The Old Curiosity Club discussion
Our Mutual Friend
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OMF, Book 1, Chap. 05-07
Mod
...."a dropsical appearance, had long settled down into a state of hale infirmity. In its whole constitution it had not a straight floor, and hardly a straight line; but it had outlasted, and clearly would yet outlast, many a better-trimmed building, many a sprucer public-house. Externally, it was a narrow lopsided wooden jumble of corpulent windows heaped one upon another as you might heap as many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden verandah impending over the water; indeed the whole house, inclusive of the complaining flag-staff on the roof, impended over the water, but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all."
......"The bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters was a bar to soften the human breast. The available space in it was not much larger than a hackney-coach; but no one could have wished the bar bigger, that space was so girt in by corpulent little casks, and by cordial-bottles radiant with fictitious grapes in bunches, and by lemons in nets, and by biscuits in baskets, and by the polite beer-pulls that made low bows when customers were served with beer, and by the cheese in a snug corner, and by the landlady’s own small table in a snugger corner near the fire, with the cloth everlastingly laid."
Snug or not, people seemed to enjoy being there, or perhaps they just enjoy what there is to drink when they are there. Miss Potterson is the sole proprietor and manager of the Fellowship Porters, and "reigned supreme on her throne", as she does here:
‘Now, you mind, you Riderhood,’ said Miss Abbey Potterson, with emphatic forefinger over the half-door, ‘the Fellowship don’t want you at all, and would rather by far have your room than your company; but if you were as welcome here as you are not, you shouldn’t even then have another drop of drink here this night, after this present pint of beer. So make the most of it.’
‘But you know, Miss Potterson,’ this was suggested very meekly though, ‘if I behave myself, you can’t help serving me, miss.’
‘Can’t I!’ said Abbey, with infinite expression.
‘No, Miss Potterson; because, you see, the law—’
‘I am the law here, my man,’ returned Miss Abbey, ‘and I’ll soon convince you of that, if you doubt it at all.’
Riderhood asks Miss Potterson why he is banned from the Fellowship and Gaffer hasn't. He tells her that he had been Gaffer's partner and knows him better than any person living does. He says he believes that the reason Gaffer has so much luck finding bodies in the river is because he helped get them there in the first place.
‘That Gaffer has a skill in finding what he finds, who doubts, man?’ asked Miss Abbey.
‘A skill in purwiding what he finds, perhaps,’ said Riderhood, shaking his evil head.
Miss Abbey knitted her brow at him, as he darkly leered at her. ‘If you’re out upon the river pretty nigh every tide, and if you want to find a man or woman in the river, you’ll greatly help your luck, Miss Abbey, by knocking a man or woman on the head aforehand and pitching ‘em in.’
When all the men there had gone home for the night Miss Potterson sends a message to Lizzie Hexam asking her to come see her. I was rather surprised that Lizzie could or would come to Miss Potterson at the time of night it would be by now, but she does come. Miss. Potterson begins by asking Lizzie how often she has offered to take her from her father, to help her get "clear of him", and do well. Lizzie admits she has asked her often and she is thankful, but she couldn't leave her father. Miss Potterson then asks if Lizzie knows the worst of her father, and the mention of this "oppressed the girl heavily", but she asks her to tell her the worst.
‘It’s not an easy thing to tell a daughter, but it must be told. It is thought by some, then, that your father helps to their death a few of those that he finds dead.’
The relief of hearing what she felt sure was a false suspicion, in place of the expected real and true one, so lightened Lizzie’s breast for the moment, that Miss Abbey was amazed at her demeanour. She raised her eyes quickly, shook her head, and, in a kind of triumph, almost laughed."
So, if the worst of her father wasn't killing people, what is it that Lizzie found to be worse than that? I am certainly curious now. Unless we were already told and I missed it, that happens sometimes. Miss Potterson goes on, calling Lizzie a deluded girl who won't open her mind to the suspicions of her father:
‘You poor deluded girl,’ she said, ‘don’t you see that you can’t open your mind to particular suspicions of one of the two, without opening your mind to general suspicions of the other? They had worked together. Their goings-on had been going on for some time. Even granting that it was as you have had in your thoughts, what the two had done together would come familiar to the mind of one.’
‘You don’t know father, Miss, when you talk like that. Indeed, indeed, you don’t know father.’
Her defending and protecting her father reminded me of other Dickens women that did the same thing. A certain girl in Dickens I remember protecting her grandfather, but that's another book. :-) Miss Potterson is disappointed and tells her that she has done all she could do for her and now Lizzie must go her own way. She also tells her her father is no longer welcome in the Fellowship. She says it has been hard work to get established there, and to make the Fellowship what it is, and she can't have people there that there are suspicions against. Neither her father or Riderhood are welcome. When Lizzie returns home, her brother is asleep and it is hours until her father will return, although why she isn't with him this night I haven't figured out. While her brother sleeps she glides about the house gathering things together making a little bundle, when her brother wakes. When he asks what she is doing she tells him to wash and get dressed and she will tell him.
‘You see, Charley dear, I have made up my mind that this is the right time for your going away from us. Over and above all the blessed change of by-and-bye, you’ll be much happier, and do much better, even so soon as next month. Even so soon as next week.’
‘How do you know I shall?’
‘I don’t quite know how, Charley, but I do.’ In spite of her unchanged manner of speaking, and her unchanged appearance of composure, she scarcely trusted herself to look at him, but kept her eyes employed on the cutting and buttering of his bread, and on the mixing of his tea, and other such little preparations. ‘You must leave father to me, Charley—I will do what I can with him—but you must go.’
It takes some convincing, but Charley is gone by the time Gaffer returns home. Gaffer notices right away that Charley is gone, and insists on Lizzie telling him where. When she tells her father that Charley has gone to get some schooling, having quite a gift of learning, Gaffer calls him unnatural and says he will never see him again, and will never forgive him. In his anger he keeps striking downward with his knife as he talks, but stops when he sees how afraid Lizzie has become, and after this next and final quote from the chapter, I can say I do like Gaffer, a little anyway:
‘What’s come to you, Liz? Can you think I would strike at you with a knife?’
‘No, father, no; you would never hurt me.’
‘What should I hurt?’
‘Nothing, dear father. On my knees, I am certain, in my heart and soul I am certain, nothing! But it was too dreadful to bear; for it looked—’ her hands covering her face again, ‘O it looked—’
‘What did it look like?’
The recollection of his murderous figure, combining with her trial of last night, and her trial of the morning, caused her to drop at his feet, without having answered.
He had never seen her so before. He raised her with the utmost tenderness, calling her the best of daughters, and ‘my poor pretty creetur’, and laid her head upon his knee, and tried to restore her. But failing, he laid her head gently down again, got a pillow and placed it under her dark hair, and sought on the table for a spoonful of brandy. There being none left, he hurriedly caught up the empty bottle, and ran out at the door.
He returned as hurriedly as he had gone, with the bottle still empty. He kneeled down by her, took her head on his arm, and moistened her lips with a little water into which he dipped his fingers: saying, fiercely, as he looked around, now over this shoulder, now over that:
‘Have we got a pest in the house? Is there summ’at deadly sticking to my clothes? What’s let loose upon us? Who loosed it?’
Mod
‘If I get on with him as I expect to get on,’ Silas pursues, stumping and meditating, ‘it wouldn’t become me to leave it here. It wouldn’t be respectable.’ Animated by this reflection, he stumps faster, and looks a long way before him, as a man with an ambitious project in abeyance often will do."
