'charity'. George tended to be what might be termed 'selfish' and, in order to justify it, developed a persona of put-upon down-trodden hapless stooge of a husband to two wives, and a misunderstood, under-appreciated novelist who was out of time with what was really wanted by the reading public. It's interesting that, after all the moaning on about loneliness and the awful life he lived without a companion, the moment he moved in with Gabrielle Fleury, he did all he could to give her the slip so he could head off and be on his own. Makes you wonder if it was all part of his cunning plan to be a lonesome his whole life. 

Lonesome George the Galapagos Tortoise (1912-2012), the last of his
sub-species seen here in livelier days. 

Commonplace 209 George & William, & Nell.

On May 17^th 1879, five months before her marriage to George, Marianne aka Nell, went to stay with her ‘brother-in-law’, William in his lodgings at Rose Cottage, Wilmslow, Cheshire. George wanted a break from caring for her, a duty he always resented having to do because it forced him to focus his energies onto someone other than himself. He blamed Nell for her illness, the worst element of which was her epilepsy, and very quickly decided he wanted to be rid of her. If you've been sold the notion he martyred himself to care for her - think again. George did all he could to farm her out to hospitals and to live with paid carers; this little holiday with William was right at the beginning of this process. William was a resource he exploited, for his own gains rather than exclusively for Marianne's benefit, so that he could spend time on his writing and doing the sort of thing he wanted to be doing with no dependent to look after. He demonstrated a very similar attitude to his children, getting them out of the way whenever he could and even kidnapping Walter to send to Wakefield against his second wife's wishes, so that the burden of fatherhood wouldn't encumber him.  

Tristan and Iseult by Edmund Blair Leighton 1902

William obviously got on well with Marianne, which, if we were gullible enough to believe all that George's biographers write, would seem to be a nigh on impossible thing for any decent chap to be capable of. They shared a love of music, not George's snobby stuff, with its emphasis on judging it in terms of good or bad Art, but with simple heartfelt appreciation. William would have found a rapt audience for his violin, and he enjoyed performing and liked social company, so entertaining at home would have come naturally to him. Marianne had a fine speaking voice - as reported by one of George's relatives who knew her (I bet that shocked you!) and so she may have accompanied his playing with singing. As her strength improved, they enjoyed walks together, and reading poetry. One of Marianne's favourites may have been Thomas Hood's The Last Rose of Summer, which was set to a traditional Celtic air (click to hear it). Maybe this was because they were staying at Rose Cottage.

The Blind Girl by John Everett Millais 1854-56

It is worth stopping and thinking about the significance of this short holiday, for what it tells us about William's character, and what it possibly suggests about Marianne's. I do not subscribe to the lie that Marianne aka Nell was ever a prostitute. There is no evidence for it, and, considering the times in which she lived, with its focus on vice and retribution for vice, there would have been evidence of arrests, charges and penalties for soliciting - and there aren't any. George makes no reference to it, either. There was no evidence in September 1883 when George was duped into hiring a 'detective' to spy on her with the view to making a case for divorce, despite the 'detective' being a police sergeant who was well-paid to follow her, observe her behaviour, and report back all misdemeanours. In spite of his efforts and being in the sort of place where searching through police records was a possibility, and regardless of speaking to her neighbours, local publicans and sundry shop-keepers, the man could not find anything untoward in Marianne's life -  except for dire poverty, loneliness and the effects of neglect by a husband too selfish to live with her.

No doubt Nell and William bonded over their shared health concerns, and their determination to get well. William was a firm believer in the restorative effects of good food and relaxation, and Nell certainly benefited from having decent meals and not the starvation rations George made them subsist on. William will have had a good idea of how difficult to live with George could be, and no doubt hoped to restore whatever inner strength she had to cope with living with such a critical and demanding partner. But, would William have responded as emotionally freely as he did to Marianne if he had thought she was ever a prostitute or an alcoholic? 

Peace Concluded by John Everett Millais 1856

Even as a gesture extended to a legal sister-in-law, this holiday was a huge commitment, and indicative of William's innate human decency, compassion and unselfishness. Although he was a young man who was not in any way officially 'bohemian', William was a person not afraid to think for himself, and follow his own philosophy of life to the extent of acting on his beliefs, in practical ways. He did not feel uncomfortable with Nell's social class, which makes me wonder if her lowly status has been over-hyped by far from impartial biographers. Whatever Marianne's origins - and these are still a mystery - she must have passed inspection by the landlady, a woman determined to maintain the good name of her establishment - the seat of her financial security. Nell must have been accepted as a believable sister-in-law of posh William. When you read that Marianne was a destitute whore plucked from the mean streets of Manchester by an heroic redeemer - think again!

William gave regular updates on the state of Nell's health, and her recovery. He wrote to George detailing four episodes of convulsions on the first night of her stay, which he attends personally with his landlady. Over the next few weeks, he feeds Marianne up – much as the Wells’ do with George in 1900 and 1901 – and makes sure she enjoys herself. The change of environment, tasty food and free and easy occupation work their magic on Marianne, and the fits tapered off. When she began to pine for George, William had to put a good deal of pressure on him to join them for a few days, reminding his brother how much Nell would get out of such a visit.  

