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Mrs. Pott in Hysterics. "My dear," said the terrified Pott, — "I didn't say I believed it; — I — I —" but the unfortunate man's voice was drowned in the screaming of his partner.
Harry Furniss
1910
14.8 cm x 10 cm (5 ¾ by 3 ⅞ inches), vignetted
Dickens's Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing II, 240.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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‘Wretched woman, look here,’ exclaimed the husband. ‘Look here, ma’am — “Lines to a Brass Pot.” “Brass Pot”; that’s me, ma’am. “False she’d have grown”; that’s you, ma’am — you.’ With this ebullition of rage, which was not unaccompanied with something like a tremble, at the expression of his wife’s face, Mr. Pott dashed the current number of the Eatanswill Independent at her feet.
‘Upon my word, Sir,’ said the astonished Mrs. Pott, stooping to pick up the paper. ‘Upon my word, Sir!’
Mr. Pott winced beneath the contemptuous gaze of his wife. He had made a desperate struggle to screw up his courage, but it was fast coming unscrewed again.
There appears nothing very tremendous in this little sentence, ‘Upon my word, sir,’ when it comes to be read; but the tone of voice in which it was delivered, and the look that accompanied it, both seeming to bear reference to some revenge to be thereafter visited upon the head of Pott, produced their effect upon him. The most unskilful observer could have detected in his troubled countenance, a readiness to resign his Wellington boots to any efficient substitute who would have consented to stand in them at that moment.
Mrs. Pott read the paragraph, uttered a loud shriek, and threw herself at full length on the hearth-rug, screaming, and tapping it with the heels of her shoes, in a manner which could leave no doubt of the propriety of her feelings on the occasion.
‘My dear,’ said the terrified Pott, ‘I didn’t say I believed it; — I —’ but the unfortunate man’s voice was drowned in the screaming of his partner.
‘Mrs. Pott, let me entreat you, my dear ma’am, to compose yourself,’ said Mr. Winkle; but the shrieks and tappings were louder, and more frequent than ever.
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Pott, ‘I’m very sorry. If you won’t consider your own health, consider me, my dear. We shall have a crowd round the house.’ But the more strenuously Mr. Pott entreated, the more vehemently the screams poured forth. [Chapter XVIII, “Briefly Illustrative of two Points: — First, the Power of Hysterics, and Secondly, the Force of Circumstances,” 244]
Furniss for the most part in his program of forty-two lithographs has reinterpreted scenes already done by Dickens's original illustrators, Robert Seymour, R. W. Buss, and Hablot Knight Brown. However, here is a rare instance in which the 1837 first edition had offered Furniss no precedent. The scene is the breakfast parlour of Mr. and Mrs. Potts; the other figure is their house-guest, the Pickwickian Nathaniel Winkle, who is coolly studying Mrs. Pott's marital tantrum. The libellous article in the other local newspaper, The Eatanswill Independent (lying at Mrs. Pott's feet), is an editorial poem entitled "Lines to a Brass Pot." What has so rattled Mrs. Pott is the article's strongly implying that she is having an affair with Winkle. The story in the rival to Mr. Pott's own The Eatanswill Gazette is just further evidence of the acrimony between Pott and his rival editor, the yellow journalist, Slurk.
Whereas previous illustrators have visually satirized Winkle and delighted in Pickwick's serial embarrassments, Furniss has focussed on rendering the petulant fury of Mrs. Pott credible, if not sympathetic. And he has given the catalyst for his fit a place of prominence in the composition, magnifying the size of the newspaper, whose crumpled state reflects her anger as expressed in the agitation of her dress. The picture requires us to read it proleptically, in advance of encountering the same moment in Dickens's letterpress in the next chapter. Thus prepared, we encounter the passage illustrated after Mrs. Pott has extended her hand towards Winkle (as the "W * * * * *" in the last line of Slurk's poem) and Pott has accused her, and she, having read the offending verse paragraph, has collapsed in the screaming fit so convincingly rendered by Furniss. She is the individual; Winkle and her husband are mere Furniss stereotypes.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Robert Seymour, Robert Buss, and Phiz. London: Chapman and Hall, November 1837. With 32 additional illustrations by Thomas Onwhyn (London: E. Grattan, April-November 1837).
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 4.
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. 6.
_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 2.
Created 11 March 2024