7 ms·

Charles Dickens on being unhappily married (1858)

45 points by samclemens 11y ago

feintruled 11y ago
Note his forceful denials of an affair at the end, which we now know to be false. Of course, he couldn't possibly admit to such a thing back then, but it does make you doubt the rest of the account.
- nightspirit 11y ago
  Reputation damage control. Same with telling the wife to stay with him even though neither of them saw any benefit in it, the children were already cared for by their aunt and Dickens was apparently "cared for" by a lover.
- tlb 11y ago
  Citation for the affair? Wikipedia gives only weak evidence for them living together after the separation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens#Middle_years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens#Middle_years
  - nightspirit 11y ago
    And if you click the "Ellen Ternan" link there you will see that they lived together for 10 years and are even suspected of having a child (who died early).
    - gjm11 11y ago
      Yeah, but he wrote this before he and his wife separated. Living with Ellen Ternan for ten years after that isn't good evidence that they had an affair before it.
  - feintruled 11y ago
    There was a recent biography of Dickens by Claire Tomalin that went into some detail, or online I found this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/3554534/The-secret-affair-that-almost-ruined-Dickens.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/3554534/The-se...
- zeveb 11y ago
  > Note his forceful denials of an affair at the end, which we now know to be false. Do we? Do we know that an affair (as opposed to an unconsummated infatuation) existed at the time of the letter, as opposed to later? A quick googling indicates that Miss Ternan may or may not have returned his affections. Despite what various public figures would have one believe, it is possible (if not terribly probable) to resist temptation…
bshimmin 11y ago
This part rather struck me: In the manly consideration toward Mrs. Dickens which I owe to my wife, I will only remark of her that the peculiarity of her character has thrown all the children on someone else. I do not know — I cannot by any stretch of fancy imagine — what would have become of them but for this aunt, who has grown up with them, to whom they are devoted, and who has sacrificed the best part of her youth and life to them. It perhaps makes sense in a Victorian context, but today you might wonder, well, why he didn't look after the children himself?
- golemotron 11y ago
  > It perhaps makes sense in a Victorian context, but today you might wonder, well, why he didn't look after the children himself? The kids were taken care of. We're all better off that he was able to make the time to write as prolifically as he did.
- d4nt 11y ago
  When I first read "the manly consideration toward Mrs. Dickens" I thought he was talking about sex. Having assumed that meaning, the next part about how her sister raising the children seemed to suggest that they had not had sex and that the children were not Mrs Dickens's. But I think I was wrong because, he then goes on to strongly deny having an affair. Why hint at one affair, then deny another.
  - bshimmin 11y ago
    I think he meant "manly consideration" in the sense of "It would not be fitting of a man (read: gentleman) to make disparaging remarks about his wife in public". Perhaps I'm totally wrong though.
    - aaronem 11y ago
      That's what he meant.
- agarden 11y ago
  It seems to me unlikely that he expected his wife to do everything for the kids. Having a nurse was common in those days. The complaint seems to be that his wife did nothing for the kids. His wife also wasn't earning any money, presumably. So Dickens had to work to provide for everyone. Also, they had ten kids.
padobson 11y ago
Marriage requires time, energy, empathy. It requires mental, physical, emotional and spiritual support. A successful marriage forces two people to put the success of the marriage above their individual successes. No institution that I know of forces an individual to abandon selfishness so completely. For it to work, individuality itself needs to be abandoned. So it's not really surprising that so many talented, ambitious people have had failing marriages.
- maratd 11y ago
  > Marriage requires time, energy, empathy. Yes! As do all things. If you're not willing to commit the time, energy, and empathy necessary to get a cooperative task done, don't start it. > It requires mental, physical, emotional and spiritual support. No! Co-dependence is the path to ruin. This is very different from empathy and rendering help. Don't be a crutch for anyone else. Ever. > A successful marriage forces two people to put the success of the marriage above their individual successes. No no no! This is the path to misery and unhappiness. Your interests should coincide! They should be mutually shared! The success of any partnership is based on common interests, not on the partners selflessly making themselves miserable for the sake of some perceived interest of the other party. Always pursue your own happiness. A healthy marriage is where you can make the other person happy by doing just that. > For it to work, individuality itself needs to be abandoned. Absolutely not! This sort of romantic nonsense plays well on Disney movies, but doesn't work in real life. You'll just make yourself miserable, then you'll make your partner miserable, then your kids, and then everyone else in your family. Absolutely take care of yourself FIRST. If you don't take care of yourself and your needs, you can't take of anyone else! Nobody needs a useless, moping wreck of a person who is always depressed. Take care of yourself, then take care of others. It works the same way as those emergency instructions you see on a plane. Put your mask on first. If you're not breathing, you can't help anyone else by definition. > So it's not really surprising that so many talented, ambitious people have had failing marriages. So many talented, ambitious people have failed marriages because they over-think things. They go on the Internet and read stupid posts. Normal people don't do that!
  - ryanwaggoner 11y ago
DanBC 11y ago
On a slight tangent: Darwin's children drew vegetable battles on the manuscript of On the Origin of Species. http://theappendix.net/blog/2014/2/darwins-children-drew-vegetable-battles-on-the-origin-of-species http://theappendix.net/blog/2014/2/darwins-children-drew-veg...
- kraftman 11y ago
  Just a slight tangent.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Sorry - I have no idea how I misread the title so badly. I'd delete this but I've missed the window.
bubalus 11y ago
> I have uniformly replied that she must bear our misfortune and fight the fight out to the end, that the children were the first consideration, and that I feared they must bind us together in “appearance.” I'm curious as to what he actually said to her. Nobody talks to their spouse in such a stuffy way, even if they are estranged.
- civilian 11y ago
  Have you read the Pickwick Papers? It wouldn't surprise me if Dickens did speak that stuffily.
civilian 11y ago
This really just reminds me how much I hate Dickens' writing style. He adds unnecessary lists in the middle of sentences which distracts the reader, and adds little unrelated remarks that distracts from the point of an individual sentence. As part of my humanities requirement I took a "modern english novels" class in college. Little did I know that literature departments have an erroneous definition of modern.
JWSJ 11y ago
Is there an explanation for the "peculiarity of her character?"