Marianne eventually had to go back to London and her man. She had been caring for him long-distance by reminding him (in William's letters) to water the plants and telling him where his socks were, Not unexpectedly, the fits returned when she got home. Stress seemed to trigger the worst of her convulsions, and we will never know how much she suffered under George's dominion. We know he displayed Sado-masochistic tendencies especially where women were concerned, and it would take a woman in robust physical and mental health to withstand him. That he never married a woman who was his equal in terms of match weight (to borrow a boxing term) intellectually, meant he could decimate them in the field of debate - and recall the way Waldron exults his superior physical strength over Phyllis in the posts on George & The Honeymoon - see Commonplaces 107 and 108). He liked tiny women with frail, consumptive aspects - though he was not afraid to wield a big stick or a metal stair rod, if HG Wells' son, Anthony West is to be believed, and if a letter to his brother, Algernon, isn't the joke people take it to be. He tended to think in Darwinian terms about women and with those of a lower social class - with women and the poor being, in his mind, little more than beasts of the field. 

The Long Engagement by Arthur Hughes 1859

After returning home to George, Marianne maintains her affectionate relationship with William by asking to be remembered to him in George's letters, adding her own notes, and making needlework gifts, including a violin case. In April 1880, when William finally succumbed to pulmonary TB, Marianne must have been distraught. When his personal effects were being divided amongst the Gissings, Marianne asked for a small poetry book that she was very fond of. It is described erroneously in the Heroic biography Vol 1 as The Junior Book of Poetry, for Schools and Families edited by William Davis - no doubt to insinuate that Marianne was simple-minded and couldn't have appreciated anything but children's verse - but it was (see illustration), The Book of Poetry for Families and Schools - available here for free click. It was a collection of the very best in contemporary poetry, with an emphasis on life-affirming and uplifting, accessible verse. It contains the Thomas Hood poem 'Tis The Last Rose of Summer. William was a few days dead when George wrote this to Algernon:

Kindest regards from Nell. She has had a recurrence of very severe fits lately. By the bye, she says she should extremely like, as a memento if Will, who was so kind to her, that little Davis' Poetry Book he had. Do you think she could have it sent to her some day?

 

Her champion had gone and Marianne aka Nell was truly alone in the world. I wonder if she realised her own days were numbered? William did such extraordinary things with his short and never easy life, and he behaved with decency, generosity and modesty. George's biographers have him down as some sort of priggish, dull Mr Normal, but he really was a very exceptional chap who turned words into actions and made his own way despite his disadvantages. Unlike his older brother, he did not think the world owed him anything. In a multiverse/parallel universe click I hope he is living with Marianne and both are in the pink, in an existence full of music and happiness.   

When George wrote to Algernon on August 8th 1881 he mentioned the gravestone put up for William: 'I am glad to hear you like the memorial which has been put up at Wilmslow. The very plainest & simplest in such cases is always the best, if there must be one at all. I personally should prefer none at all, but that is a matter of opinion & sentiment.'  We learn from the editors' footnotes that William's gravestone read: 'William Whittington Gissing - Died April 16th 1880 - aged 20 years.' 

George did not pay for a headstone for Marianne; this has been left to her well-wishers to provide. The cemetery is in Blackshaw Road, Lambeth. Her grave number is 731 3J CONS.

Commonplace 208  George & His Brother William PART TWO

On May 17^th 1879, five months before her marriage to George, Marianne aka Nell, went to stay with her ‘brother-in-law’, William in his lodgings at Rose Cottage, Wilmslow, Cheshire. 

Rose Cottage

In William's day, Wilmslow was a medium-sized village with regular transport links to Manchester, a prime place for commuters to live far removed from that city's terrible dirt and industry click. Nowadays, Wilmslow is one of the most prestigious addresses in the north of England, the home of the nouveau riche, footballers and celebrities and is a sort of Northern version of Loughton click minus the Southern charm. (I would say that, as I am a Southerner haha) However, it is also renowned as the place where Alan Turing committed suicide in 1954, following the homophobic harassment he received at the hands of the misguided British Establishment.

This little holiday was meant to improve the state of Marianne's health, but was mainly to give George a break from his role of carer. William, no stranger to illness himself (pulmonary tuberculosis had forced him to abandon working in a bank), demonstrated a marked degree of empathy towards Marianne, providing her with what might have been one of the happiest times of her life, if not in fact, the last happy time.

 

Adlington Road

Marianne suffered from scrofula, the glandular form of tuberculosis. George's letters to Algernon and William explain how this manifested itself - convulsions, rheumatism, abdominal neuralgia, haemoptysis (spitting blood); tonsillitis, congestion; insomnia; tumours on her arm and face; toothache; ‘erysipelas-like’ facial lesions; confusion; weight loss; delirium; headache; and serious eye problems. These are, in themselves, debilitating and disabling - Marianne needed someone to care about the outcome of all this suffering, and George was no doubt demonstrating ambivalence, already wishing he could jump ship and leave her to it - which he eventually did, not long after they were legally married. George had taken on the role of carer reluctantly and resentfully, and his letters demonstrate this.