Silas passes the shops that deal in pearls and diamonds, and gold and silver, for the wealthier people, but moves on to the poorer shops:
......"small retail traders in commodities to eat and drink and keep folks warm, and of Italian frame-makers, and of barbers, and of brokers, and of dealers in dogs and singing-birds. From these, in a narrow and a dirty street devoted to such callings, Mr Wegg selects one dark shop-window with a tallow candle dimly burning in it, surrounded by a muddle of objects vaguely resembling pieces of leather and dry stick, but among which nothing is resolvable into anything distinct, save the candle itself in its old tin candlestick, and two preserved frogs fighting a small-sword duel. Stumping with fresh vigour, he goes in at the dark greasy entry, pushes a little greasy dark reluctant side-door, and follows the door into the little dark greasy shop."
In the shop is Mr. Venus, the owner, his face is sallow, his eyes are weak, and he has a tangle of reddish-dusty hair. I'd almost be grateful for the weak eyes in this place. There is a dead bird on the table with a long stiff wire piercing its breast that Mr. Venus uses to toast his muffins. There is a shelf with nothing but human skeleton hands on it. Mr. Venus shows Wegg his store:
‘Oh dear me, dear me!’ sighs Mr Venus, heavily, snuffing the candle, ‘the world that appeared so flowery has ceased to blow! You’re casting your eye round the shop, Mr Wegg. Let me show you a light. My working bench. My young man’s bench. A Wice. Tools. Bones, warious. Skulls, warious. Preserved Indian baby. African ditto. Bottled preparations, warious. Everything within reach of your hand, in good preservation. The mouldy ones a-top. What’s in those hampers over them again, I don’t quite remember. Say, human warious. Cats. Articulated English baby. Dogs. Ducks. Glass eyes, warious. Mummied bird. Dried cuticle, warious. Oh, dear me! That’s the general panoramic view.’
If there are places such as this, you will never find me in one, alive or skeleton. And now I find what Silas mean by it wouldn't become to leave "me" there:
‘Where am I?’ asks Mr Wegg.
‘You’re somewhere in the back shop across the yard, sir; and speaking quite candidly, I wish I’d never bought you of the Hospital Porter.’
‘Now, look here, what did you give for me?’
‘Well,’ replies Venus, blowing his tea: his head and face peering out of the darkness, over the smoke of it, as if he were modernizing the old original rise in his family: ‘you were one of a warious lot, and I don’t know.’
Silas puts his point in the improved form of ‘What will you take for me?’
‘Well,’ replies Venus, still blowing his tea, ‘I’m not prepared, at a moment’s notice, to tell you, Mr Wegg.’
‘Come! According to your own account I’m not worth much,’ Wegg reasons persuasively.
‘Not for miscellaneous working in, I grant you, Mr Wegg; but you might turn out valuable yet, as a—’ here Mr Venus takes a gulp of tea, so hot that it makes him choke, and sets his weak eyes watering; ‘as a Monstrosity, if you’ll excuse me.’
I wonder what Silas plans to do with his leg if he does manage to buy it back? Mr. Venus tells Silas he is feeling down because the woman he loves refuses to marry him because of his business. She knows what a profitable business it is, although why there is a big need for bones, and anything dead you could want, is beyond me, but people must want them, because business has never been better. Still she refuses to marry him saying "I do not wish to regard myself, nor yet to be regarded, in that boney light."
Finally, Silas leaves the shop and goes on his way to the Boffins. I am glad to leave the shop and hope, if we come back to it, we do it on Tristram's week. The chapter ends:
"The unfortunate Mr Venus gives him a shake of the hand with a shake of his own head, and drooping down in his chair, proceeds to pour himself out more tea. Mr Wegg, looking back over his shoulder as he pulls the door open by the strap, notices that the movement so shakes the crazy shop, and so shakes a momentary flare out of the candle, as that the babies—Hindoo, African, and British—the ‘human warious’, the French gentleman, the green glass-eyed cats, the dogs, the ducks, and all the rest of the collection, show for an instant as if paralytically animated; while even poor little Cock Robin at Mr Venus’s elbow turns over on his innocent side. Next moment, Mr Wegg is stumping under the gaslights and through the mud."
Kim wrote: "Dear Curiosities,Our second installment begins with Chapter 5 titled, Boffin's Bower, and while I expected to begin the chapter meeting Mr. or Mrs. Boffin, instead we meet Silas Wegg. This is our..."
"Veal and Ham Pie." I was thinking of an Arby's commercial for some reason. Dickens comes into the 21st century in more ways than I thought.
Mod
Our second installment begins with Chapter 5 titled, Boffin's Bower, and while I expected to begin the chapter meeting Mr. or Mrs. Boffin, instead we meet Silas Wegg. This is our..."
We are told that Silas Wagg had "a grim little heap" of walnuts. Then along comes Mr Boffin who possesses a rather larger heap. As Kim noted, Boffin wants to learn to read better and believes Wagg to be a literary man. Wagg's interests seem to be bent towards making money any way he can. What does all this suggest?
Well, first we have the fact that Wagg has a less than palatial stand that he has occupied for years outside a big home. I don't think Dickens juxtaposed these two places without meaning. In order to move up the social scale Wagg must do what he can to make money. Boffin on the other hand feels he needs to be literate although he has much more of a heap. In fact, Dickens portrays Boffin as living in "an enclosed place where certain tall dark mounds rose high against the sky." These "mounds" are heaps of refuse. And talking about heaps and heap-like places and things consider our earlier introduction to bodies that are the source of money for Hexam. A dead body does not own money so turn the pockets out. A human heap for profit.
Then, in chapter seven, we have Mr. Venus who has heaps of body parts and stuffed creatures in his dimly-lit store. Silas Wagg and Mr Venus are two people who are linked by the absence of Wagg's limb. Both men make their living by dealing with the remains and leftovers of food or people. Mr Boffin is the king of heaps but questions his own literacy.
Money is the central link among these characters. So far we have many walks of life introduced by Dickens who share the central fact that success and money comes from heaps of flotsam and jetsam.
Mod
...."a dropsical appearance, had long settled down into..."
The Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters is a great creation by Dickens. I just hope when the Curiosities meet there Miss Potterson has some great tales to tell us.
Lizzie Hexam does seem to be following the Dickensian framework of a young woman who is self-sacrificing and inherently good. Kim suggests she might be like an earlier character in a Dickens novel. I pity poor Lizzie's life for the rest of this novel.
If Lizzie has her way Charley Hexam will not suffer the fate of his sister and father. Lizzie knows the value of education and the fact that Charlie could make something of himself and so by the end of this chapter he is whisked away. What plans does Dickens have for Charley? We know he will return to the plot.
Now Lizzie is left with her father. She fears his work, her part in it and where it will lead. Miss Potterson has further shaken Lizzie's world.
A good chapter character development and possibilities.
Mod
Dickens walks us towards Venus's shop past stores that deal with objects of value until, at last, we reach Venus's "dark greasy shop." Once again, we see objects of wealth and value contrasted with apparently worthless objects. We follow Wegg into a place that stocks only remains, bits, pieces, unattached objects and dead creatures. Dickens is very dark in this novel so far. His humour does not rise above sarcasm, biting irony and jaundiced commentary. OMF is a Dickens we have not encountered before.