45 points by samclemens 11y ago

Note his forceful denials of an affair at the end, which we now know to be false. Of course, he couldn't possibly admit to such a thing back then, but it does make you doubt the rest of the account.

nightspirit 11y ago
Reputation damage control. Same with telling the wife to stay with him even though neither of them saw any benefit in it, the children were already cared for by their aunt and Dickens was apparently "cared for" by a lover.
tlb 11y ago
Citation for the affair? Wikipedia gives only weak evidence for them living together after the separation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens#Middle_years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens#Middle_years
- nightspirit 11y ago
  And if you click the "Ellen Ternan" link there you will see that they lived together for 10 years and are even suspected of having a child (who died early).
  - gjm11 11y ago
    Yeah, but he wrote this before he and his wife separated. Living with Ellen Ternan for ten years after that isn't good evidence that they had an affair before it.
- feintruled 11y ago
  There was a recent biography of Dickens by Claire Tomalin that went into some detail, or online I found this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/3554534/The-secret-affair-that-almost-ruined-Dickens.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/3554534/The-se...
zeveb 11y ago
> Note his forceful denials of an affair at the end, which we now know to be false. Do we? Do we know that an affair (as opposed to an unconsummated infatuation) existed at the time of the letter, as opposed to later? A quick googling indicates that Miss Ternan may or may not have returned his affections. Despite what various public figures would have one believe, it is possible (if not terribly probable) to resist temptation…

bshimmin 11y ago

This part rather struck me: In the manly consideration toward Mrs. Dickens which I owe to my wife, I will only remark of her that the peculiarity of her character has thrown all the children on someone else. I do not know — I cannot by any stretch of fancy imagine — what would have become of them but for this aunt, who has grown up with them, to whom they are devoted, and who has sacrificed the best part of her youth and life to them. It perhaps makes sense in a Victorian context, but today you might wonder, well, why he didn't look after the children himself?