In Marianne’s time, treatment for scrofula was ineffectual, bordering on the iatrogenic. Toxic substances such as antimony; mercury; baryta (bromide); hemlock; belladonna; and opium were prescribed. Ironically, even back in the eighteenth century, these toxic substances were known to produce seizures and neurological damage; in the nineteenth, they  could be bought 'over the counter' in shops such as George's father's chemist's shop (that's a lot of apostrophes!) in Wakefield.  There was the option of surgery to remove the disfiguring pustules but this was often ill-advised as surgical intervention was known to carry the risk of spreading the disease to other organs. There was no cure for it until the advent of antibiotics in the middle of the twentieth century, but drug-resistant strains are now making TB a formidable foe once more, especially in Africa and China.

Though we will never know exactly how spitefully his resentment manifested itself behind closed doors, the callous way George blamed Nell for her own, as well as his, predicament, remains one of George's vilest acts towards her, possibly only topped by the character assassination he regularly visited upon her good name that went on as far as the 1890s and his grovelling relationship with Miss Collet. In order to deflect his own guilt at abandoning his first wife (thereby adding to her great suffering), he destroyed his Diaries up the year 1888, the year that more or less started with her death. This was done to prevent any sympathy going Marianne's way - after all, he couldn't blame his wives for his miserable life if anyone could ever get to know and like them, or maybe sympathise and realise how badly he treated them, could he? No; all sympathy had to go to him, the hard-done by husband paying the doctors' bills and 'caring' for Nell. If it wasn't for George's replies to William's (and, to a lesser extent, Algernon's) letters, we might believe George's finely crafted version of Nell's life. George writes angrily about how her physical condition affects his mental life - he makes no mention of how it affects hers.

At the time of the holiday with Will, it was epilepsy that dominated her health concerns. Epilepsy is a sudden, recurrent episode of sensory disturbance and loss of consciousness generally associated with abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Typical seizures present a range of observable behaviours immediately before unconsciousness sets in. This ‘fugue state’ may bring slurred speech, problems with balance, the appearance of stupefaction, and hallucination-like sensations of touch and sight which may result in bizarre reactions and behaviours. In the classic grand mal fit there is sudden collapse often resulting in injury producing bleeding wounds (particularly to the head), frequently accompanied by disturbing, frightening, sounds as the vocal chords go in to spasm. Unconsciousness follows, then a process of bodily rigidity, writhing movements, possible incontinence, and tongue-biting with bloody frothing saliva. Clothes may have become torn or dishevelled, embarrassing for all when undergarments or intimate body parts are inadvertently displayed. Seizures of the grand mal type are usually single events, but in ‘status epilepticus’ the sufferer does not regain consciousness but returns to restart the fit process perhaps several times. This is often a life-threatening situation due to problems with getting enough air to the lungs. Anyone with, for example, underlying lung disease - such as TB - is particularly vulnerable.

On regaining consciousness there may be confusion and disorientation and the sufferer might exhibit ‘post- seizure automatism’, a situation sometimes leading to potentially socially inappropriate behaviours, such as removing clothes or interacting in an uncharacteristically sexually provocative way with strangers. Belligerence and aggression with swearing and shouting are also possible, pre- and post-seizure. Today, as in George's, more often than not, the ignorant would assume the victim of these attacks is paralytically drunk and so leave the victim possibly suffocating in the street, unable to regain consciousness. We now know there are many forms of epilepsy that produce a broad range of signs and symptoms. The causes of epilepsy are largely still a mystery, but damage to the brain by injury, infection, genetic abnormality, or environmental factors is often a precursor. It is well-known to be exacerbated by stress - Marianne certainly had her fair share of that, living with George.

St Bartholomew's Wilmslow

William was more than sympathetic to her plight - he displayed a degree of empathy that was never at any time to be found in George's make-up. To this was matched the practical application of his own personal philosophy of what contributes to a picture of good health: good personal hygiene, tasty and adequate nutrition and diverting mental stimulation. Added to this was his total belief in PMA - Positive Mental Attitude - for him, there was no more efficacious way for the human body to tackle the adversity of illness. Will may have channelled the philosophy of Samuel Smiles and his 'Self Help' here, but he always believed in facing up to life's challenges, and he was not one to make a health mountain out of a molehill. Being the opposite of George in many ways, he played down the parlous state of his own health and never sought out that dratted 'sympathy' George so cravenly needed. In fact, he would have been embarrassed to find others feeling sorry for him or thinking he was in need of special treatment.

Commonplace 207  George & His Brother, William. PART ONE.

