"Give me breath enough," says I to my daughter Minnie, "and I'll find passages, my dear." — Thirty-first illustration by Fred Barnard for the 1872 Household Edition of David Copperfield (For Chapter XXX, "A Loss," but positioned on p. 217). 9.5 cm high by 13.8 cm wide (4 ¼ by 5 ⅜ inches), framed. Headline for page 217: "Steerforth's Slumbers." Headline for page 219: "News of Little Emily." [Click on image to enlarge it. Mouse over text for links.]
Passage Illustrated: Omer's Considered Opinion of Em'ly Peggotty's Social Aspirations
‘It ain’t that I complain of my line of business,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘It ain’t that. Some good and some bad goes, no doubt, to all callings. What I wish is, that parties was brought up stronger-minded.’
Mr. Omer, with a very complacent and amiable face, took several puffs in silence; and then said, resuming his first point:
‘Accordingly we’re obleeged, in ascertaining how Barkis goes on, to limit ourselves to Em’ly. She knows what our real objects are, and she don’t have any more alarms or suspicions about us, than if we was so many lambs. Minnie and Joram have just stepped down to the house, in fact (she’s there, after hours, helping her aunt a bit), to ask her how he is tonight; and if you was to please to wait till they come back, they’d give you full partic’lers. Will you take something? A glass of srub and water, now? I smoke on srub and water, myself,’ said Mr. Omer, taking up his glass, ‘because it’s considered softening to the passages, by which this troublesome breath of mine gets into action. But, Lord bless you,’ said Mr. Omer, huskily, ‘it ain’t the passages that’s out of order! “Give me breath enough,” said I to my daughter Minnie, “and I’ll find passages, my dear.”’
He really had no breath to spare, and it was very alarming to see him laugh. When he was again in a condition to be talked to, I thanked him for the proffered refreshment, which I declined, as I had just had dinner; and, observing that I would wait, since he was so good as to invite me, until his daughter and his son-in-law came back, I inquired how little Emily was?
‘Well, sir,’ said Mr. Omer, removing his pipe, that he might rub his chin: ‘I tell you truly, I shall be glad when her marriage has taken place.’ [Chapter XXX, "A Loss," pp. 218-219]
Comment
What has brought David, Proctor at Doctors' Commons, back to Yarmouth? In the original Phiz pictorial sequence, the answer is obvious: the impending death of Mr. Barkis, which the illustrator announces in I find Mr. Barkis "going out with the tide" (February 1850). The scene in Mr. Omer's undertaker's shop in Yarmouth prepares David and the readers for Em'ly's running away from home on the eve of her marriage to Ham. Barnard captures portly Mr. Omer's joviality and something of his shrewdness in appraising the young woman who has worked for him some years as a seamstress. He apprehends the danger that Emily's wanting to transform herself from a sow's ear to a silk purse portends. She is not happy with being a working-class girl, and her yearnings to be a lady will make her easy prey for Steerforth. As always, David observes, listens, and evaluates.
Thus, Barnard focuses on a much more significant plot development than Phiz, who found congenial material in the death of the parsimonious carrier. In the 1910 Charles Dickens Library Edition, Harry Furniss is less subtle, directing the reader to the effects of the letter in which she announces to her family that she has run off, The Letter from Em'ly, for the next chapter, "A Greater Loss." This intimate and light-hearted parlour conversation sets up Barnard's melodramatic tour-de-force, the full-page plate in the next chapter, "Read it, sir," he said, in a low shivering voice. "Slow, please. I doen't know as I can understand."
Related Material
- David Copperfield (homepage)
- Phiz's 40 serial illustrations for David Copperfield (May 1849 - November 1850)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 1, 1862)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 2, 1862)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 3, 1862)
- Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 Diamond Edition Illustrations (1867)
- W. H. C. Groome's 7 illustrations for the Collins Clear-type Pocket Edition, Vol. I (1907)
- Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards, 1910
- Harry Furniss's 29 Illustrations for Dickens's The Personal Experience and History of David Copperfield in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. The Personal History of David Copperfield, illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The Centenary Edition. London & New York: Chapman & Hall, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911 [rpt. from 1850]. 2 vols.
_______. David Copperfield, with 61 illustrations by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. 3.
_______. David Copperfield. Illustrated by W. H. C. Groome. London and Glasgow: Collins Clear-type Press, 1907. No. 1.
The copy of the Household Edition from which this picture was scanned was the gift of George Gorniak, Editor of The Dickens Magazine, whose subject for the fifth series, beginning in January 2010, is this novel.
Created 20 August 2016 Last modified last updated 8 August 2022