Dickensians! discussion

GEORGE SILVERMAN'S EXPLANATION

This is the thread to discuss George Silverman's Explanation by Charles Dickens, which is our sixth and final summer read for this year, between 1st and 14th September 2021.

Janelle is the host for this read, so please allow her to comment first. Thanks!

Here is her introduction: LINK HERE for the Opening and first two chapters

Third Chapter LINK HERE

Fourth Chapter LINK HERE

Fifth Chapter LINK HERE

Sixth Chapter LINK HERE

Seventh Chapter LINK HERE

Eighth Chapter LINK HERE

Thanks Jean :)

For anyone who wants to get a head start, the story is available online to read at Gutenberg here :

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/810/8...

Or read where it was first published in January 1868 at The Atlantic
here :

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...

It’s available for free on Apple Books so I assume kindle as well.

If you want a physical copy you can find it in Selected Short Fiction

Hopefully this will be as good a discussion as all the other reads. Hard acts to follow!

I'm looking forward to joining in, Janelle.

This story is also available in the ebook, Charles Dickens – The Complete Short Stories: 190+ Christmas Tales, Social Sketches, Tales for Children & Other Stories (Illustrated): A Christmas Carol, ... Child's Dream of a Star, Holiday Romance….

So far, this book has been exceptional and has included all of our stories (but it is missing The Beguilement of the Boat section in The Wreck of the Golden Mary). It does have the complete story of A Message from the Sea.

Thanks Petra :)

That’s the book I have Petra. I’m very happy with it.

I read that The Atlantic published the story in three parts in their January, February, and March 1868 issues. I'm not sure how many free articles the Atlantic gives non-subscribers each month.

This should be a great story for discussion, Janelle!

I think this story is a mini masterpiece - looking forward to the discussion.

Agreed, Judy. I just finished and will read it again for detail before we begin. It is markedly Dickensian in some respects, and uniquely un-Dickensian in others. Should make for an excellent discussion--great choice!

Thanks Janelle and Petra for the info on where to find it! I’m starting it this weekend. Can’t wait for more wonderful conversation.

George Silverman’s Explanation was one of Dickens’ last pieces of writing. It’s a dark story that initially seems very unDickens-like but has many themes common to much of his work.

It was first published in the Atlantic monthly,and serialised in three instalments. The first instalment appeared in the January 1868 issue.
James T Fields, the editor, paid a thousand pounds for the privilege of printing it a few weeks earlier that Dickens published it in England (in All the Year Round).
This story’s chief claim to fame is how large that payment is for the time!

It has nine chapters (really seven, the first two are false starts).
I thought we could discuss the opening today and then I’d summarise a chapter a day from tomorrow.

So the first and second chapters both begin “It happened in this wise:” and then break off. Just a paragraph each, George doesn’t erase them because “it is not my design to conceal any of my infirmities, whether they be of head or heart.”

Why does Dickens start the story like that? My thoughts are that it shows something of George Silverman’s personality. He lacks confidence and self esteem. He also comes across as honest, not wanting to hide anything and it also suggests that his story is hard for him to share.

For me it made it quite clear that it isn’t Dickens speaking. I can’t imagine Dickens being so unsure of himself!

Great intro thanks Janelle. I'll link it to the first comment :)

(The official start date is today by the way, everyone.)

Thanks for the informative introduction, Janelle.

George Silverman feels insecure, and doesn't know how the reader will react to his explanation. He's an innocent person who has been victimized by others in his past. It seems that he doesn't know where to start, how far back in his life to start his explanation. Then he realizes that he has to go back to his early childhood so that the reader will understand him as a person.

I wondered if he is trying to justify his actions to the reader or himself by writing this. It may be cathartic for him to write his explanation. It's self-therapy to write his feelings down on paper.

I also took the beginning to be a form of insecurity. I'm not sure whether it's due to lack of confidence, a difficulty in reliving something, or an uncertainty of opening up to strangers in such a personal way. The start of this tale does come across as someone on a threshold but needing to unload something.