September 15th is William Gissing's birthday. Happy Birthday, Will. click

William aged about 18

On his 17th birthday, William spent the day lathered in sulphur ointment desperately trying to rid himself of a skin disorder that took upwards of three weeks to cure. As sulphur is an ancient and very effective cure for a number of maladies, it isn't possible to know exactly what troubled him, but, his job brought him into contact with new dangers, both from mixing with the general public and maybe with something a young man of slender means might experience - an allergy to money! Believe it or not, you can have such a thing - see click. And you will see here click that the suitable treatment for this was - and is - sulphur.

William wrote long letters to George when the latter was exiled in America. The one he sent on October 29th 1876, gives us some good clues into this pleasant young man's inner workings. He gave George news that he had found digs in the Lancashire village of Withington click within easy travelling distance of Manchester; he lodged with the Clark family, a father and daughter, and one other lodger. He describes it as: we all live together like one family. They are very kind & I am extremely comfortable - which is a very William statement as he is eternally optimistic and a glass half full sort of a chap (unlike you know who!). Even disappointment from the lack of access to the piano (the room where it is situated is let to a German chap) is smoothed over, and he mentions he doesn't over-practise his violin so as not to disturb the neighbours - Of course, I do not think the violin squeaky or disagreeable, but it may be a matter of opinion. His lodgings was in St Paul's Place which was probably very close to the church click and which housed a very good organ he might have been interested to hear - it had been recommended as 'an excellent instrument' by no less than Felix Mendelssohn, the composer.

St Paul's church, Withington, built in 1841. With organ recommended by Mendelssohn.  

William tells George he has joined the local library at the cost of a shilling a quarter, a considerable sum from his meagre wages, but worth it. This was not the purpose-built building we now have (that was built in 1927), but back then, a part of the Withington Public Hall click. As he owns up to a sneaking admiration for the book 'Self Help' by Samuel Smiles, William may well have borrowed it from there. Samuel Smiles in a nutshell can be summed up in one word: Perseverance! For a bit of self help yourself click. For more on some surprisingly famous old Withingtononians click. 

Sir Galahad With An Angel
by Sir Joseph Noel Paton c 1888

Neither of George's brothers are well served by biographers. Algernon is usually portrayed as a sponging inadequate who dragged round George's neck like a wannabe literary albatross. In fact, he was a modestly successful novelist who might have been more widely read if he had been the recipient of effective literary representation. Lack of opportunity must not be confused with lack of ability, and though Algernon's sort of fiction is not popular with today's Gissing snobs, it could well appeal to a wide audience of those who turn to reading as a bit of light relief from the monotony of life. That his work did not find an audience does not mean an audience was not there. George always felt closer to William, almost two years younger. They both seem to have teamed up to regard Algernon as an outsider to their little set, but we mustn't make too much of that. Threesomes in sibling groups are difficult to maintain in terms of equality, and some children find partisanship empowering, especially in times of turmoil and threat. The role of youngest boy meant Algernon was forever the butt of older brother competitiveness, but he was the third child, and so became a master of compromise - see Commonplace 11 for an overview of how place in sibling hierarchy can impact on personality. Neither William nor Algernon valued academic attainment over personal happiness, and neither had a weakness for the false allure of fame. Perhaps, as schoolboys, watching from the sidelines as George crashed and burned cured them of those sorts of ambitions.

William was a proud chap who would have been deeply wounded by the blot on the Gissings' good name brought about by his older brother's prison term, following those thefts at Owens College. He might well have considered he had something to prove above and beyond the usual round of life's achievements, and so working in a bank - which paid him about 16/6d a week - might have seemed like a respectable future. But the meagre pay did not cover his basic expenses - his lodgings (more or less all in) was 18/- a week - and so he needed financial support from his mother. This was not an atypical situation as many young men had to start at the very bottom and hope their drive and dedication would be recognised in pay rises and promotions. Besides, William had plans to supplement his wages with some part-time music teaching. Contrast this with George's attitude to how to solve a problem like being strapped for cash! How long would he have lasted in a bank before dipping his hand in the till!! But, William was a different kettle of fish altogether - from his money-making schemes, you will appreciate how responsible William was, and how diligent in his desire to be independent whilst remaining honest.

Victory by Sir Frank Dicksee c1890

Unlike George, he speaks of wanting to make friends with his fellow-lodgers; he felt lonely at times - the close bonds of the ready-made social group at school was gone, and he missed the company: At present I see no chance to get to know any more people than I do now for I go through precisely the same routine day after day. At 17, this must have been hard to bear, especially if nothing was looming on the horizon, fun-wise, because William was sociable in ways George was not; it also meant his potential for recruiting pupils for his teaching would be limited.

One of William's great disappointments must have been the lack of exposure to music tuition in his very young years - he always felt behind in terms of technique, which he knew has to be hard-wired in childhood in order to be intuitive and truly accomplished. He seems to have discovered his talent for the piano at school, where he often played for the assembled boys. But he was a worker (unlike George!) who did not think the world owed him a living (unlike George), someone who expected his efforts would one day pay dividends.

