Dickens and His Illustrators Part 12

Several letters from d.i.c.kens to Forster at this time express solicitude concerning these plates. Writing from Lausanne on the 18th of July 1846, he said: "The prints for ill.u.s.tration, and the enormous care required, make me excessively anxious." A nervous dread of caricature on the face of his merchant-hero had led him to indicate by a living person the type of city gentleman he would have had the artist select. "The man for Dombey," he explained, "if Browne could see him, the cla.s.s man to a T, is Sir A----E----, of D----'s;" and this is all he meant by his reiterated urgent request, "I do wish he could get a glimpse of A., for he is the very Dombey." It seems, however, that the "glimpse of A." was impracticable, so it was resolved to send, for selection by himself, glimpses of other letters of the alphabet--actual heads as well as fanciful ones--and the sheetful of sketches forwarded for this purpose contains no less than twenty-nine typical Dombey portraits, comprising full-length and half-length presentments, as well as studies of heads in various poses, but with the same hard characteristic expression.[26]

Against four of them "Phiz" has placed little arrows, to indicate that (in his opinion) they best accorded with the author's conception. The Dombey actually etched was not, after all, an absolute transcript of these tentative ideas, but seems to be a combination of several; and it is curious to note that, in the various representations of the proud city merchant as seen in the plates, "Phiz" did not keep religiously to the same type. That d.i.c.kens considered the artist's presentment as satisfactory is proved by his remark to Forster, "I think Mr. Dombey admirable," this doubtless referring to the ill.u.s.tration ent.i.tled "Mr.

Dombey and the World." In a fragment of a letter preserved by Mr. J. F.

Dexter may be read a few instructions to the artist with reference to the delineation of Mr. Dombey and his second wife: "It is a part of his character that he should be just the same as of yore. And in the second subject, I should like Edith Granger to possess the reader with a more serious notion of her having a serious part to play in the story. I really hardly know, however, what [part] beyond an expression of utter indifference towards Mr. Dombey...."

Footnote 26: In Mr. Andrew Lang's opinion, these sketches for Mr. Dombey look like "a collection of criminal butlers."

In the letter to Forster already quoted, the novelist sent (for transmission to the artist) a few hints for the earlier designs: "Great pains will be necessary with Miss Tox. The Toodle family should not be too much caricatured, because of Polly. I should like Browne to think of Susan Nipper, who will not be wanted in the first number. After the second number, they will all be nine or ten years older, but this will not involve much change in the characters, except in the children and Miss Nipper." After the completion of the first two plates, d.i.c.kens seems to have been in better heart about his ill.u.s.trator, for, again writing to Forster from Lausanne, he said: "Browne seems to be getting on well. He will have a good subject in Paul's christening. Mr. Chick is like D., if you'll mention that when you think of it." Then, a little later: "Browne is certainly interesting himself and taking pains." He seems, however, to have been greatly disappointed with the designs in the second number, viz., "The Christening Party" (which he antic.i.p.ated would be a success) and "Polly Rescues the Charitable Grinder,"

declaring them to be so "dreadfully bad" (in the sense of not keeping strictly to the text) that they made him "curl his legs up." This failure on the part of the artist caused him to feel unusually anxious in regard to a special ill.u.s.tration on which he had set much store, intended for the number he then had in hand. Communicating with Forster anent this, he said: "The best subject for Browne will be at Mrs.

Pipchin's; and if he liked to do a quiet odd thing, Paul, Mrs. Pipchin, and the Cat, by the fire, would be very good for the story. I earnestly hope he will think it worth a little extra care." On first seeing the etching of this subject, he was sorely displeased, and could not refrain from thus expressing himself to Forster: "I am really _distressed_ by the ill.u.s.tration of Mrs. Pipchin and Paul. It is so frightfully and wildly wide of the mark. Good Heaven! in the commonest and most literal construction of the text it is all wrong. She is described as an old lady, and Paul's 'miniature arm-chair' is mentioned more than once. He ought to be sitting in a little arm-chair down in the corner of the fireplace, staring up at her. I can't say what pain and vexation it is to be so utterly misrepresented. I would cheerfully have given a hundred pounds to have kept this ill.u.s.tration out of the book. He never could have got that idea of Mrs. Pipchin if he had attended to the text.

Indeed, I think he does better without the text; for then the notion is made easy to him in short description, and he can't help taking it in."

It is certainly strange that the sketch for this subject was not submitted to d.i.c.kens for approval before it was etched. We are told by Forster that the author felt the disappointment more keenly because "the conception of the grim old boarding-house keeper had taken back his thoughts to the miseries of his own child-life, and made her, as her prototype in verity was, a part of the terrible reality." In justice to the artist, it must be conceded that the etching of this subject seems to be an excellent rendering of the description of the scene as conveyed in the letterpress.

