Michael Warden leaving his Lawyers
Charles Green
1912
11.1 x 6 cm. vignetted
Dickens's The Battle of Life, The Pears' Centenary Edition, IV, 65.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Context of the Illustration
"In a month," said the client, after attentively watching the two faces. "This day month. To-day is Thursday. Succeed or fail, on this day month I go."
"It's too long a delay," said Snitchey; "much too long. But let it be so. I thought he'd have stipulated for three," he murmured to himself. "Are you going? Good night, sir!"
"Good night!" returned the client, shaking hands with the Firm.
"You'll live to see me making a good use of riches yet. Henceforth the star of my destiny is, Marion!"
"Take care of the stairs, sir," replied Snitchey; "for she don't shine there. Good night!"
"Good night!"
So they both stood at the stair-head with a pair of office-candles, watching him down. When he had gone away, they stood looking at each other.
What do you think of all this, Mr. Craggs?" said Snitchey.
Mr. Craggs shook his head. ["Part the Second," 1912 Pears Edition, 65-66]
Commentary
Green's caption is a synopsis of Dickens's text on the following page; thus, either Green or his editor, Clement Shorter, has augmented the plate's title in the "List of Illustrations" (13), Michael Warden leaving his Lawyers with a slightly altered textual quotation, "'Henceforth the star of my destiny is, Marion!' 'Take care of the stairs, sir,' replied Snitchey; 'for she don't shine there. Good night!'" (65). In the 1846 edition of the novella, the equivalent illustration by John Leech, realising the earlier scene in the lawyers' office (upstairs), includes these same characters in the upper register, the composition separating the elderly, dusty attorneys at a substantial double desk (right) and a contemplative, bewigged young aristocrat (right), but foregrounds the symbol of a cornucopia padlocked, skewered bills, and a padlocked trunk, all suggestive of the dire state of Warden's affairs. No such symbolism balances Green's unrelenting realism, which lacks the humour of the Household Edition illustrations, the pathos of the Leech illustration, and the drama of the impressionistic Furniss pen-and-ink drawing.
Green seems to have based his depiction of the departure of the financially challenged client on the Furniss illustration Michael Warden leaving his lawyers (see below) in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910); certainly, the two seem similar in approach, although Furniss's figures are far less realistic than Green's. In contrast to Green's young man standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at the attorneys holding up their candles, in Furniss's dynamic rendering of the same scene Warden approaches the viewer in haste, turning back to attend to his attorneys' parting words. Furniss renders the figure of Warden fully lit, but leaves Snitchey and Craggs in partial darkness at the top of the stairs, beside the balustrade. Whereas Furniss realises only Warden's costume in any detail in the 1910 lithograph, Green with photographic realism describes the eighteenth-century garb of all three figures, which one also sees effectively described in the wood-engravings by the Household Edition illustrators Fred Barnard and E. A. Abbey.
Relevant Illustrations from the 1846 and later Editions
Left: Leech's interpretation of the attorney's cluttered office in Snitchey and Craggs. Centre: Barnard's more humorous realisation of the aged attorneys, concerned that their client is a fortune-hunter, seeking to address his financial problems by marrying an heiress (who is also their client!), "I think it will be better not to hear this, Mr. Craggs?" (1878). Right: Furniss's description of the careless client and his careful attorneys, Michael Warden leaving his lawyers (1910).
Above: Abbey's 1876more prosaic realisation of the same scene which emphasizes Michael Warden's animation, "Now, observe, Snitchey," he continued, rising and taking him by the button, "and Craggs," taking him by the button also"
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. The Battle of Life: A Love Story. Illustrated by John Leech, Richard Doyle, Daniel Maclise, and Clarkson Stanfield. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1846.
_____. The Battle of Life: A Love Story. Illustrated by John Leech, Richard Doyle, Daniel Maclise, and Clarkson Stanfield. (1846). Rpt. in Charles Dickens's Christmas Books, ed. Michael Slater. Hardmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, rpt. 1978.
_____. The Battle of Life. Illustrated by Charles Green, R. I. London: A & F Pears, 1912.
_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
_____. Christmas Books, illustrated by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1878.
_____. Christmas Books, illustrated by A. A. Dixon. London & Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1906.
_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910.
_____. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876.
Created 5 June 2015
Last modified 6 April 2020