From references he makes in the Letters to his working conditions, the long hours, the responsibility of the work, it's clear the role did not accurately represent his personal qualities or his need for a creative outlet. But, he was not a quitter and this courageous and dutiful young man, who did not complain much about his lot, looked to the future to make things right for all his hard work. However, he knew that progress through the ranks at the bank were unlikely - again, it was 'who you know' not 'what you know' (which makes a nonsense of thinking meritocracy actually works!). Indeed, William says 'excellence goes for nothing, or very little, perseverance and patience are all that is required. I am already getting up my name for a hard worker (unlike you know who!) & that is a good point gained. But, an advantage to this job was that it provided him with the certainty that, being trusted with other people's money, he was absolved of any larcenous taint (unlike you know who!), and so it might have been a good idea to stick it out. He was given a raise in salary (a stunning £5 per annum!) quite quickly, mainly because of his diligence and willingness to apply himself to any task with good nature and perseverance - Smiles was right, after all.

Portrait of Beethoven by Andy Warhol 1987

When his health began to deteriorate, and the true seriousness of his situation became clear, William seems to become more mature and determined. Too ill to work in a bank, he took up teaching music, but there was a very small gene pool of would-be pupils, and he could not make a living at it. He tried to make a place for himself playing the organ in churches, but a combination of croneyism and lack of 'who you know' contacts finished that dream. It's interesting to note he never went home to Wakefield to find work - perhaps the shame he felt at his brother's disgrace kept him in Lancashire, and safely away from gossip. It would have been easy for Will to go back there - he would have had the support of his family and the benefit of free nursing care - but he heroically struggled on, not wanting to give anyone any trouble and not wanting to be a burden, and, whilst keeping himself independent, trying to live some sort of an ordinary life. When 'heroism' is linked to the Gissing name, it is William who should be so honoured.  

He seems to have been a real gem of a youth, the sort of lad you could bring home to your mother without fear he would let you down, and the sort any mother would encourage a daughter to favour. He was only 17 when he wrote this to George (January 17th 1877):

I am very glad you are settled now, though I hardly expected from your previous letter that it would be as a master; nevertheless I am very glad to hear it, as there seems something in the quiet routine of teaching which is very pleasing - having none of that hardening influence which business has & which even I, I fear, begin to feel already, for ordinary business can produce very little satisfaction, generally having only, for its foundation, that mean money-making spirit which is the bane of the world - no music, no poetry, no love in it, only one everlasting stubborn fight...   

JOIN ME IN PART TWO FOR A LOOK AT WILLIAM'S AFFECTION FOR GEORGE'S FIRST WIFE, MARIANNE AKA NELL.

Commonplace 206  George & The Curse of the Bohemians PART TWO

With more images from Simeon Solomon.

George probably contracted syphilis in his carefree college days, much as many of the bohemian Artists and writers did back in the time before the disease was fully understood - and curable. To some, syphilis was a badge to be worn with pride; Guy de Maupassant, for example said this: My hair is beginning to grow again and the hair on my arse is sprouting. I've got the pox! ... and I'm proud of it... I don't have to worry about catching it anymore, and I screw the street whores and trollops and afterwards I say to them 'I've got the pox'.  Proof, if we needed it, that writers aren't necessarily decent human beings. We can be sure George was less bullish about his - returning home to Wakefield during the first couple of stages of the disease, when the visible signs were rampant and alarming, would have been tricky.

Sleepers and One that Watches 1870

In the academic year 1875/6, George finally moved into accommodation of his own in Manchester - previously, he had been living at his old school in Alderley Edge and doing a daily 30-mile round trip commute. Whatever decided him on this, we can be sure the lure of freedom called. Much has been made of the momentous decision to tackle independence, as if it were a catalyst that kick-started the aberrant behaviour that led to his downfall. In later years, George himself blamed his subsequent criminality on not having any adult supervision when he moved into digs in Grafton Road, Manchester. But, throughout his life, he was fond of not taking responsibility for his bad deeds, and tended to blame others for his mistakes. Lack of backbone was an adult adaptation to adversity, because he hated and feared confrontation. This is why he was so bad at coping with the independent minds of his first two wives. He treated them as if they were seditious deviants - and to him, they were.

Certain biographers assume George was sexless during his adolescence and early manhood. To his main apologist, in between his studies, George ran a one-man socially reforming prostitute-reclaiming task-force without ever experiencing the slightest urge to explore his sexuality or the fragrant charms of his subjects. What do you think? Would a 'normal' 17-year old with no-one supervising his free time, and with reasonable good looks and money to spend, and who was reputed to be a right laugh and a social animal (for the only time in his life haha), turn down the chance to see what it was Shakespeare and Byron had so enjoyed in the complementary gender? Call me old-fashioned (as they say!) but Paleeze! In an age when masturbation was a greater sin than premarital sex, would George have failed to acquaint himself with the joys of female flesh? Not bloomin' likely!