"Phiz" sometimes complained that d.i.c.kens did not send him more than a few printed lines as a guide to the subject to be ill.u.s.trated, and, being kept in ignorance as to the context, he found it difficult to delineate the characters as well as the novelist might wish.

Occasionally, as we have seen, he received quite a lengthy note when at work upon the designs, these communications sometimes being partly literal extracts from the text and partly condensation, such as the following:--

"Paul (a year older) has left Mrs. Pipchin's and gone to Doctor Blimber's establishment at Brighton. The Doctor only takes ten young gentlemen. Doctor Blimber's establishment is a good hot-house for the young mind, with a forcing apparatus always at work. Mental green peas are produced there at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable is got off the driest twigs of boys under the frostiest circ.u.mstances. Mrs. Blimber is fond of the boys not being like boys, and of their wearing collars and neckerchiefs. They have all blown before their time. The eldest boy in the school--young Toots by name, with a swollen nose and an exceedingly large head--left off blowing suddenly one day, and people _do_ say that the Doctor rather overdid it with him, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains. All the young gentlemen have great weights on their minds. They are haunted by verbs, noun-substantives, roots, and syntactic pa.s.sages. Some abandoned hope half through the Latin Grammar, and others curse Virgil in the bitterness of their souls.

Cla.s.sical Literature in general is an immense collection of words to them. It's all words and grammar, and don't mean anything else.

"Subject--These young gentlemen out walking, very dismally and formally (observe it's a very expensive school), with the lettering, _Doctor Blimber's young gentlemen as they appeared when enjoying themselves_. I think Doctor Blimber, a little removed from the rest, should bring up the rear, or lead the van, with Paul, who is much the youngest of the party. I extract the description of the Doctor. [Here follows a quotation from the eleventh chapter.]

"Paul as last described, but a twelvemonth older. No collar or neckerchief for him, of course. I would make the next youngest boy about three or four years older than he."

A remarkable oversight on the part of "Phiz" with reference to this plate is immediately observable, for while d.i.c.kens explicitly states the number of Dr. Blimber's pupils as ten, the artist has introduced no less than seventeen young gentlemen. Concerning the ill.u.s.tration, "Major Bagstock is Delighted to have that Opportunity," there is extant an interesting letter (dated March 10, 1847) from d.i.c.kens to "Phiz"

(printed for the first time in Mr. D. C. Thomson's Memoir of H. K.

Browne), in which the novelist is very explicit respecting his requirements:--

"MY DEAR BROWNE-- ... The occasion of my coming home makes me very late with my number, which I have only begun this morning; otherwise you should have been fed sooner....The first subject I am now going to give is very important to the book. _I should like to see your sketch of it if possible._

"I should premise that I want to make the Major, who is the incarnation of selfishness and small revenge, a kind of comic Mephistophilean power in the book; and the No. begins with the departure of Mr. Dombey and the Major on that trip for change of air and scene which is prepared for in the last Number. They go to Leamington, where you and I were once. In the Library the Major introduces Mr. Dombey to a certain lady, whom, as I wish to foreshadow dimly, said Dombey may come to marry in due season. She is about thirty, not a day more--handsome, though haughty-looking--good figure, well dressed, showy, and desirable. Quite a lady in appearance, with something of a proud indifference about her, suggestive of a spark of the Devil within. Was married young. Husband dead. Goes about with an old mother, who rouges, and who lives upon the reputation of a diamond necklace and her family. Wants a husband. Flies at none but high game, and couldn't marry anybody not rich. Mother affects cordiality and heart, and is the essence of sordid calculation. Mother usually shoved about in a Bath chair by a page who has rather outgrown and outshoved his strength, and who b.u.t.ts at it behind like a ram, while his mistress steers herself languidly by a handle in front. Nothing the matter with her to prevent her walking, only was once when a Beauty sketched reclining in a Barouche, and having outlived the Beauty and the Barouche too, still holds to the att.i.tude as becoming her uncommonly. Mother is in this machine in the sketch. Daughter has a parasol.

"The Major presents them to Mr. Dombey, gloating within himself over what may come of it, and over the discomfiture of Miss Tox. Mr. Dombey (in deep mourning) bows solemnly.

Daughter bends. The native in attendance bearing a camp-stool and the Major's greatcoat. Native evidently afraid of the Major and his thick cane. If you like it better, the scene may be in the street or in a green lane.

But a great deal will come of it; and I want the Major to express that as much as possible in his apoplectic Mephistophilean observation of the scene, and in his share of it."

The design was promptly executed and submitted to d.i.c.kens, who, in a letter to the artist dated five days later, expressed his approval thereof: "The sketch is admirable,"

he wrote,--"the women _quite perfect_. I cannot tell you how much I like the younger one. There are one or two points, however, which I must ask you to alter. They are capital in themselves, and I speak solely for the story.

