Passage Illustrated: Lorrequer's Misadventure at the White Cross Inn Begins

Bad roads and worse horses made me feel the few leagues I had to go the most tiresome part of my journey. But, of course, in this feeling impatience had its share. A few hours more, and my fate should be decided; and yet I thought the time would never come. If the Callonbys should not arrive — if, again, my evil star be in the ascendant, and any new impediment to our meeting arise — but I cannot, will not, think this — Fortune must surely be tired of persecuting me by this time, and, even to sustain her old character for fickleness, must befriend me now. Ah! here we are in Munich — and this is the Croix Blanche — what a dingy old mansion! Beneath a massive porch, supported by heavy stone pillars, stood the stout figure of Andreas Behr, the host. A white napkin, fastened in one button-hole, and hanging gracefully down beside him — a soup-ladle held sceptre-wise in his right hand, and the grinding motion of his nether jaw, all showed that he had risen from his table d'hote to welcome the new arrival; and certainly, if noise and uproar might explain the phenomenon, the clatter of my equipage over the pavement might have risen the dead.

While my postillion was endeavouring, by mighty efforts, with a heavy stone, to turn the handle of the door, and thus liberate me from my cage, I perceived that the host came forward and said something to him — on replying, to which, he ceased his endeavours to open the door, and looked vacantly about him. Upon this I threw down the sash, and called out —

"I say, is not this the Croix Blanche?"

"Ya," said the man-mountain with the napkin. [Chapter LI, "Munich," 324]

The Juxtaposition of Frontispiece and Title-page Vignette

Commentary: No Room at the Inn

Phiz contrasts the phlegmatic neutrality of the valet, Antoine, smoking a cigarette, and the utter disregard of the grossly overweight, taciturn innkeeper, Herr Andreas Behr (with a pun on "bear," undoubtedly), with the apparent innocence of the young passenger in the carriage arriving from Frankfurt, Harry Lorrequer. Separated from his luggage, which is still in the French diligence, he appears dressed as a mere British tourist rather than an officer in the military. Anticipating the arrival of the English Chargé d'Affaires at any moment, the inn-keeper does not appreciate that Lorrequer is a member of Lord Callonby's party, which has reserved half the suites in the hotel, with the Chargé d'Affaires having reserved the other half. In other words, Herr Andreas Behr regards Harry as a nonentity. Phiz has not made any of the three principal figures look attractive, but suggests that the whole scene plays out before an audience in the street, even though Lever does not mention the post-boy and the woman beside him. The juxtaposition of the frontispiece on the facing page and the title-page vignette on the right upends the normal order of events, so that Harry races down the stairs to meet the new Chargé d'Affaires ahead of his own arrival at the Croix Blanche earlier that day.

Bibliography

Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.

Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Dublin: William Curry, Jun. London: W. S. Orr, 1839.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Two: "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 24-85.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Seven: "Phiz the Illustrator: An Overview and a Summing Up." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 299-316.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter V, "Renegade from Physic, 1839-1841." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 73-93.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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Created 13 April 2023