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"It was she."
Harry Furniss
1910
14.8 cm by 9.4 cm, framed (lithograph)
Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit,The Charles Dickens Library Edition, frontispiece based on an incident in Chapter 6, "Comprises, among Other Important Matters, Pecksniffian and Architectural . . . ," facing VII, the title-page.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"To say nothing of her," remarked Tom Pinch, in a low voice.
"Exactly so," rejoined Martin, rising to warm his back, and leaning against the chimney-piece. "To say nothing of her. At the same time, of course it's not very hard upon her to be obliged to yield to the necessity of the case; first, because she loves me very much; and secondly, because I have sacrificed a great deal on her account, and might have done much better, you know."
It was a very long time before Tom said "Certainly;" so long, that he might have taken a nap in the interval, but he did say it at last.
"Now, there is one odd coincidence connected with this love-story," said Martin, "which brings it to an end. You remember what you told me last night as we were coming here, about your pretty visitor in the church?"
"Surely I do," said Tom, rising from his stool, and seating himself in the chair from which the other had lately risen, that he might see his face. "Undoubtedly."
"That was she." [Chapter 6, "Comprises, among Other Important Matters, Pecksniffian and Architectural . . . ," 102]
This illustration anticipating a conversation in Chapter 6 effectively introduces young Martin Chuzzlewit as he meets his fellow architectural apprentice at Mr. Pecksniff's home-office-and-school in the sleepy Wiltshire village not far from Salisbury. The 1910 Furnissfrontispiece is his late Victorian re-interpretation of Hablot Knight Browne's March 1843 Mr. Pinch and The New Pupil on a Social Occasion (see below) for Chapter 6. However, whereas the scene in the 1843-44 serial plays out against the backdrop of Pecksniff's parlour, with a moody, discontented Martin studying the fire and brooding over his own suffering while Tom tries to cheer him up, Furniss presents the romantic figure of Mary Graham as an ideal to which both young men aspire, but which only Martin will attain, making Tom a social isolate at the end of the story. Furniss has even borrowed some background details, including the bust of Pecksniff, from the Phiz engraving; however, his handling of the scene is less satirical — and reveals less of Martin's egotistical character than Phiz's serial illustration. The architectural study of a town-pump (upper right) anticipates both the benign Fountain Court in London and the spurious map of Eden as a developed townsite rather than a pipe-dream on the banks of the Mississippi.
However, the direct source for Furniss's realisation of the two young men getting to know one another is Fred Barnard's Household Edition wood-engraving "You're a pair of Whittingtons, gents, without the cat; . . . My name is Tigg; how do you do?" (1872: see below). Having, like Barnard and other later illustrators, read the entire text in advance and therefore having realized the textual importance of both young men early in the story, Furniss utilizes the frontispiece as a keynote to show Martin and Tom as binary opposites: looking up wonderingly at the new pupil, Tom is cheerful, naieve, and easily impressed — a dreamy, prematurely balding romantic, whereas Martin is tall, slender, manly, physically attractive, and fashionably dressed — in short, a young bourgeois with great expectations and full head of curly hair. A horrid presence in the room, however, counterpointing the aetherial, floating image of feminine beauty before the fireplace is the leering, almost Satanic presence of the owner of the establishment, Seth Pecksniff, in the portrait bust and the oil painting above the mantel, so that the composition also prepares the reader for the arch humbug's attempt to woo Mary Graham in Mr. Pecksniff Makes Love (Chapter 30).
Left: Phiz's Mr. Pinch and The New Pupil on a Social Occasion (March 1843). Centre: Eytinge's Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley (1867). Right: John Gilbert's rather more realistic study of Martin's beloved, Mr. Pecksniff's Courtship (1863).
Above: Barnard's portrait of the two apprentice-architects and the confidence man, Montague Tigg, "You're a pair of Whittingtons, gents, without the cat; . . . My name is Tigg; how do you do?" (1872).
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Created 21 January 2016
Last modified 17 January 2020