There certainly may be a lack of confidence, but I also felt there was almost a plea to be understood and believed. "I will explain to you what happened, and I will hope that you will not doubt me." I think he is afraid that, even after his explanation, he will be misunderstood.

I think the beginning is always the hardest place to start and he is definitely having trouble with it. Where to start and how. He wants it to be done right but he doesn’t want to misconstrue anything. That shows his honesty. He feels the words he chose are too abrupt and uncouth(clumsy). They lack finesse and this is going to be a sensitive story for him to tell. And the believability for him is important.

I think the stumbling endears him to us right away. We like him for his honesty and his humility, even before we know what his story will be about.

I had trouble with this one. I think I'll read it again.

Third Chapter

George describes his miserable childhood living in extreme poverty in a cellar in Preston. He is a timid child, clearly scared of both his parents. His mother calls him “a worldly little devil” because he wants food, comfort or warmth. He knows almost nothing beyond the cellar as he is locked in if both parents are out. He has overheard his mother saying “she would come into a courtful of houses” if her father, a machine maker at Birmingham, died. When he was alone he would wish for his grandfathers death.

Then a change came. First his mother sickened, and then his father “and then there was only I to give them both water, and they both died.”


What an horrific childhood! George doesn’t give his age but I assume he’s quite young, otherwise he’d have been put to work. No education, no love, no understanding of the outside world. We are left to wonder why his mother is estranged from her clearly wealthy father.

This was very sad to read for me. I had such a strong mental image of his squalid and confined quarters in the cellar, especially when he was locked in alone. The death of his parents was sad, but hardly a loss that will impact him more than the constant berating his mother gives him. Still, Dickens manages to make me feel sympathy for her as well, Mother had the gripe and clutch of poverty upon her face, upon her figure, and not least of all upon her voice. The fact that both parent died "laughing" was sinister and eerie, the kind of thing that would linger in the mind of a child throughout his life.

I'm really enjoying this story. At first I thought the two short chapters were such an odd way to start, and it made me see why Janelle said the story starts out unlike Dickens. But now as I read the third chapter I look back at those first two false starts and think its a very clever way to introduce us to George Silverman's personality.
I agree it was so sad to read the description of George's childhood in the cellar. The way the mother and father laugh at the end is indeed eerie. the strange sound frightened me. It frightened father too and right there I'm feeling a bit of sympathy for even the father.

Bridget wrote: "I'm really enjoying this story. At first I thought the two short chapters were such an odd way to start, and it made me see why Janelle said the story starts out unlike Dickens. But now as I read t..."

Any other pop culture folks out there who were reminded of the little girl in "Interview with a Vampire"? Ouch.

I was so struck by the way the mother called him a “worldly little devil” because children tend to believe what adults say to them. He will believe he is no good for wanting the basic necessities that are survival needs. How sad indeed and this phrase will stay forever in the back of his mind. If we tell children they are good and kind from their infancy, they will grow up believing they are. Poor George has no one left to do that for him.

I was struck by this use of the word “worldly” in a negative sense. At least that seems to be the way he understood it as a child. And then, when involved with the church he did not agree with, being worldly would definitely have been considered a bad way to live. Quite different today.

Yes, I agree about the word ‘wordly’

Worldly, dictionary definition:

1. (of a person) experienced and sophisticated

2. of or concerned with material values or ordinary life rather than a spiritual existence

So being used in the second meaning here, but also seems to be selfish and greedy as well

Yes, I guess it’s the second meaning but with the more negative connotation.

As mentioned, the fact that the father seemed frightened at the laughing had me thinking, too.
The mother would have a "courtful of houses" one day meant she came from money, yet she lived in poverty. Got me wondering how that came about. Was it her marriage to the father? Did the pair have a bad venture that left them penniless? How did she get into this predicament and lifestyle?
Then her negativity towards her child. What caused that? Did he remind her of her father? What's the story between her & her father?
Whatever the back story of this couple is, they left their child in a sad state with a sad and negative state of mind about himself.

This story certainly has set a mood. Dickens knows how to draw us in.