When asked by Wegg about his lady friend, and her thoughts about Venus's occupation, Venus replys "She knows the profits of it, but she does not appreciate the art of it ... nor yet to be regarded in that bony light." Again, here is the motif of money. Is there an art to making money? To what extent can one accept the making of money by ignoring the means of making money?
"Bony light." What a great phrase. If we consider the image of light to be good, then how do we interpret the modifier "bony"?
Near the end of the chapter we read that " The old gentleman was well-known all around here. There used to be stories about his having hidden all kinds of property in those dust mounds. I suppose there was nothing in 'em." This is too tantalizing. Surely Dickens is setting us up for a future revelation. What can be found in mounds of dust and refuse? How does one value a person's wealth? A person's worth?
Lots to come.
Kim wrote: "Chapter 6 is titled "Cut Adrift" and we are now in the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, not a pleasant sounding place to be, I think so anyway:...."a dropsical appearance, had long settled down into..."
If I was most taken by the Thames River and Hexam family in Book 1, their plight continues to grow on me as I progressed through Book 2, with Chapter 6 being a favorite.
What excites me about Chapter 6 is Miss Abbey Potterson, a very wise and strong woman who handles her business and her patrons of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters with a firm and just hand. Miss Potterson "reigns supreme" as the proprietress of the establishment, and she is nobody to mince words with either as can be seen in the exchange with Riderhood, and Lizzie too.
For the first time in eight chapters I found myself snickering to myself while Dickens was describing some of the fuzzier details regarding Miss Potterson...
harbored muddled notions that, because of her dignity and firmness, she was named after or in sort related to, the Abbey at Westminster. But Abbey was only short for Abigail, by which name Miss Potterson had been christened at Limehouse Church, some sixty odd years before(61).Perhaps, it was only me, but I found this a bit humorous in conjunction to what immediately follows... the return of the famous forefinger we so quickly became accustomed to seeing in "GE!"
Now, you mind, you Riderhood, said Miss Abbey Potterson with "emphatic forefinger" over the half-door...I don't think it will be the last time we encounter her forefinger. Proprietress of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters Abigail Potterson may be, but a Queen-Bee in stature and countenance she reigns supreme. I love her addition to the growing character list by the end of each book.
John wrote: "Kim wrote: "Dear Curiosities,Our second installment begins with Chapter 5 titled, Boffin's Bower, and while I expected to begin the chapter meeting Mr. or Mrs. Boffin, instead we meet Silas Wegg...."
Ha! An Arby's Commercial I definitely was not thinking, but now I sure am. Gross and Funny :) :)
Peter wrote: "Kim wrote: "The last chapter this installment is Chapter 7 titled, "Mr. Wegg Looks After Himself". I'm not sure what I can say about a chapter that I spent most of the time going from one awful thi..."Peter wrote: "Kim wrote: "Chapter 6 is titled "Cut Adrift" and we are now in the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, not a pleasant sounding place to be, I think so anyway:
...."a dropsical appearance, had long settl..."
The Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters is a great creation by Dickens. I just hope when the Curiosities meet there Miss Potterson has some great tales to tell us.
I didn't realize what close quarters everybody was gathering in, not to mention just how dilapidated the aesthetics are...It's quite intimate, to say the least?
Lizzie Hexam does seem to be following the Dickensian framework of a young woman who is self-sacrificing and inherently good. Kim suggests she might be like an earlier character in a Dickens novel. I pity poor Lizzie's life for the rest of this novel.
Yes, I too began questioning her fate as I left her on Gaffer's knee, in the midst of being resuscitated by ...was it sea water he was putting on her lips?
Dickens is very dark in this novel so far. His humour does not rise above sarcasm, biting irony and jaundiced commentary. OMF is a Dickens we have not encountered before.
Your'e right, it's literally very dark, and more often than not, the only bright light every mentioned is the light cast by the moon. The word "moon" in reference to light has been mentioned 19X(+/-). Mr. Venus's establishment was especially dark, I couldn't make heads or tales of it, and am still not quite sure what his trade is...Taxidermy, perhaps, but the Hindoo baby in a bottle and the other human bones made me think different. Silas, does read the card that states Mr. Venus is a preserver of Animals and Birds...Articulator of human bones, a profitable business for Mr. Venus...I find the demand for it curious, in general.
Peter, I was so excited to come upon another bird in Chapter 7; well, until I realized the poor Cock Robin was sitting there lifeless and impaled by an arrow...The track record for birds and their descriptions doesn't look very optimal so far.
If the dinner fork used instead as a hair combing tool in the previous chapter gave some of us pause, I did think of both Hillary & Tristram, while I read how Mr. Venus removed the arrow from the breast of the Cock Robin and then used it to toast a muffin. It wasn't as odd as the fork scene, but the "as a matter of fact" manner both Belle and Mr. Venus go on about their deed, I found similar in nature. Needless to say, I was nauseated by this act...Perhaps, it was also do to the environment, considering the smells Weggs describes as being musty, leathery, father, celery , gluey, gummy...and strong of old bellows (76). Yuck.
I'm finding each chapter reads like a mini play. And a lot of characters to absorb for later usage, I assume.
Mod
Of the five chapters I have fully read now (just starting Chapter 6), the opening paragraph of Chapter 6 on the Six Jollies was just amazing. My favorite so far. Just a meandering sentence or two that gives the impression of a building ready to topple but frozen in permanent time.
Mod
I found this comment of the narrator's quite funny:
"‘My tea is drawing, and my muffin is on the hob, Mr Wegg; will you partake?’
It being one of Mr Wegg’s guiding rules in life always to partake, he says he will."
I can even understand that Mr. Wegg has taken on the habit of looking after himself a bit more than is compatible with good manners because he does not seem to have been favoured by life very much. Kim is wondering why he should be anxious to re-purchase his leg, and as the text does not give any concrete answer, I can just guess that he might wish to do so for the sake of having full control over himself. I don't know how I'd feel if I knew that my leg - its bones - were in the possession of somebody like Mr. Venus, who is even not very enthusiastic about it, saying that it somehow does not fit in with other people's bones so that he cannot use it in order to assemble a complete human skeleton.
In a way, Mr. Wegg's quest for his own leg seems to be a semi-comical parallel to Jesse Hexam's job - looking for human remains in the river. We are probably on the trace of capitalism at its most cruel and basic: Human bodies turned into money. For Jesse Hexam a human body is a source of income in that whenever he retrieves one, he cashes in on a certain sum by delivering it to the authorities. Mr. Venus also deals in human - but also animal - bodies, and he seems to have some morbid hold on Wegg by having his leg. One might also ask, Why does Mr. Venus not simply restore his leg to Wegg seeing how desperately anxious Wegg is to buy the leg, and how useless the limb in question is to Mr. Venus?
John wrote: "I'm finding each chapter reads like a mini play. And a lot of characters to absorb for later usage, I assume."I like that you said this because upon completion of the two books, I'm finding it comparable to episodes in Made for television miniseries!
Peter wrote: "Forks for combing hair and spoons for an alternate form of mirror. What will Dickens do with a knife?"Ha! I couldn't stop laughing thinking about your comment! Good stuff! ;)
Mod
Kim,
I thought that Lizzie, on hearing that people were suspicious of her father, immediately thought that they had found out that he usually empties the pockets of the dead bodies he finds in the Thames, taking all the money he finds on them. When her father explains to Mortimer and Eugene that the tide of the river empties their pockets, she leaves the room for shame because she knows that her father is pilfering dead men's pockets.
