"I Only Entreat You To Believe, My Favourite Child, That I Have Meant To Do Right" by Harry French

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"I Only Entreat You To Believe, My Favourite Child, That I Have Meant To Do Right"

Harry French

Wood engraving

1870s

10 cm wide x 13.7 cm high

Illustration for Dickens's Hard Times for These Times in the British Household Edition, p. 100

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

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The fifteenth plate reasserts Gradgrind's role as parent; but whereas he was firm disciplinarian (Plate 3) and reasonable counselor (Plate 1), now he enacts the role of bedside watcher and caregiver, just as Louisa had for her mother in Plate 13. He does not resemble the nattily dressed, middle-aged man of Plate 1 so much as the balding, jowly figure of Plate 4, but here he is anxious, despondent, and even self-condemning as he accepts responsibility for what has befallen his daughter. Louisa in French's plate, too, seems different: her hair is disheveled and her eyesockets sunken. Although French has captioned the plate "'Only Entreat You To Believe, My Favourite Child, That I Have Meant To Do Right'" Gradgrind is silent, deep in thought, and Louisa appears to asleep, so that the moment illustrated must be just prior to the father's leaving his daughter's room.

References

Dickens, Charles. Hard Times with twenty illustrations by H. French. London: Chapman and Hall [1875?].

Created 17 April 2002

Last modified 25 December 2019