golemotron 11y ago
> It perhaps makes sense in a Victorian context, but today you might wonder, well, why he didn't look after the children himself? The kids were taken care of. We're all better off that he was able to make the time to write as prolifically as he did.
d4nt 11y ago
When I first read "the manly consideration toward Mrs. Dickens" I thought he was talking about sex. Having assumed that meaning, the next part about how her sister raising the children seemed to suggest that they had not had sex and that the children were not Mrs Dickens's. But I think I was wrong because, he then goes on to strongly deny having an affair. Why hint at one affair, then deny another.
- bshimmin 11y ago
  I think he meant "manly consideration" in the sense of "It would not be fitting of a man (read: gentleman) to make disparaging remarks about his wife in public". Perhaps I'm totally wrong though.
  - aaronem 11y ago
    That's what he meant.
agarden 11y ago
It seems to me unlikely that he expected his wife to do everything for the kids. Having a nurse was common in those days. The complaint seems to be that his wife did nothing for the kids. His wife also wasn't earning any money, presumably. So Dickens had to work to provide for everyone. Also, they had ten kids.

padobson 11y ago

Marriage requires time, energy, empathy. It requires mental, physical, emotional and spiritual support. A successful marriage forces two people to put the success of the marriage above their individual successes. No institution that I know of forces an individual to abandon selfishness so completely. For it to work, individuality itself needs to be abandoned. So it's not really surprising that so many talented, ambitious people have had failing marriages.

maratd 11y ago
> Marriage requires time, energy, empathy. Yes! As do all things. If you're not willing to commit the time, energy, and empathy necessary to get a cooperative task done, don't start it. > It requires mental, physical, emotional and spiritual support. No! Co-dependence is the path to ruin. This is very different from empathy and rendering help. Don't be a crutch for anyone else. Ever. > A successful marriage forces two people to put the success of the marriage above their individual successes. No no no! This is the path to misery and unhappiness. Your interests should coincide! They should be mutually shared! The success of any partnership is based on common interests, not on the partners selflessly making themselves miserable for the sake of some perceived interest of the other party. Always pursue your own happiness. A healthy marriage is where you can make the other person happy by doing just that. > For it to work, individuality itself needs to be abandoned. Absolutely not! This sort of romantic nonsense plays well on Disney movies, but doesn't work in real life. You'll just make yourself miserable, then you'll make your partner miserable, then your kids, and then everyone else in your family. Absolutely take care of yourself FIRST. If you don't take care of yourself and your needs, you can't take of anyone else! Nobody needs a useless, moping wreck of a person who is always depressed. Take care of yourself, then take care of others. It works the same way as those emergency instructions you see on a plane. Put your mask on first. If you're not breathing, you can't help anyone else by definition. > So it's not really surprising that so many talented, ambitious people have had failing marriages. So many talented, ambitious people have failed marriages because they over-think things. They go on the Internet and read stupid posts. Normal people don't do that!
- ryanwaggoner 11y ago

DanBC 11y ago

On a slight tangent: Darwin's children drew vegetable battles on the manuscript of On the Origin of Species. http://theappendix.net/blog/2014/2/darwins-children-drew-vegetable-battles-on-the-origin-of-species http://theappendix.net/blog/2014/2/darwins-children-drew-veg...

kraftman 11y ago
Just a slight tangent.
DanBC 11y ago
Sorry - I have no idea how I misread the title so badly. I'd delete this but I've missed the window.

bubalus 11y ago

> I have uniformly replied that she must bear our misfortune and fight the fight out to the end, that the children were the first consideration, and that I feared they must bind us together in “appearance.” I'm curious as to what he actually said to her. Nobody talks to their spouse in such a stuffy way, even if they are estranged.

civilian 11y ago
Have you read the Pickwick Papers? It wouldn't surprise me if Dickens did speak that stuffily.

civilian 11y ago

This really just reminds me how much I hate Dickens' writing style. He adds unnecessary lists in the middle of sentences which distracts the reader, and adds little unrelated remarks that distracts from the point of an individual sentence. As part of my humanities requirement I took a "modern english novels" class in college. Little did I know that literature departments have an erroneous definition of modern.

JWSJ 11y ago

Is there an explanation for the "peculiarity of her character?"