And this is why she seems somehow relieved when she learns that Abbey Potterson's suspicion does not have anything to do with her father's shameful side-earnings.
Ami wrote: "John wrote: "I'm finding each chapter reads like a mini play. And a lot of characters to absorb for later usage, I assume."I like that you said this because upon completion of the two books, I'm ..."
Yes, I keep thinking of the theater. I also assume, given a lot of his books were done in installments for the eager public, that this was a factor.
Mod
Yes. At this point in the novel we are certainly seeing the value of remains. Remains of people, remains of objects, remains of animals and birds, remains of one's emotions."
Are we moving towards the philosophical question which will ask "how do we value nothing" or, in another framework, "how does one discover the right way to place a value on a person, an object, a relationship?"
Mod
Ha! I couldn't stop laughing thinking about your comment! Good stuff! ;)"
I think Chapter 6 gives us a suggestion: Just remember Lizzie's horror when she finds that her father makes aggressive movements with a knife he happens to be holding in his hand when he is getting in a rage over Charley's "betrayal". These movements remind Lizzie of the suspicions that are abroad. The whole scene reminded me of the movie "Blackmail" by Alfred Hitchcock, which is the first British sound movie. We have a heroine who stabs a man to death when this man wants to rape her, and who now finds that knives remind her of her guilt she tries to keep secret:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvlyQ...
Tristram wrote: "Needless to say, because you might already have guessed, but I really like Silas Wegg - although, of course, I know he is a rather selfish and underhanded character, and I also like Mr. Venus and w..."In a way, Mr. Wegg's quest for his own leg seems to be a semi-comical parallel to Jesse Hexam's job - looking for human remains in the river. We are probably on the trace of capitalism at its most cruel and basic: Human bodies turned into money.
You've given a deeper meaning to the reading, Tristram. You draw a substantial parallel between Wegg's leg, Hexam's Thames River body retrieval system and Venus's dealings with heterogeneous effects. I will continue to keep this in mind as I read.
Speaking of Mr.Venus, I do wonder who is tugging at his heart strings?
Mod
I am amazed at how you could like Silas Wegg and not like.......
Thanks for the answer to what Lizzie was afraid Miss Potterson knew that truth, I hadn't thought of that.
Tristram wrote: "Ami wrote: "Peter wrote: "Forks for combing hair and spoons for an alternate form of mirror. What will Dickens do with a knife?"Ha! I couldn't stop laughing thinking about your comment! Good stuf..."
Yet another horrifying moment for Lizzie as more of the undesireable aspects to Jesse Hexam's personality surface. I thought it a menacing flash before Lizzie's eyes. My thoughts on the father daughter relationship wavered between Lizzie's exchange with Miss Potterhouse, where I thought Lizzie to be dutiful and steadfast; and the scene you mention, where she is still dutiful but pitiful too.. You can't help but feel for her as she's torn by how her father is capable of being viewed by others and who he really is in her eyes.
Peter's comment I read as sarcastic, whether he meant for it to be or not, considering what "did" occur in the knife wielding scene. Tristram, you weren't being facetious about the how dark this novel was going to be. If I can't find a glimmer of humour in the narrative from time to time, I'm glad that those reading along can offer it (both advertent/inadvertently) in their insights!
Mod
Ha! I couldn't stop laughing thinking about your c..."
About my knife comment .... I wasn't trying to be sarcastic. I was wondering how Dickens might find a bizarre way to use a knife. Then, upon reading Tristram's comments on Hexam waving a knife about another penny dropped into my brain. I then got to thinking about how one has a leg removed or practices the occupation of taxidermy and I realized that knives were all around us in these opening chapters.
If the Veneerings have another dinner party and Dickens describes how the roast or fowl is carved I'll be beside myself. :-))
Mod
The publication of Our Mutual Friend, in the form of the earliest stories, extended from May 1864 to November 1865. Four years earlier he had chosen this title as a good one, and he held to it through much objection.
Having got his title in '61 it was his hope to have begun in '62. "Alas!" he wrote in the April of that year, "I have hit upon nothing for a story. Again and again I have tried. But this odious little house" (he had at this time for a few weeks exchanged Gadshill for a friend's house near Kensington) "seems to have stifled and darkened my invention." It was not until the autumn of the following year he saw his way to a "The Christmas number has come round again" (30th of August 1863)—"it seems only yesterday that I did the last—but I am full of notions besides for the new twenty numbers. When I can clear the Christmas stone out of the road, I think I can dash into it on the grander journey." He persevered through much difficulty; which he described six weeks later, with characteristic glance at his own ways when writing, in a letter from the office of his journal. "I came here last night, to evade my usual day in the week—in fact to shirk it—and get back to Gad's for five or six consecutive days. My reason is, that I am exceedingly anxious to begin my book. I am bent upon getting to work at it. I want to prepare it for the spring; but I am determined not to begin to publish with less than five numbers done. I see my opening perfectly, with the one main line on which the story is to turn; and if I don't strike while the iron (meaning myself) is hot, I shall drift off again, and have to go through all this uneasiness once more."
He had written, after four months, very nearly three numbers, when upon a necessary rearrangement of his chapters he had to hit upon a new subject for one of them. "While I was considering" (25th of February) "what it should be, Marcus, who has done an excellent cover, came to tell me of an extraordinary trade he had found out, through one of his painting requirements. I immediately went with him to Saint Giles's to look at the place, and found—what you will see." It was the establishment of Mr. Venus, preserver of animals and birds, and articulator of human bones; and it took the place of the last chapter of No. 2, which was then transferred to the end of No. 3. But a start with three full numbers done, though more than enough to satisfy the hardest self-conditions formerly, did not satisfy him now. With his previous thought given to the story, with his Memoranda to help him, with the people he had in hand to work it with, and ready as he still was to turn his untiring observation to instant use on its behalf, he now moved, with the old large canvas before him, somewhat slowly and painfully. "If I were to lose" (29th of March) "a page of the five numbers I have proposed to myself to be ready by the publication day, I should feel that I had fallen short. I have grown hard to satisfy, and write very slowly. And I have so much—not fiction—that will be thought of, when I don't want to think of it, that I am forced to take more care than I once took."
I have to wonder at the reference to the nursery rhyme, Who Killed Cock Robin?, in the intro to Mr Venus'' grim business. The innocent little bird does seem odd there among all the freakish things. I have read that in the rhyme everyone is considered complicit in the death, and this has me thinking, could complicity be a clue? AS IF Mr Venus and Mr Wegg are guilty in some way...?“As if it were Cock Robin, the hero of the ballad, and Mr Venus were the sparrow with his bow and arrow, and Mr Wegg were the fly with his little eye.
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The publication of Our Mutual Friend, in the form of the earliest stories, extended from May 1864 to November 1865. Four years earlier he had ch..."
Dickens would have loved this jaunt to do research and evidently we have a dog to thank for this visit.
Kitton, in Dickens and His Illustrators recounts how Marcus Stone wanted a dog in his painting titled "Working and Shirking", and found one with a taxidermist named Willis. One thing led to another and Marcus Stone used one of Willis's "set up" dogs.
Finding Willis's establishment so, well unique, Stone told Dickens who went to see the place for himself. Voila, Mr. Venus and his store were immortalized. ... like his subjects. :-))
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http://en.artsdot.com/@@/9CWE76-Marcu...