Fourth Chapter

When he’s lifted out of the cellar by two men, the light is so bright. He says he’s hungry and thirsty ‘true to my character of worldly little devil’ and the ring of people ask does he realise his parents are dead. George says he doesn’t know what it is to be dead. They are horrified by him but he continues to eat the food they bring him. Vinegar and camphor are thrown at him.
Then a man called Hawkyard arrives, Mr Verity Hawkyard of West Bromwich. The grandfather has also died. George asks “where’s his houses?” The people are shocked by his “worldliness”.
Hawkyard says he has set up a trust for the boy and worried about infection they discuss what to do with the boy. A police officer takes him to a bare room with a bed where he’s fed and washed (and more camphor and vinegar) until Hawkyard comes for him.
He’s then taken to an old farmhouse ‘to be purified’ called Hoghton Towers where he hopes he will eat well. Hawkyard tells George if he behaves well he will send him to school although he’s not obligated to do it. ‘I am a servant of the lord , George, and I have been a good servant to him (I have!) these five and thirty years. The lord has had a good servant in me, and he knows it.’ This all means nothing to George. George says he’s not sure when he became aware that hawkyard is a member of some obscure congregation where he’s known as brother hawkyard.
George travels by cart to the farm, the first ride in his life. Hoghton Towers is old and decaying. A lot of what he sees he has nothing to compare to. The only thing he knows is poverty.
‘To that time I had never had the faintest impression of beauty.’
“I had had no knowledge that there was anything lovely in this life” He has no higher feelings, like a “mangy wolf cub”


Another harrowing chapter. Poor George, he gets no sympathy from his rescuers or onlookers, there’s no recognition of his obvious trauma.
Brother Hawkyard! This awful sanctimonious man seems to want to be congratulated for taking care of George, and setting up a trust for him. The onlookers approve but as a reader I’m already wondering where the grandfathers wealth is going.

Camphor and burning vinegar are used to try and prevent spread of infections. Medical theory of the day believed that infectious disease was transmitted by odours, and thus if you could dispel the odour you could prevent the disease's spread.

Thanks for the information about the camphor and vinegar. I thought it might be something like that but wondered.

At that time poverty and squalor were still considered to be the fault of the poor and unwashed so I suppose having the “Brother” step in for him was a good deed. It may be that he expected to win a new, and indebted, church member. If he hadn’t been taken away, where could he have gone? Did children on their own go to the workhouse?

The "brother" comes with information that the grandfather is dead and then sets up a "trust" for the boy, which he is quick to say is an act of charity and not something he has to do. The question, of course, is what has become of the grandfather's wealth.

What is really sad is that the boy, himself, asks what happened to "his houses" and is literally ignored. He has lived such a horrible life up to now that even the ride to the farm is an experience for him. He is ignorant of the depth of his situation and also gullible enough to be at the mercy of anyone unscrupulous enough to misuse him.

Poor George! He's too young and unknowing to question anything. The poor child is so deprived that his only thought is of food.

I do not trust Brother Hawkyard. Just where is Grandpa's money going if the Brother doesn't "have to" set up a trust for George? Where's the money being siphoned off to?

I like how Dickens has such a knack for great names. Hawkyard. That's a name not to be trusted. It makes one feel as if constantly watched ("hawk") and it has a feeling of confinement ("yard").

This is quickly becoming a very intense and intriguing story.

Yes, Petra! And, I thought of how the hawks used to descend on the small birds in my yard and destroy them before they knew what was coming. A yard with a hawk is a dangerous place for the innocent.

Sara, that's a great story for bringing home the danger that Hawkyard brings to George. The poor child!!
The lack of food is probably now resolved but Hawkyard has entered his life. One cannot live without food but can one live with Hawkyard?

Petra and Sara, those are such great observations about the name Hawkyard!

Sue, from a quick search I can’t really find definitely what would happen to a child in George’s circumstances. It seems children didn’t go to the workhouse, or an orphanage on their own, someone in authority would have to take them.