The Evening Star 1871

We can assume this was George's first brush with serious illness. Infamously, syphilis was difficult to diagnose because - well, the skills of doctors varied and their experience of chronic illness was often limited to the relatively small pool of patients who called at the consulting rooms and whatever they presented with. However, the physical sings in a young man will have marked it down as a venereal disease. We tend to think of the skin lesions and suppurating sores of syphilis and think of a victim being forced to remain at home until the worst of the visible signs abated. But some patients had less overt signs of the disease, and their lesions were less damaging. An infection could flare up and die down in 3 weeks leaving the patient weak and debilitated, with the immune system reeling from the bacterium spreading throughout the bodily systems. When this, the primary phase, was over, many assumed they had survived the disease, only to be floored by the secondary phase up to a year later.

George's original disease will have remained dormant, but he could have become reinfected at any time, and undergone the same sort of symptoms with a fresh dose of the disease. We are generally expected to assume he was celibate between wives one and two, and then we read that he was driven mad by sexual frustration during this time. This is given as a reason for his sudden decision to hunt for any female who would agree to marry him. There was never any romance in his relationship with Edith. She was, first and for all time, merely a sex receptacle. It's clear she was physically well right up until the point she became pregnant with her first child, and that the antenatal phase and birth left her weak and debilitated. From the birth of Walter (who was born with some very suspicious lesions and followed the typical fretful and failure to thrive signs of a baby born with congenital syphilis), for several months, she was unwell. Then, within a few weeks of the birth, George had to take Edith for dental treatment to London, As they were living in Exeter at that time, this seems like a very long trip for a few fillings or extractions. However, if Edith had been treated with mercury, her teeth may have required treatment as mercury attacks the mucous linings of the soft tissues - such as the mouth. Many treated with mercury lost all their teeth; some were left with teeth permanently blackened. Now, anyone who thinks George might have caught syphilis from his first wife would do well to read his account of seeing her on her deathbed. He made a point of noting that her teeth were perfect, as perfect as they had been her whole life. Anyone who thinks Nell was an alcoholic would do well to read his account of seeing her on her deathbed. People who have chronic alcoholism and/or syphilis do not die with perfect teeth. 

Edith ended her days in an asylum, having been abandoned by her husband and his family, and her own. There is no evidence that George ever contacted them with news about their children, her erratic behaviour or her decline. He had stolen her from her family and always made them feel unwelcome on the very rare occasions they sought her out. After several years of institutional care, Edith wrote to George's sister to ask her to agree to write to the medical staff is support of her release - but Ellen did not reply. Ellen was the Gissing most like George. 

The Annunciation 1877

In June and September 1906 the notes tell us: Patient has been exceedingly noisy & troublesome on account of her delusions of persecution & visual & auditory hallucinations and her hallucinations cause her to be troublesome. No explanation or description is given of these hallucinations, and so it is difficult to try and fathom what they meant to Edith. But, she is back to responding to them - they are interfering in her life. That really is the definition of mental illness - when your ideas and actions begin to negatively affect your life, it becomes an illness - until then, it is just you being eccentric, my friend! 

We discover on March 15th 1907 that 'her tactile hallucinations seem to have disappeared... In June, 1907, she apparently conceals her hallucinations of touch. Then, in September of that year: complains of electricity in her feet. 

This is one of the most compelling bits of evidence for a diagnosis of general paresis. Why did Edith feel compelled to cover up her hallucinations? Was it a feature of her persecution delusion - she had insight into how the staff would judge them as being more evidence for madness (which is what happened)? Was it because she knew these sensations were real and were associated with the shameful syphilis; that they were never 'hallucinations' at all? Pains in her joints caused by paresis could account for what she is trying to describe - Daudet described his pain using exactly the same thing: 'electricity in the feet'. He writes: 

Warning signs going back a long way. Strange aches; great flames of pain furrowing my body, cutting it to pieces, lighting it up... Also, from that time onwards, pins and needles in the feet, burning feelings, hyper-sensitivity. 

In March 1908, Edith is prescribed potassium bromide. This was a treatment for a variety of ailments, and was known for its sedative effects. However, it was also used in cases of insomnia, headaches, epilepsy. And syphilitic pain. Daudet: Haven't had recourse to morphine for a long time, not since I've been taking bromide... How much I suffered last night in my heel... Varieties of pain. Sometimes, on the sole of the foot, an incision, a thin one, hair-thin...Intolerable pain in the heel...I spend half the night with my heel clasped in my hand...Flashes of pain in the foot...Then,  Bad night, woken with a jolt at three; no actual pain, but highly strung and in fear of pain. 

The Mystery of Faith 1870

We know general paresis has spontaneous remissions and exacerbations. In her book on syphilis click, Deborah Hayden highlights the tendency for paresis to appear to spontaneously improve without treatment. Was Edith's more 'settled' (as nurses might record in their notes) behaviour a sign of such a quiescent phase? When the worst of the 'psychotic' symptoms eased, insight would return - Edith would begin to realise what was happening, and have a clearer idea of her situation. Hallucinations can be the result of transient trauma to the brain, such as inflammation caused by infection. Inflammation is the process of tissue swelling, and in such a delicate area as the brain, any form of swelling puts pressure on vital functions. Those doubting how this could cause all of Edith's symptoms - have a look here click  

By the time George realised he was going to die of syphilis, he had conned Gabrielle Fleury into being wife number three. Edith was in a mental hospital, and all he could offer Gabrielle was a bigamous, living in sin arrangement. This was his ideal set up for a marriage-like partnership - he could leave her whenever he wanted and run back to England if it all went tits up. He would never have sex with Gabrielle, as she will have drawn the line at that - and her mother would have, too! But she was safe - the tertiary stage of syphilis is not contagious, and so she would never have to face what the previous two wives had suffered.