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Ah, Linda. The plot thickens.
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Just wait ... she will appear ;-)
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You're welcome, Kim! And as to Silas, I like him because he is very funny in his crooked sort of way. For instance when he says he never 'aggles and then simply doubles the price. What admirable cheek! Or how he says that reading poetry comes dearer because of the weakening effect on a person's mind. He is very inventive, let's give him that!
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I can even find a lot of humour in Dostoyevsky and Conrad but then a have a very grim sense of humour.
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Ha! I couldn't stop laughing thinking ..."
Talking about knives made me remember this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrMj6...
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Those two are surely up to something!
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Ha! I couldn't stop laug..."
What a perfect way to start my day. Now, if only I can find a knife to enjoy my breakfast with ... ah yes, the dishwasher. :-))
Tristram wrote: "Ami wrote: "If I can't find a glimmer of humour in the narrative from time to time, I'm glad that those reading along can offer it (both advertent/inadvertently) in their insights! "I can even fi..."
Tristram wrote: "Ami wrote: "Speaking of Mr.Venus, I do wonder who is tugging at his heart strings?"
Just wait ... she will appear ;-)"
Tristram wrote: "Ami wrote: "Peter wrote: "Forks for combing hair and spoons for an alternate form of mirror. What will Dickens do with a knife?"
Ha! I couldn't stop laughing thinking about your comment! Good stuf..."
These movements remind Lizzie of the suspicions that are abroad. The whole scene reminded me of the movie "Blackmail" by Alfred Hitchcock, which is the first British sound movie.
It's in my netflix queue. Thank you for the link. I've never watched this particular Hitchcock film.
When knives go a wielding, I immediately think about the famous scene from "Psycho," but your scene in particular correlates better to the emotional slashings Lizzie's mind endures.
Just wait ... she will appear ;-)
YES!! :)
I can even find a lot of humour in Dostoyevsky and Conrad but then a have a very grim sense of humour.
I am in your boat then, most definitely.
Taxidermy makes a previous appearance in the book, as noted in the second paragraph of this article. The last paragraph refers to the theme of death introduced in chapter one, as making its inevitable return as comic relief in chapter 7. I'm what you would call a non-fan of taxidermy, so I hope this represents my last foray into the subject. :)From Chapter 5
“Mr Wegg also noticed, with admiring eyes, that, while the flowery land displayed such hollow ornamentation as stuffed birds and waxen fruits under glass-shades..."
The link to article
https://dickensourmutualfriend.wordpr...
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Mr. and Mrs. Boffin
Chapter 5
Sol Eytinge Jr.
1870 Household Edition
Text Illustrated:
"Having received his literary friend with great cordiality, he conducted him to the interior of the Bower and there presented him to Mrs Boffin:—a stout lady of a rubicund and cheerful aspect, dressed (to Mr Wegg’s consternation) in a low evening-dress of sable satin, and a large black velvet hat and feathers.
‘Mrs Boffin, Wegg,’ said Boffin, ‘is a highflyer at Fashion. And her make is such, that she does it credit. As to myself I ain’t yet as Fash’nable as I may come to be. Henerietty, old lady, this is the gentleman that’s a going to decline and fall off the Rooshan Empire.’
‘And I am sure I hope it’ll do you both good,’ said Mrs Boffin."
Commentary:
"Henrietta ("Henerietty") Boffin, as eager to acquire knowledge of the classics of modern literature as her bustling husband, has dressed (or should one say "over-dressed"?) to receive the vistor who will read the "decline and fall off the Rooshan Empire." The manner of representation verges on caricature, but there is none of the cartoon-like playfulness of Eytinge's great American contemporary, John McLenan, illustrator of A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations for Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization in the late eighteen-fifties and early eighteen-sixties.
Only sketchily does Eytinge give us the parlour of The Bower or Harmony Jail, and the clock incorectly registers one o'clock (in the afternoon, one presumes), although it is evening when Wegg calls. Whereas Eytinge depicts Boffin in a suit, the text clearly indicates that Boffin is "in an undress garment of short white smock-frock." One can only assume, therefore, that Eytinge is not introducing us to the elderly couple at the moment of Wegg's arrival — after all, he does not appear in the illustration — but rather earlier that day, when one supposes Noddy Boffin mentioned to his wife that they would be receiving an oral reading that evening. Eytinge's intention, then, appears simply to have been to establish the benign character and mutual devotion of the Boffins, sparkling eyed and youthful in their appreciation of life, despite their age and working-class background."
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"Here you are again, "repeated Mr. Wegg, musing. "And what are you now?"
Chapter 5
James Mahoney
Household Edition 1875
Commentary:
"In chapter 5, "Boffin's Bower," the dour, one-legged street vendor of gingerbread, Silas Wegg, talks to himself about the presence of Mr. Boffin in vicinity of Cavendish Square. To construct an image of these distinctive characers, Mahoney has consulted two separated passages in the chapter:
.......Every morning, at eight o'clock, he [Wegg} stumped to the corner, carrying a chair, a clothes-horse, a pair of trestles, a board, a basket, and an umbrella, all strapped together. Separating these, the board and trestles became a counter; the basket supplied the few small lots of fruit and sweets that he offered for sale upon it, and became a foot-warmer; the unfolded clothes-horse displayed a choice collection of halfpenny ballads, and became a screen; and the stool planted within it became his post for the rest of the day.
With a proprietary interest in any strangers, as if he were the Cavendish Square Beadle, Wegg appraises the peculiarly dressed walker:
.........The words referred to a broad, round-shouldered, one-sided old fellow in mourning, coming comically ambling towards the corner, dressed in a pea over-coat, and carrying a large stick. He wore thick shoes, and thick leather gaitoers, and thick gloves like a hedger's.
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"Mr. Boffin engages Mr. Wegg"
Chapter 5
Felix O. C. Darley
Household Edition 1866
Commentary:
One of the most memorable meetings in nineteenth-century British literature is involved in Noddy Boffin's hiring the duplicitous one-legged ballad-monger, Silas Wegg, to read him Gibbon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. Working in 1866 on three frontispieces for the May 1864-November 1865 novel, Darley had at hand the models of Boffin and Wegg provided in the monthly parts by Dickens's new illustrator Marcus Stone, working in the new, realistic mode of the 1860s. However, since neither character in this initial frontispiece much resembles his counterpart in the Stone illustrations, Darley apparently felt uncomfortable with the new style and elected to take an approach more consistent with the earlier, caricature style as exemplified by the work of Hablot Knight Browne and George Cruikshank. Darley has, moreover, reduced the size of Wegg's stall and reduced considerably the space occupied by background buildings in his revision of Stone's Bibliomania of the Golden Dustman (April 1865) in order to focus on the character of Wegg, under his enormous umbrella, as described in the following passage at the opening of the fifth chapter:
........"Over against a London house, a corner house not far from Cavendish Square, a man with a wooden leg had sat for some years, with his remaining foot in a basket in cold weather, picking up a living on this wise: — Every morning at eight o'clock, he stumped to the corner, carrying a chair, a clothes-horse, a pair of trestles, a board, a basket, and an umbrella, all strapped together. Separating these, the board and trestles became a counter, the basket supplied the few small lots of fruit and sweets that he offered for sale upon it and became a foot-warmer, the unfolded clothes-horse displayed a choice collection of halfpenny ballads and became a screen, and the stool planted within it became his post for the rest of the day. All weathers saw the man at the post. This is to be accepted in a double sense, for he contrived a back to his wooden stool, by placing it against the lamp-post. When the weather was wet, he put up his umbrella over his stock in trade, not over himself; when the weather was dry, he furled that faded article, tied it round with a piece of yarn, and laid it cross-wise under the trestles: where it looked like an unwholesomely-forced lettuce that had lost in color and crispness what it had gained in size."........