Fifth Chapter

Hoghton towers is a centuries old decrepit house. George wanders all over the house, he sees scuffling rats that remind him of the cellar. “How not to be this worldly little devil? how not to have a repugnance towards myself as I had towards the rats?”

There was a girl of similar age in the farmhouse family who sat across from him at mealtimes. He worries about giving her an infection so decides to stay away from her. He thinks of it as a noble act, and begins to feel more human, he spends a lot of time crying when he thinks of his parents. Sylvia, the girl invites George to her birthday party but he says he can’t, in his mind he still needs to protect her. Sylvia and Her family think he’s unsocial and rude. He begins to form a shy disposition and a morbid fear of ever being sordid or worldly.


George is isolating himself in this chapter, but he is starting to recognise his own feelings. It’s quite a sad picture of loneliness. There’s not really a sense of time in this chapter either, I suspect it’s quite a few months have gone by.
Interesting the setting too, a building that dates back centuries and is crumbling.

All linked so far. Great job, thanks Janelle :)

George's first act of self-sacrifice, and it is completely misunderstood by others. So, for his kindness toward Sylvia and the family, he is once more told he is lacking in something essential to fitting in and pushed even further away. This is the essence of loneliness. I also could not nail down the amount of time that has passed, Janelle, but I also feel he is with this family for months--long enough to have bonded, but of course he has not nor have they.

It's sad that George is trying not to be a worldly little devil when food was all that the hungry little boy had asked for in the past. He is too timid to explain why he is staying apart from Sylvia and her friends. But he has no other alternative place to live so he doesn't want to label himself as a carrier of disease.

His deceased grandfather was known to have owned many houses. The description of the old house, which is falling apart and full of rats, is a contrast with what George should have inherited from his grandfather.

If only someone (Hawkyard or the family here at the farmhouse) would have taken the time with George to understand his emotional state after having lived through the ordeal of watching his entire family die after living in a cellar of darkness. Rather, as Sara said, George is completely misunderstood for his selfless act.
He cried for the first time over feeling repugnance toward the rats and equating himself with them and not wanting to feel a disgust for himself. It breaks my heart.
George was happy that he believed he protected Sylvia and the other children from fever he may have but the fact that it was unrecognized as such caused his shy personality to develop even more strongly.

Poor George. His actions are good but no one is paying attention.
This is what can happen when one only looks at the surface of something (in this case, George). Not one person looked at him directly and thought to talk to him about his actions, situation, his past, his thoughts. He was glossed over in every aspect.

What a poor child. I have to admire him, too. For all he's been through, he has positive & good thoughts and doesn't hold malice towards anyone, not even his parents.

The Hoghton Tower in Lancashire was visited by Charles Dickens in 1867, a year before he wrote George Silverman's Explanation. It had been damaged during the Civil War in 1643, so it was crumbling when Dickens visited it.

It has been restored and several online sites have photos. This is the link to Wikipedia's article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoghton...

I got the impression that the family lived in a farmhouse on the property. George explored the stone ruins while he was staying away from the family members so they would not be infected with the fever.

Oh wow, thank you Connie! I just assumed it wasn’t a real place and didn’t search for it.

Janelle, thank you for looking into my thoughts about whether George could have gone to a workhouse.

I find myself wondering how the 19th century audience would read this story. How would they interpret George? Some may have known or been a George. Would they get these subtleties of behavior that we are ascribing to him or are these more modern interpretations? I guess I’m wondering if Dickens was experimenting with this young boy in a pre-psychology world.

Sue wrote: "Janelle, thank you for looking into my thoughts about whether George could have gone to a workhouse.

I find myself wondering how the 19th century audience would read this story. How would they int..."

Sue, that thought of your last sentence was exactly what I was thinking about when I posted earlier. Mental health wasn't even considered yet as something that could be helped.

Dickens is certainly ahead of other writers when looking at the psychology of his characters and how trauma affects them. It’s a very good point, I also wonder what contemporary readers thought of the story. Did they see George the same way the onlookers did, or the family at the farm?

Wow, Connie, thank you for that!

