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Mrs. Todgers and The Pecksniffs Call upon Miss Pinch
Phiz
April 1843
Steel-engraving
13.5 cm high by 10.7 cm wide, vignetted
Seventh regular monthly illustration for Charles Dickens's Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, facing page 103 (1844 edition) in the ninth chapter: running head, "The Sharp Pupil takes Mental Notes."
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"As to Mrs. Todgers, she leaned on Mr. Pecksniff's arm and preserved a kind of genteel grimness. . . ." — Chapter IX, "Town and Todgers's," p. 103.
"Visitors for Miss Pinch!" said the footman. He must have been an ingenious young man, for he said it very cleverly; with a nice discrimination between the cold respect with which he would have announced visitors to the family, and the warm personal interest with which he would have announced visitors to the cook.
"Visitors for Miss Pinch!"
Miss Pinch rose hastily; with such tokens of agitation as plainly declared that her list of callers was not numerous. At the same time, the little pupil became alarmingly upright, and prepared herself to take mental notes of all that might be said and done. For the lady of the establishment was curious in the natural history and habits of the animal called Governess, and encouraged her daughters to report thereon whenever occasion served; which was, in reference to all parties concerned, very laudable, improving, and pleasant.
It is a melancholy fact; but it must be related, that Mr Pinch's sister was not at all ugly. On the contrary, she had a good face; a very mild and prepossessing face; and a pretty little figure — slight and short, but remarkable for its neatness. There was something of her brother, much of him indeed, in a certain gentleness of manner, and in her look of timid trustfulness; but she was so far from being a fright, or a dowdy, or a horror, or anything else, predicted by the two Miss Pecksniffs, that those young ladies naturally regarded her with great indignation, feeling that this was by no means what they had come to see.
Miss Mercy, as having the larger share of gaiety, bore up the best against this disappointment, and carried it off, in outward show at least, with a titter; but her sister, not caring to hide her disdain, expressed it pretty openly in her looks. As to Mrs Todgers, she leaned on Mr Pecksniff's arm and preserved a kind of genteel grimness, suitable to any state of mind, and involving any shade of opinion.
"Don't be alarmed, Miss Pinch," said Mr Pecksniff, taking her hand condescendingly in one of his, and patting it with the other. "I have called to see you, in pursuance of a promise given to your brother, Thomas Pinch. My name — compose yourself, Miss Pinch — is Pecksniff." [Chapter 9, "Town and Todgers's," pp. 102-103]
The novel's first subclimax, the fall of Pecksniff in the tenth plate, is preceded in Part IV by a pair of illustrations centering on the great man in his seemingly most exalted state, making his physical fall all the more degrading. In both "M. Todgers and the Pecksniffs call upon Miss Pinch" (ch.9) and "Truth prevails and Virtue is triumphant" (ch. 10), Browne captures Pecksniff's impenetrable complacency. . . . [Steig, pp. 67]
Above: Fred Barnard's realisation of a earlier part of the same sequence in Chapter 9, revealing Pecksniff's tendency to become a little maudlin under the influence of drink: "Do not repine, my friends," said Mr. Pecksniff tenderly. "Do not weep for me. It is chronic." (1872). Although Barnard has offered his own reinterpretation of the Pecksniff sisters, his Pecksniff is closely based on Phiz's. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. II.
Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978.
Vann, J. Don. "Martin Chuzzlewit, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, January 1843 — July 1844." New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 66-67.
Modified 8 January 2019
Last updated 12 November 2024