In contrast to the subtlety of Darley's engraving, the other illustrators of the period utilized the bold lines of the composite wood-block engraving, with particularly dramatic effect in the Household Edition half- and whole-page illustrations by social realist James Mahoney. As both J. A. Hammerton and Frederic G. Kitton have noted, Marcus Stone, the original part-publication illustrator, worked closely with Dickens, so that the resulting illustrations bear the stamp of authorial intention, influencing such later illustrators as Harry Furniss. Conversations with and detailed notes from the novelist gave young Stone direct access to what he himself termed Dickens's "pictorialism" (Kitton, 197), that is, an innate sense of what in in a text will be most suitable as an illustration. Although Darley did not have these opportunities for artistic collaboration with Dickens, he was generally an outstanding "'character' draughtsman" (Kitton, 223) with the knack of placing complementary characters together in an interesting situation as described in the narrative. Such is the case with his dual portrait of the genial dustman, the millionaire of garbage, and his alter-ego, the envious malcontent and purveyor of shoddy goods, Silas Wegg.
Both Felix Octavius Carr Darley and John Gilbert, working on the Hurd and Houghton edition frontispieces just the year after the book's publication in England, at least had the opportunity to study Marcus Stone's work, but developed different scenes and developed their own interpretations of the characters. In the case of Boffin, Darley has produced a heavy-set man of advanced middle age trying to dress like a bourgeois, but not quite comfortable in his respectable clothing, over which he wears a serviceable but not particularly fashionable jacket (a "pea overcoat"), revealing the tails of his frock-coat. Darley has incorporated the broad-brimmed hat and gaiters of Dickens's text, but shows only Boffin's profile. He is not as obtuse as the Boffin produced the following year by Darley's fellow American, Sol Eytinge, Jr. The artist has lavished considerably more attention on the ballad-monger, detailing his wares and conspicuously showing his salient feature, a wooden leg, under his table. Oddly enough, Darley has Wegg sitting on a chair rather than a stool, and makes his face more pliable and less stony than Dickens suggests. Both characters in the 1866 frontispiece are more engaging, however, than their counterparts in Mahoney's wood-engravings.
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Mr. Boffin and Silas Wegg
Chapter 5
Harold Copping
1924
Commentary:
Neatly avoiding the more unpleasant aspects of Our Mutual Friend, Copping's "dual character study" exemplifies the novel's comedy. The scene occurs in the second installment (June 1864), when the illiterate but literature-craving Noddy Boffin, having inherited his old master's estate decides to hire the seedy Cavendish Square ballad-seller Silas Wegg to become his reader:
........."Here you are again,"repeated Mr. Wegg, musing.
"Morning, sir! Morning! Morning!"
"Do you remember me, then?" asked his new acquaintance, stopping in his amble, one-sided, before the stall, and speaking in a pouncing way, though with great good-humour.
"I have noticed you go past our house, sir, several times in the course of the last week or so."
"Our house," repeated the other. "Meaning —?"
"Yes," said Mr. Wegg, nodding, as the other pointed the clumsy forefinger of his right glove at the corner house.
"Did you ever hear of the name of Boffin."
"My name's Boffin. What's your name?"
Silas Wegg. — I don't," said Mr. Wegg, bestirring himself to take the same precaution as before, " I don't know why Silas, and I don't know why Wegg."
"Now, Wegg," said Mr. Boffin, hugging his stick closer, "I want to make a sort of offer to you." [chapter 5].......
Copping has taken particular pains to realize the crotchety "literary man" with the wooden leg. However, in terms of the physical descriptions of the characters in Dickens's text, Copping had far less upon which to base the picture's focal figure, Silas Wegg; however, he was able to draw upon the original (albeit rather uninteresting) images of the character by Marcus Stone and endorsed by Dickens. Weggs's wares and his wooden leg appear in the letterpress, as do the pea coat, large walking stick, thick shoes, gaiters, and gloves, of Nicodemus Boffin. Copping contrasts by their facial expressions Wegg's suspicious, easily angered temperament with Boffin's open, generous, genial nature. The illustrator has taken pains to include all physical elements of the background, down to the sign that Dickens offsets from the letterpress by enclosing it in a box; the "little placard" is exactly where the reader expects to find it, "on the front of [Wegg's] sale-board" or counter displaying "the few small lots of fruit and sweets that he offer[s] for sale" (ch. 5, installment 2 [June 1864]).
The salient detail to which Copping had to pay special attention was Wegg's peg-leg, the disposition of which the novelist had left to the discretion of his original illustrator, Marcus Stone (Cohen 205). Unfortunately, perhaps because the lithograph is a negative image, Copping has made Wegg's peg-leg his right, whereas in such Stone woodcuts as "The Evil Genius of the House of Boffin" (Vol. 2, plate 5) and "Mr. Wegg Prepares a Grindstone for Mr. Boffin's Nose" the peg-leg is clearly Wegg's left. Dickens himself had highlighted a succeeding scene between Boffin and Wegg, that in which the semi-literate vendor reads Gibbon with little comprehension to the Golden Dustman, when he was discussing with Marcus Stone the composition of the wrapper. Stone, glorying in his first full commission for his father's old friend, forty illustrations to complement the nineteen monthly parts, used the rediscovered medium of the woodcut in place of Phiz's familiar, and now rather dated-looking steel engravings. Although Stone's style here is markedly more realistic and generally less whimsical than Phiz's, his depictions of Boffin and Wegg were sufficiently animated to serve as models for Copping in 1924."
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At the Bar
Marcus Stone
Chapter 6
June 1864
Text Illustrated:
"Abbey the supreme threw the customer’s halfpence into the till, and, seating herself in her fireside-chair, resumed the newspaper she had been reading. She was a tall, upright, well-favoured woman, though severe of countenance, and had more of the air of a schoolmistress than mistress of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. The man on the other side of the half-door, was a waterside-man with a squinting leer, and he eyed her as if he were one of her pupils in disgrace.
‘You’re cruel hard upon me, Miss Potterson.’
Miss Potterson read her newspaper with contracted brows, and took no notice until he whispered:
‘Miss Potterson! Ma’am! Might I have half a word with you?’
Deigning then to turn her eyes sideways towards the suppliant, Miss Potterson beheld him knuckling his low forehead, and ducking at her with his head, as if he were asking leave to fling himself head foremost over the half-door and alight on his feet in the bar.
‘Well?’ said Miss Potterson, with a manner as short as she herself was long, ‘say your half word. Bring it out.’
‘Miss Potterson! Ma’am! Would you ‘sxcuse me taking the liberty of asking, is it my character that you take objections to?’
‘Certainly,’ said Miss Potterson.
‘Is it that you’re afraid of—’
‘I am not afraid of you,’ interposed Miss Potterson, ‘if you mean that.’
‘But I humbly don’t mean that, Miss Abbey.’
‘Then what do you mean?’
