Undiluted Love: Sick Imagination or Final Diagnosis? Master Georgie Myrtle

Myrtle, a young orphan who is accepted and raised by the Hardy`s family. Myrtle's idolization of Georgie is one of the many axles around which the novel turns. He is a surgeon in the burgeoning medical world, son of a wealthy family and leads a comfortable life in Liverpool.

She is obsessed with the idea that Master Georgie needs her and she will do everything for him.

«It began to rain before I reached the Washington Hotel. I hadn't my shawl, but a spot of damp was nothing to me. What did I care! I'd freeze stiff for Master Georgie».

How strange it is that even a mode of walking can inspire love. «Suddenly he shouted over his shoulder, 'Don't lag behind, Myrtle. Keep up with me.' I was happy, for his flung injunction signified he knew I was there and didn't want me lost».

All these facts prove the idea that Myrtle runs mad on Master Georgie as she is capable of anything in order to be side by side with him.

'Am I to be sent away?' I repeated, and he replied with some irritation, 'No, Myrtle, no. All I ask is that you hide what you know.'

After her return she lives side by side with Annie, Georgie Hardy’s wife and has to bring up the children.

« During the trip a most remarkable change took place in Myrtle - in her appearance, that is…Her face, once pale, turned golden in the sun and as she refused to cover her head, her hair leapt with threads of fiery colour. Result - it was as though Myrtle, previously lurking in mist, had now emerged into the light. But George hardly noticed the difference, he being so preoccupied with other matters.»

«It had been my conceit that it was enough to give love, that to receive it would have altered the nature of my obsession. When passion is mutual, there is always the danger of the fire burning to ashes. Rather than lose love it was better never to have known it…»

«It frightened me that the child who had trailed Master Georgie at a distance was now treading on his heels, clamouring to be noticed. I knew I was in the wrong; Georgie had made no promises, raised no false hopes, and yet...»

If ever there is a woman with fairy dust in her eyes, it is she.

«Georgie was in the medical tent, fast asleep on a straw mattress behind the instrument table. His arm was flung out across the chest of the fire- eater, who, covered in a hospital night-shirt, the rouge still hectic on his cheeks, lay on the bare ground beside him. This close, I knew him; it was the duck-boy…»

No one can acknowledge Georgie’s attitude toward women and whether he loves anyone, except for himself or not.

Undiluted Love: Sick Imagination or Final Diagnosis? Master Georgie Myrtle