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Passage Illustrated: Vegetables as overtures to protestations of love

‘Upon my word, my dear," returned Mrs. Nickleby, considerably startled, "unless it was the gentleman belonging to the next house, I don’t know what it could possibly —"

"A — hem!" cried the same voice; and that, not in the tone of an ordinary clearing of the throat, but in a kind of bellow, which woke up all the echoes in the neighbourhood, and was prolonged to an extent which must have made the unseen bellower quite black in the face.

"I understand it now, my dear,’ said Mrs. Nickleby, laying her hand on Kate’s; "don’t be alarmed, my love, it’s not directed to you, and is not intended to frighten anybody. Let us give everybody their due, Kate; I am bound to say that."

So saying, Mrs. Nickleby nodded her head, and patted the back of her daughter’s hand, a great many times, and looked as if she could tell something vastly important if she chose, but had self-denial, thank Heaven; and wouldn’t do it.

"What do you mean, mama?" demanded Kate, in evident surprise.

"Don’t be flurried, my dear," replied Mrs. Nickleby, looking towards the garden-wall, "for you see I’m not, and if it would be excusable in anybody to be flurried, it certainly would — under all the circumstances — be excusable in me, but I am not, Kate — not at all."

"It seems designed to attract our attention, mama," said Kate.

"It is designed to attract our attention, my dear; at least," rejoined Mrs Nickleby, drawing herself up, and patting her daughter’s hand more blandly than before, "to attract the attention of one of us. Hem! you needn’t be at all uneasy, my dear."

Kate looked very much perplexed, and was apparently about to ask for further explanation, when a shouting and scuffling noise, as of an elderly gentleman whooping, and kicking up his legs on loose gravel, with great violence, was heard to proceed from the same direction as the former sounds; and before they had subsided, a large cucumber was seen to shoot up in the air with the velocity of a sky-rocket, whence it descended, tumbling over and over, until it fell at Mrs. Nickleby’s feet.

This remarkable appearance was succeeded by another of a precisely similar description; then a fine vegetable marrow, of unusually large dimensions, was seen to whirl aloft, and come toppling down; then, several cucumbers shot up together; and, finally, the air was darkened by a shower of onions, turnip-radishes, and other small vegetables, which fell rolling and scattering, and bumping about, in all directions.

Kate caught her mother’s hand to run with her into the house, she felt herself rather retarded than assisted in her intention; and following the direction of Mrs. Nickleby’s eyes, was quite terrified by the apparition of an old black velvet cap, which, by slow degrees, as if its wearer were ascending a ladder or pair of steps, rose above the wall dividing their garden from that of the next cottage, (which, like their own, was a detached building,) and was gradually followed by a very large head, and an old face, in which were a pair of most extraordinary grey eyes: very wild, very wide open, and rolling in their sockets, with a dull, languishing, leering look, most ugly to behold.

"Mama!" cried Kate, really terrified for the moment, "why do you stop, why do you lose an instant? Mama, pray come in!"

"Kate, my dear," returned her mother, still holding back, "how can you be so foolish? I’m ashamed of you. How do you suppose you are ever to get through life, if you’re such a coward as this? What do you want, sir?" said Mrs. Nickleby, addressing the intruder with a sort of simpering displeasure. "How dare you look into this garden?"

"Queen of my soul," replied the stranger, folding his hands together, "this goblet sip!"

"Nonsense, sir," said Mrs. Nickleby. "Kate, my love, pray be quiet." [Chapter XLI, "Containing some Romantic Passages between Mrs. Nickleby and the Gentleman in the Small-clothes next Door," 547]

Commentary

The general disposition of the compositional elements of arbour and garden wall suggest that Furniss is offering a reinterpretation of the original April 1838 garden farce by Phiz in which the lunatic neighbour hurls down vegetables in order to gain his beloved's attention. Furniss does not employ the aerial perspective evident in Barnard's Household Edition illustration, and positions the three figures much as Phiz does, with the women in a sort of bower or arbour to the left and the madman on the wall, right. However, whereas Phiz depicts the madman as a disembodied head on the wall, a portrait of fatuous lunacy framed by greenery, Furniss shows much more of the mad gardener as he drops a marrow over the wall, aiming for Mrs. Nickleby's feet. Furniss individualizes the reactions of the two women, for whereas the mother seems apprehensive and turns her back on the gardener, Kate responds with intellectual curiosity, as if she is wondering whether there is any method in the gardener's madness. But Furniss's chief innovation lies in the wildness of the vegetation below the wall: hollyhocks in crazy profusion reach up to the madman as a kind of objective correlative for his mental disorder.

Parallel Illustrations from Earlier Editions (1839-1876)

Left: Phiz brings spoofs the novel's high-minded Nicholas-Madeline romance in The Gentleman Next Door Declares His Passion for Mrs. Nickleby (April 1839). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition study of the novel's comic madman: The Gentleman in Small Clothes (1867). Right: Fred Barnard's 1875 woodblock engraving of agile lunatic on the garden wall: Concluded by standing on one leg,and repeating his favourite bellow with increased vehemence, in the British Household Edition.

• Nicholas Nickleby (homepage)
• Phiz's 38 monthly illustrations for the novel, April 1838-October 1839.
• Cover for monthly parts
• Charles Dickens by Daniel Maclise, engraved by Finden
• "Hush!" said Nicholas, laying his hand upon his shoulder. (Vol. 1, 1861)
• The Rehearsal (Vol. 2, 1861)
• "My son, sir, little Wackford. What do you think of him, sir?" (Vol. 3, 1861)
• Newman had caught up by the nozzle an old pair of bellows . . . (Vol. 4, 1861).
• Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s 16 illustrations for The Diamond Edition (1867)
• C. S. Reinhart's 52 Illustrations for the American Household Edution (1875)
• Fred Barnard's 59 Illustrations for the Household Edution (1877)
• Kyd's four Player's Cigarette Cards (1910).

Bibliography

Barnard, J. "Fred" (illustrator). Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, with fifty-eight illustrations. The Works of Charles Dickens: The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. Volume 15. Rpt. 1890.

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With fifty-two illustrations by C. S. Reinhart. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1872. I.

__________. Nicholas Nickleby. With 39 illustrations by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman & Hall, 1839.

__________. Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. IV.

__________. "Nicholas Nickleby." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, being eight hundred and sixty-six drawings by Fred Barnard et al. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1908.

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Created 2 September 2021