Dickens might be ahead of his time, but I think his audience would definitely have followed that this was psychologically damaging to George...they would simply have called it something different. Most of them had probably experienced or witnessed similar events. They might have understood better why the onlookers and the family reacted the way they did, but I think they would have separated themselves from that by seeing the picture Dickens is painting behind the curtain.

Exactly Lori. I feel like I should know more about this subject already, that I may have read about it before, but the whole area of “mental” or “psychological” health I don’t believe was understood well at all at that time. There were asylums for those deemed unable to live or function in society. This often included women who might suffer from problems their husbands found difficult to cope with. I have wondered what would have happened to me and other women in my family who have severe migraines. How would these have been viewed in the past?

I find this story interesting because it seems to be Dickens creating a profile of character development which plays out from childhood through George’s adult life. Here it’s not through a novel but one story or novella. Here we have the child who has no positive influence. Yes he is provided an education, but he has no one to emulate, no one to confide in, no one to remember with love.

He’s actually an odd child, not one we usually read about. Wouldn’t it be nice to know why Dickens wrote this story.

Sixth Chapter

Brother Hawkyard takes George to school (again saying how good a servant of the Lord he is and how he’ll prosper as his reward for helping George) and tells him to work hard . George does work hard and becomes a Foundation boy, costing hawkyard nothing. He hopes to get a Fellowship to College. Other students think George unsocial both because of his hard work and his poor health.

On Sundays George goes to Hawkyards congregation. George from the start dislikes the gathered Brothers and Sisters but wonders whether it’s his own ‘worldly-devilish spirit’ that stops him appreciating them.
Brother Hawkyard is a popular ‘expounder’ here and usually preaches first. Elderly Brother Gimblet is another preacher who seems to have a grudge against Hawkyard. Both men are drysalters.

George then pledges that everything he writes of these assemblies is the truth.

George finishes school and will go to college. On the next Sunday, Brother hawkyard preaches that he’s a great servant (again). George’s grandfather was a member of the congregation also and he brags about getting George his education.
Brother gimblet then preaches for twenty minutes about looking after the orphan, appropriating his property and not giving him his due. (George in his narration suppresses his ‘sordid’ suspicions)
When George returns to his school he writes a document saying how much he appreciates what hawkyard has done for him (he doesn’t want to give in to selfishness). He takes it to Hawkyards business to give it to him in person. Brother Gimblet is also there because the Brothers are going into partnership and Gimblet would share in the profits. When he reads the letter Hawkyard declares ‘Praise the Lord!’ He reads the letter out loud and Gimblet smiles.
One last visit to the congregation to show he is grateful before going to Cambridge, the brothers preach at George against worldliness and greed (mainly because he doesn’t want to join their congregation).
George never sees them again. Hawkyard dies in a few years and leaves everything to gimblet.

*Drysalters were dealers in a range of chemical products, including glue, varnish, dye and colourings. They might supply salt or chemicals for preserving food and sometimes also sold pickles, dried meat or related items.

Brother Gimblet in his preaching accuses Hawkyard of stealing George’s inheritance, yet he is easily bought off by joining in the theft. Again George decides not to accuse Hawkyard because he believes he has been kind to him. It’s hard to read, he’s so obviously being exploited. But I am glad he refused to join their congregation, in his heart he can see through their hypocrisy.

I found an illustration for this chapter from an 1880 edition of The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Dickens’ incomplete final novel). It’s by Sir Luke Fildes.

Added. I'm quite a bit behind but am so pleased you have chosen such an intriguing story to lead, Janelle. All the comments are great too (thanks Connie!)

I am coming to this late! So many people are ahead of me on this.
My comments were a bit long and rambly, so unzip at your peril.
(view spoiler)[

I am interested, of course, in the very short chapters 1 and 2.

Chapter 1
The key phrase seems to be " how very difficult I find it to begin to explain my explanation."

Chapter 2
How interesting! The same phrase, with the small change given by the addition of emphasis. So there was one explanation he would have given early in life, and now has a different one in mind. Is the third trial to be from a different point, from an "anterior period of my life."
And this is already declared to be another failed attempt, to be followed by a third trial.
This is to be a story told by a flawed teller, with infirmities of head and heart.