‘You really are so cruel hard upon me! What I was going to make inquiries was no more than, might you have any apprehensions—leastways beliefs or suppositions—that the company’s property mightn’t be altogether to be considered safe, if I used the house too regular?’
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The Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters
Chapter 6
Sol Eytinge
1870 Household Edition
Text Illustrated:
"Now, you mind, you Riderhood," said Miss Abbey Potterson, with emphatic forefinger over the half-door, "the Fellowships don't want you at all, and would rather by far have your room than your company; but if you were as welcome here as you are not, you shouldn't even then have another drop of drink here this night, after this present pint of beer. So make the most of it." . . . .
Abbey, the supreme[,] . . . was a tall, upright, well-favoured woman, though severe of countenance, and had more of the air of a schoolmistress than mistress of the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters. The man on the other side of the half-door, was a waterside-man with a squinting leer, and he eyed her as if he were one of her pupils in disgrace. . . .
In such an establishment, the white-aproned pot-boy, with his shirt=sleeves arranged in a tight roll on each bare shoulder, was a mere hint of the possibility of physical force, thrown out as a matter of state and form. Exactly at the clsing hour, all the guests who were left, filed out in the best order: Miss Abbey standing at thew half-door of the bar, to hold a ceremony of review and dismissal. All wished Miss Abbey good-night and Miss Abbey wished good-night to all, except Riderhood."
Commentary:
"Rather than attempting to capture a single textual moment, Eytinge here synthesizes material from several scenes in the waterside public house, eliminating the half-door of the bar and representing both Riderhood's remonstrance and closing time, prior to sending the pot-boy, Bob Glibbery (left), to fetch Lizzie Hexam. For the whole range of beverages available, Eytinge uses a visual metonymy: a mug, a pipe, and a wine glass on the bare wooden table. Note the gas jet burning just above the pot-boy, a detail added by Eytinge to explain the illumination of the night scene. No wonder, then, that having visually realized this disreputable establishment, Eytinge sought out such places in the East of London in in May- June 1869 visit."
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"After holding her to his breast with a passionate cry, he tool up his bundle and darted out at the door, with an arm across his eyes."
Chapter 6
J. Mahoney
Text Illustrated:
‘Now listen, Charley dear. We both know it must be done, and I alone know there is good reason for its being done at once. Go straight to the school, and say that you and I agreed upon it—that we can’t overcome father’s opposition—that father will never trouble them, but will never take you back. You are a credit to the school, and you will be a greater credit to it yet, and they will help you to get a living. Show what clothes you have brought, and what money, and say that I will send some more money. If I can get some in no other way, I will ask a little help of those two gentlemen who came here that night.’
‘I say!’ cried her brother, quickly. ‘Don’t you have it of that chap that took hold of me by the chin! Don’t you have it of that Wrayburn one!’
Perhaps a slight additional tinge of red flushed up into her face and brow, as with a nod she laid a hand upon his lips to keep him silently attentive.
‘And above all things mind this, Charley! Be sure you always speak well of father. Be sure you always give father his full due. You can’t deny that because father has no learning himself he is set against it in you; but favour nothing else against him, and be sure you say—as you know—that your sister is devoted to him. And if you should ever happen to hear anything said against father that is new to you, it will not be true. Remember, Charley! It will not be true.’
The boy looked at her with some doubt and surprise, but she went on again without heeding it.
‘Above all things remember! It will not be true. I have nothing more to say, Charley dear, except, be good, and get learning, and only think of some things in the old life here, as if you had dreamed them in a dream last night. Good-bye, my Darling!’
Though so young, she infused in these parting words a love that was far more like a mother’s than a sister’s, and before which the boy was quite bowed down. After holding her to his breast with a passionate cry, he took up his bundle and darted out at the door, with an arm across his eyes."
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Mr. Venus surrounded by the Trophies of his Art
Chapter 7
Marcus Stone
Text Illustrated:
"At this moment the greasy door is violently pushed inward, and a boy follows it, who says, after having let it slam:
'Come for the stuffed canary.'
'It's three and ninepence,' returns Venus; 'have you got the money?'
The boy produces four shillings. Mr. Venus, always in exceedingly low spirits, and making whimpering sounds, peers about for the stuffed canary . . . .
'There!' he whimpers.'There's animation! On a twig, making up his mind to hop! Take care of him; he's a lovely specimen. — And three is four.'
Commentary:
In Dickens and His Illustrators (1899), Frederic G. Kitton notes that the illustrator proposed Willis's shop on the north side of St. Andrew's Street in St. Giles's near Seven Dials as the model for a shop in an unusual line of trade which Dickens had been seeking:
"On the evening of the day when Mr. Stone first called upon Willis, and observed the strange environment resulting from the man's occupation, he was invited by Dickens to go with him to the play, and between the acts the novelist enquired if he knew of any peculiar avocation, as he wished to make it a feature of his new story, — "it must be something very striking and unusual," he explained. The artist immediately recalled Willis as he appeared when "surrounded by the trophies of his art," and informed Dickens that he could introduce him to the very thing. Delighted with the suggestion, the novelist appointed "two o'clock sharp" on the following day, for a visit to Willis It happened that the man was absent when they called, but Dickens, with his unusually keen power of observation, was enabled during a very brief space to take mental notes of every detail that presented itself, and his readers were soon enjoying his vivid portrayal of that picturesque representative of a curious profession, Mr. Venus. The novelist was so elated by the discovery that he could not refrain from confiding the secret to [his business agent, confidant, and future biographer John] Forster: " While I was considering what it should be," he wrote, "Marcus, who has done an excellent cover, came to tell me of an extraordinary trade he had found out, through one of his painting requirements. I immediately went with him to St. Giles's to look at the place, and found — what you will see."
Mr. Stone visited Willis's shop two or three times for the purpose of sketching, in order that he might effectively introduce the more salient features into his drawing. The illustration gives an approximate representation of that dingy interior, with its "bones warious; bottled preparations warious; dogs, ducks, glass eyes, warious;" but, in delineating the proprietor, the artist did not attempt to give a true presentment of Willis, whom, by the way, Dickens never saw, and who never suspected that it was his own establishment which figures in the story."
Consequently, credit must be given Stone as the originator of the idea of the character of the taxidermist, Mr. Venus, even though his specific lineaments came directly from Dickens's imagination.
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Mr. Wegg and Mr. Venus in Consultation
Chapter 7
Sol Eytinge
1870 Household Edition
Commentary:
"While Dickens in "Mr. Wegg Looks after Himself" (chapter 7) establishes Mr. Venus's character by detailed description of the natural curiosities with which his shop abounds and his "sallow face with weak eyes, surmounted by a tangle of reddish-dusty hair", Eytinge is clearly more interested in Mr. Venus's one-legged customer, Silas Wegg. Here, Eytinge illustrates a specific moment in order to underscore Wegg's obsession with retrieving his severed limb. Dickens, interested in Venus, describes him minutely from the front:
The owner of the face has no cravat on, and has opened his tumbled shirt-collar to work with the more ease. For the same reason he has no coat on: only a loose waistcoat over his yellow linen. His eyes are like the over-tried eyes of an engraver, but he is not that; his expression and stoop are like those of a shoemaker, but he is not that.