Commonplace 205  George & The Curse of the Bohemians PART ONE

With pictures from Simeon Solomon (1840 - 1905).

The Bride, Bridegroom and Sad Love
by Simeon Solomon 1865

'Nothing but terror and despair at first; then, gradually, the mind, like the body, adjusts to this appalling condition.' So said French author Alphonse Daudet when he was describing his experience of syphilis. He had contracted the disease very young, at age 17, when he was mixing with the bohemians of the demi-monde of Paris, not from a lady of the night, but from a posh woman who worked at the French Imperial court. Towards the end of his life, the agony of syphilitic bones made Daudet's life a misery, though he did his best to always seem to the outside world as cheerful and phlegmatic - unlike George, who was a wimp whenever he was ill. Daudet's struggle with syphilis is wonderfully imagined in Julian Barnes’ translation of notes made by Daudet, published in 2002 as ‘Alphonse Daudet: In the Land of Pain’.

Daudet was one of George’s favourite writers, for his simple way of expressing observations he made of villagers and farm workers, more than what he wrote of the life he lived beside a full range of intellectuals with whom he associated. When George heard of his death in 1897 (he was on holiday in Italy), he wrote in his Diary (December 18th) that Daudet was as great a writer as Dickens – which is the way I am choosing to interpret what he actually wrote: The Italian paper tells me today of the death of Alphonse Daudet. It is a most remarkable coincidence that he fell down senseless at the dinner table (7.30 pm.) – thus completing the resemblance of his life to that of Dickens. It is characteristic of George that he has little to say by way of a eulogy; he never really praised anyone he saw as competition. 

A little flavour of George doing his best to copy Daudet can be heard in ‘The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft’ (1903), though without fully capturing either the charm of Daudet or the affection with which the Frenchman regarded his fellow humans. See Daudet’s ‘Letters From My Windmill’ (1869) to see the writer George could never be but would have settled for. 

Study of a Girl 1873

George would have known that Daudet suffered from syphilis and died of it – after all, he followed the cultural doings of the French and prided himself on his knowledge of all things literary, and Daudet’s illness followed the same fate suffered by Jules de Goncourt, Flaubert, Maupassant and Baudelaire. By late 1897, George was fighting a losing battle with his own disease. His journey to Italy gives us one of the best accounts of this, when he took to his bed at Cotrone, and was treated by Dr Enrico Sculco with quinine, a drug we now associate with malaria, but which was used in the days before effective antibiotics to treat symptoms of paretic fever. All of the paretic manifestations George experienced – skin rashes, joint pains, fever, delirium and malaise, suffered for a short intense period are all symptomatic of paresis. And Dr Sculco knew this.   

After George's death, when his second wife, Edith, was committed to Fisherton House asylum, it was the ravages wrought on her mind by syphilis – and the nightmare of living with George and his controlling, hard-hearted cruelties – that undid her. Information about Edith's time at Fisherton Asylum is to be found in the Gissing Journal of July 2010 (Volume XLVI Number 3) written by Anthony Petyt.

The Fisherton House Asylum records (Anthony Petyt discovered) show clinical reviews every three months - these would have been the doctor's notes. Nursing notes on patients' care and treatment would have been made weekly, at least, usually on a Sunday, but all kinds of basic things would be recorded by nurses, including weight measurement, bowel movements (vitally important when nursing epileptic patients!), baths taken, treatments administered (such as wound care and dressings); injuries, doctors' deliberations and examinations, medication given, monthly menses; food and drink taken/refused, visitors received, and pocket money expenditure - all standard depending on hospital policy and the thoroughness of staff to record such happenings. 'Incidents' would be recorded - these would include entries for how compliant vs troublesome the patient was with regard to staff and other patients. Woe betide any patient who pissed off a nurse by handing out too much backchat - it would all be recorded; if a patient attacked a fellow patient, that would be described and logged. If a patient attacked a nurse...that would be dealt with summarily and harshly. It should be remembered, psychiatric nursing was not the noble profession it is today - staff working in institutions then were little more than gaolers and had no real sense of vocation. In Edith's time, of course, some nursing staff were compassionate and caring, but the system was not set up for too much identification with the feelings of the patient - unlike the bedrock of today's more empathetic and humanistic service - but as a form of containment and supervision. For a good understanding of asylums in Edith's time, read Sarah Wise's book: click. Another thing to dwell on - even today, in psychiatry, once a patient is given a diagnosis it is very hard for anyone to change it - or challenge it.