"First--I grieve to write it--that native--who is so prodigiously good as he is--must be in European costume. He may wear earrings and look outlandish and be dark brown. In this fashion must be of Moses, Mosesy. I don't mean Old Testament Moses, but him of the Minories.

"Secondly, if you _can_ make the Major older, and with a larger face--do.

"That's all. Never mind the pump-room now, unless you have found the sketch, as we may have that another time. I shall 'propoge' to you a trip to Leamington together. We might go one day and return the next.... Don't mind sending me the second sketch. It is so late."[27]

Footnote 27: This letter was by chance preserved from a bonfire made by Browne of his old letters and unfinished drawings previous to a change of residence.

In Mr. J. F. Dexter's collection there is a pencil-sketch by "Phiz" for this subject (evidently an earlier conception than that submitted to d.i.c.kens), in which the incident is depicted as occurring at the seaside (probably Brighton), while, curiously enough, the figure of Mr. Dombey is omitted. Another interesting drawing, also owned by Mr. Dexter, is a tentative sketch (in blue ink) for "The Dombey Family," under which the artist has written the following query: "Whether 'twere better to have him [Mr. Dombey] standing thus, stiff as a poker, with a kind of side glance at his daughter--or sitting, as in the other?" In the etching we see that Mr. Dombey is represented as seated, while Florence is transferred to the other side of the picture.

Through the kind courtesy of Her Grace the d.u.c.h.ess of St. Albans, I have been enabled to examine the original "working" drawings for "Dombey and Son," all of these, with one exception (viz. "Polly Rescues the Charitable Grinder," which has mysteriously disappeared), being in the possession of her Grace. The majority of the designs were not reversed when copied upon the steels, and this accounts for some of the incongruities already referred to. In certain cases the drawings are sketched with blue ink and the effects lightly washed in; others are in pencil, or pencil and brushwork combined.

PLATE x.x.xVI

DOLLY VARDEN

_Facsimile_ of an Original Drawing by

H. K. BROWNE ("PHIZ")

This Drawing, which was designed for the series of extra plates for "Barnaby Rudge," has never been engraved. The published portrait of Dolly is a reproduction of a subsequent Drawing.

_Lent by Mr. J. F. Dexter._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

In comparing the drawings with the plates, certain unimportant variations are discoverable; for example, in the drawing of "Paul's Exercises," the candlestick is placed on the table, and more to the right, instead of being raised on a pile of books; in "Major Bagstock is Delighted to have that Opportunity," the figure of the "Native" is differently posed, besides being almost erased, in consequence, perhaps, of d.i.c.kens's criticism; in "Coming Home from Church," the ringers hold two bells in either hand. On one of the drawings d.i.c.kens has placed his initials, while in the corner of another, "Secret Intelligence," the artist has written the words, "Better, eh?" whence we may infer that a previous sketch had been submitted. It seems likely that "Phiz"

made two or three trial sketches for every etching in the book, as there are still in existence other tentative designs for some of the subjects above referred to.

Writing to the editor of the _Daily News_ (December 30, 1882), Dr. Edgar A. Browne, the artist's son, says: "d.i.c.kens's delight in the ['Dombey']

ill.u.s.trations as a whole was, as a matter of fact, very great, and was expressed (doubtless with some characteristic exaggeration) so forcibly, that my father gave him the original designs, which were acknowledged in the following letter:--

"'DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, _Thirteenth June_, 1848.

"'MY DEAR BROWNE,--A thousand thanks for the Dombey sketches, which I shall preserve and transmit as heirlooms.

"'This afternoon, on Thursday, I shall be near the whereabout of the boy in the flannel gown, and will pay him an affectionate visit. But I warn you now and beforehand (and this is final, you'll observe) that you are not agoing to back out of the pigmental finishing said boy; for if ever I had a boy of my own that boy is

"MINE,

"and, as the demon says at the Surrey,

"'I CLAIM MY VICTIM,'

"HA! HA! HA!!

"at which you will imagine me going down a sulphurous trap, with the boy in my grasp--and you will please not to imagine him merely in my grasp, but to hand him over.

"'For which this is your warrant and requirement.

"(Signed) CHARLES d.i.c.kENS.

"'Witness--WILLIAM + TOPPING,

"His groom.'"

The allusion to "the boy in the flannel gown" has reference to a portrait of Little Paul, painted by "Phiz" as a present to d.i.c.kens.

Miss Hogarth informs me, however, that she has no recollection of this picture, nor of the "Dombey" sketches.

"Phiz," as usual, designed the pictorial wrapper for the monthly parts, concerning which d.i.c.kens wrote: "I think the cover very good; perhaps with a little too much in it, but that is an ungrateful objection." The criticism was justified, however, for the design, though ingeniously conceived, certainly errs on the side of over-elaboration.