Dickens has packed such a lot in to the short enigmatic Chapters 1 and 2!

Chapter 3
Our narrator declares that he will come at the story be degrees, and then describes his experience of his mother coming home -- by degrees. What a lovely device!

Side note - I felt a need to know what "Lanscashire clogs" looked like. If you, too, are curious, I found a great picture (google "A Charming Pair of 19thC Wooden & Leather Pitt Lancashire").

His mother describing him as a "worldly little devil" is so touching. No Tiny Tim here.

And the universal change, with both parents dying laughing -- wow. This is definitely a gothic story!

And it is to be a story of an orphan. Dickens was so fascinated by them: Great Expectations (Pip), Oliver Twist (Oliver), David Copperfield (David), Martin Chuzzlewit (Martin), Bleak House (Esther Summerson).

Chapter 4
The last two paragraphs were especially striking.

"To that time I had never had the faintest impression of duty. ... no higher feelings than we may suppose to animate a mangy young dog or wolf-cub. ... I had never been alone, in the sense of holding unselfish converse with myself. I had been solitary often enough, but nothing better."

So to have been raised this poor makes one not like the reader, and not like George now.

"I lay on my bed in the old farm-house that night, stretched out opposite the narrow mullioned window, in the cold light of the moon, like a young vampire."

I loved the end of this chapter. It helps to have read Dracula recently!

Chapter 5
Wow. The rats that "started and hid themselves close together in the dark" is such a wonderful, terrible image for his early life.

And it's heartbreaking and terribly believable, the child's fear that the girl would take the fever from him.

The exchange relating to the party is brilliant and concise, a very believable moment of decision for this character, as well as a moment when the girl and her family make a decision about who he is.

Chapter 6
[God will] "...prosper your schooling as a part of my reward. That’s what he’ll do, George. He’ll do it for me.’ " This is another great moment for Dickens. It says so much about Hawkyard and his lack of interest in George (or anybody else).

Janelle has covered Chapter 6 so well, with regards to the execrable Brother Gimblet, that I have nothing to add.

Chapter 7
The account of his time at college and his interaction with Lady Fareway's son is very consistent.
The reappearance of Lady Fareway, when she finds she needs someone to do two jobs for the price of one, has us know that no good will come if it. This is, of course, Hawkyard and Gimblet all over again.

Lady Fareway's comparison of Adelina to Lady Jane Grey was wonderfully, startlingly "off." George keeps feeling, always, as if he is still the boy from the cellar, and nor understanding that other people are no better.

Chapter 8
At last, George loves someone!
This won't end well. George is so reminiscent of Pip.
And, of, of course, this will end in George sacrificing himself and effectively disappearing.

Chapter 9
The last few paragraphs
(view spoiler)[
"For years a cloud hung over me, and my name was tarnished.

But my heart did not break, if a broken heart involves death; for I lived through it.

They stood by me, Adelina and her husband, through it all. Those who had known me at college, and even most of those who had only known me there by reputation, stood by me too. Little by little, the belief widened that I was not capable of what was laid to my charge. At length I was presented to a college-living in a sequestered place, and there I now pen my explanation. I pen it at my open window in the summer-time, before me, lying in the churchyard, equal resting-place for sound hearts, wounded hearts, and broken hearts. I pen it for the relief of my own mind, not foreseeing whether or no it will ever have a reader."
(hide spoiler)]
feel a little rushed.
But they do fit with those first paragraphs. By acting as a force for love, George has at last found a resting place. In doing what he did, he connected himself with others, and over time that connection grew.

One feels he is still not quite sure how he arrived at peace for his wounded heart (it's not an unqualified happy ending), and that feels, finally, like an answer to the odd opening of the story.
(hide spoiler)]
Overall, a big thumbs up. I am never sorry to have read Dickens!

Thank you for suggesting this. I would not have picked it up on my own!

Lovely to see you here Jennifer :)