The Angel of Death 1896

What we have to go on, from the Fisherton House notes on Edith, is illuminating, but it needs looking at in terms of definitions and frequency of occurrence of observable signs of illness. However (and this is the voice of experience speaking!), what we have has been recorded by different doctors with differing levels of knowledge and skill in their specialism, some of whom possibly never sat and spoke to Edith but used nursing notes, and a chat with the ward superintendent over a cup of tea and a finger biscuit, as references. Or, they might read the previous doctor's entry, and add odd comments, with their rationale being: 'Well, this patient has an intractable condition; she won't have changed much since last quarter, will she?' and just cut and paste what was previously in the file. 

Superficially, it looks impossible to pick apart the Fisherton notes and make any sort of a diagnosis - so some might assume Edith was just 'mad' - that dreadful, powerfully negative term now rightly out of use. But, we can find clues even in these brief entries - some of them amount, in the Gissing Journal's rendering to five words for three months' reflections on doctors' expert observations! 'Seems well' or 'seems unchanged' were frequent comments recorded by doctors almost habitually when I was a mental health nursing practitioner. 

 

Untitled 1905

From the time of her admission (to Fisherton House) September 1904, and through to June 1905, Edith was described as excited, deluded, threatening and dangerous and violent.  We might take 'excited' as meaning hyper-manic or over-active, or even anxious. But, some people are highly strung by nature and 'live on their nerves', as they say in common parlance. However, this can also be a symptom of paresis (see below). Delusions are false beliefs or erroneous translations of internal thoughts or memories which become confused in the mind. They are not lies - the patient believes them to be true. In Edith's case, she maintained George Gissing was her husband - which he had been, so it is an example of  how the people in charge of her care had little understanding of her as a real person. It also highlights how dangerous it is to jump to conclusions about what you think you understand about a patient's mind. Edith also thought he was still alive as she may not have known he was dead. So, her delusions are not entirely false beliefs, are they? 'Threatening and dangerous' sounds much worse than it probably was - based on the fact Edith did not do much damage to anyone - or it would have been recorded in the notes. I seriously doubt if she was 'dangerous and violent' to any degree (any more than any of us might be when detained against our wishes and surrounded by demented people) - again, there would have been serious repercussions to this sort of behaviour and she would have been medicated or 'dealt with' to suppress this sort of behaviour by order of the medical staff. If it is not recorded, it must have been trivia, because anyone injured could claim 'danger money', still an aspect of psychiatric pay even today. Besides, 'dangerous', used here, is meaningless - unless we are told in which way she is dangerous, it could mean anything and nothing. Generally, any threats to staff are treated with a zero tolerance approach - and patients tend to be penalised either legitimately, or in underhand ways. If Edith was free to move around the ward, and if she wasn't restrained by any manual restraint (straitjacket, etc) she can't have been that much of a handful. 

As Edith tended to be a bit verbal, she probably specialised in spoken insults and sarcasm. Before the days of the 'liquid cosh' click, physical punishment was meted out behind closed doors, and solitary confinement and restrictions were used to penalise troublesome people. Unless Edith was punished - which would normally have been recorded in the incident log - the chances are she was never much of a challenge, except for being stubborn and uncooperative. However, it must remembered, being stubborn and uncooperative amounts to making a stand against perceived tyranny, and most persons committed to an institution against their will feel aggrieved and persecuted, so anyone who makes a stand is considered a troublemaker. Edith always stood up to George's bullying, even though it didn't get her far, but she was no shrinking violet (unlike Marianne aka Nell had been), but her rebellion was just another thing George hated about her. However, any patient who tried to claim they were being bullied or abused by staff would be accused of... what else but a persecution complex! 

Something happens in or about June 1905. Edith is described as quieter and better behaved since the last note but continues full of delusions, will not believe her husband is dead, says she got carbolic acid in her tea previous to coming here, etc. In the September, she is described as obstinate and troublesome at times... in the December: Has quite a depressed air, states that she tasted carbolic acid in her tea, that her husband is in this asylum & that he writes on the ward door. As the tea claims involve the sense of taste - which is an external-stimulus response - the chances are this might have been an hallucination, not a delusion. Hallucinations are based on sensory input being wrongly processed either physically (by an altered or abnormal brain) or cognitively. However, carbolic acid as a disinfectant in hospitals was becoming standard in the early 1900s and was of particular interest to psychiatric settings as it masked the smell of urine. Patients who were 'difficult', in terms of behaviour, were often housed with others who were difficult - and many of these would have been incontinent of urine and faeces. Carbolic acid 'gets in the mouth', as we call it, and produces an aftertaste - as strong odours tend to do. Maybe that smell is what tainted the tea - to Edith's taste buds? Smell is the last sense to die - and it is, therefore, the strongest to persist in memory. This sort of instant diagnosis of signs that could have alternate significance illustrates how easy it is for staff to make diagnostic pronouncements that could by counter-productive or iatrogenic because they are just plain wrong. 

JOIN ME IN PART TWO TO SEE HOW EDITH ENDED HER DAYS.