Eytinge, on the other hand, shows him from the back, and focuses on Wegg:
......"I don't know how it comes about. Stand up a minute. Hold the light." Mr. Venus takes from a corner by his chair, the bones of a leg and foot, beautifully pure, and put together with exquisite neatness. These he compares with Mr. Wegg's leg; that gentleman looking on, as if he were being measured for a riding-boot. "No, I don't know how it is, but so it is. You have got a twist in that bone, the best of my belief. I never saw the likes of you."
The above excerpts reveal that Eytinge is attempting to realize a single textual moment, studying Wegg's reaction to seeing his missing limb. The mummified baby in the jar and the articulated skeleton (upper right) and the skull and leg-bone underneath Venus's chair suggest rather than delineate the contents of the shop, and of course his cup of tea sits on the table by Wegg, ready to be consumed. But the focus of the piece is clearly Wegg himself, a pirate in middle-class garb, his Neanderthal -like head illuminated by the flaring candle.
Since the "illustrated Household Edition" of the novel post-dates both Dickens's second visit to America (November 1867 through April 1868) and Eytinge's to England (May-June 1869), it is reasonable to assume that the illustrator had ample opportunity to discuss Dickens's own conception of the novel, as well as to study for some time Marcus Stone's original Sixties' style illustrations for the Chapman and Hall (May 1864 through November 1865) serialization, so that the image of Silas Wegg is informed by both Dickens's conception and Stone's realizations of the character."
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"You're casting your eye round the shop, Mr. Wegg. Let me show you a light."
Chapter 7
James Mahoney
Household Edition, 1875
Commentary:
"Mahoney's composition places the viewer in Wegg's line of sight, so to speak, and highlights his figure against the hearth in the background, juxtaposing his face against Venus's candle, centre. Wegg appears alert and curious rather than disgusted or appalled as he looks up from his tea, no muffin being evident. The shop is largely engulfed in darkness, except for a human and an animal skull and a few rib-bones in the foreground. Here the Cockney taxidermist sheds a light on his Clerkenwell shop for his one-legged visitor to give him a "general panoramic view" of the interior:
......"My working bench. My young man's bench. A Wice. Tools. Bones, warious. Skulls, warious. Preserved Indian baby. African ditto. Bottled preparations, warious. Everything within reach of your hand, in good perservation."
Instead of an "Articulated English baby" and "Mummified bird", Mahoney shows us a stuffed ape immediately below the burly figure of Mr. Venus. Compare Mahoney's handling of this scene with that of Marcus Stone in the serial illustration "Mr. Venus surrounded by the Trophies of his Art" (June, 1864). Stone's treatment is far less atmospheric and much more detailed, reflecting the illustrator's attempt to convey the "warious" objects that Venus describes for his guest. The moment that Stone chose, when the proprietor is dealing with the boy, is earlier, so that the viewer in Mahoney's woodcut is compelled to concentrate on Wegg's reaction to the shop rather than on the shop itself. While Mahoney's treatment of his material is very much "of the sixties" and in the new, realist style of Fred Walker and Fred Barnard, Stone's in "Mr. Venus surrounded by the Trophies of his Art" is more consistent with the earlier style of Cruikshank and Phiz. More intense is the moment depicted by Dickens's American serial illustrator, Sol Eytinge, Jr., for the Harper's New Monthly Magazine serialization of the novel, "Mr. Wegg and Mr. Venus in Consultation", in which the hulking, animalistic figure of Wegg dominates the scene, holding the candle and standing above the seated taxidermist, whose back is towards the viewer, as in Stone's more "panoramic" treatment of the scene."
Silas Wegg is a great character, one of those comical rogues that stick in the memory. I loved the way Dickens focused on his wooden leg, and then extended it to become part of his whole appearance. "Wegg was a knotty man, and a close-grained, with a face......that had just as much play of expression as a watchman's rattle" and then referring to him as 'that ligneous sharper'. Very clever.
Tristram wrote: "I can even find a lot of humour in Dostoyevsky and Conrad but then a have a very grim sense of humour. ..."I guess I have a grim sense of humor, as well, because I have laughed out loud several times during these three chapters! I thought the "highflyer at Fashion" and the disposition of the room was hilarious, and that whole section was amusing. Chapter 7 was darker, but poor Mr. Venus's declaration that if Mr. Wegg was brought in "loose in a bag" that he could reassemble him by touch "in a manner that would equally surprise and charm [him]" had me rolling.
I am anxious to see who Venus's inamorata may be, and thought it might be Bella, since I remembered her mentioning another suitor, but that is someone named George Sampson. So it remains a mystery, for now.
I also thought it was interesting that Dickens introduced Venus's trade the same way he did Hexam's--by listing things he was not. "His eyes are like the over-tired eyes of an engraver, but he is not that; his expression and stoop are like those of a shoemaker, but he is not that," (75). He seems to be loath to name these trades that are so rife with death. They are both trades that probably many people were unaware existed.
The Old Curiosity Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The Other Dickens: A Life of Catherine Hogarth (other topics)Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (other topics)
Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (other topics)
Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (other topics)
Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Jen Campbell (other topics)Jen Campbell (other topics)
Jen Campbell (other topics)
Jen Campbell (other topics)
Our second installment begins with Chapter 5 titled, Boffin's Bower, and while I expected to begin the chapter meeting Mr. or Mrs. Boffin, instead we meet Silas Wegg. This is our introduction to Mr. Wegg:
"Over against a London house, a corner house not far from Cavendish Square, a man with a wooden leg had sat for some years, with his remaining foot in a basket in cold weather, picking up a living on this wise:—Every morning at eight o’clock, he stumped to the corner, carrying a chair, a clothes-horse, a pair of trestles, a board, a basket, and an umbrella, all strapped together. Separating these, the board and trestles became a counter, the basket supplied the few small lots of fruit and sweets that he offered for sale upon it and became a foot-warmer, the unfolded clothes-horse displayed a choice collection of halfpenny ballads and became a screen, and the stool planted within it became his post for the rest of the day. All weathers saw the man at the post. This is to be accepted in a double sense, for he contrived a back to his wooden stool, by placing it against the lamp-post. When the weather was wet, he put up his umbrella over his stock in trade, not over himself; when the weather was dry, he furled that faded article, tied it round with a piece of yarn, and laid it cross-wise under the trestles: where it looked like an unwholesomely-forced lettuce that had lost in colour and crispness what it had gained in size."
When I first met Silas I liked him, when I left him at the end of the chapter, I didn't. At first he reminded me of Trotty Veck, the ticket porter, message deliverer, whatever he was from The Chimes, Trotty was lovable, and since I think so I suppose my two fellow moderators couldn't stand the guy. Anyway, Silas is always at the same corner, every day rain or shine, he never moves from the spot. Because of this he feels like he belongs to the house, or the house belongs to him. He didn't know what was done in the house, any guesses he made were all wrong, and he gave names to the people belonging to the house. As to the stall he owned we're told:
"Assuredly, this stall of Silas Wegg’s was the hardest little stall of all the sterile little stalls in London. It gave you the face-ache to look at his apples, the stomach-ache to look at his oranges, the tooth-ache to look at his nuts. Of the latter commodity he had always a grim little heap, on which lay a little wooden measure which had no discernible inside, and was considered to represent the penn’orth appointed by Magna Charta. Whether from too much east wind or no—it was an easterly corner—the stall, the stock, and the keeper, were all as dry as the Desert."
Keeping that in mind, there is also the belief of Silas that he is errand-goer to the house, "though he received such commissions not half a dozen times in a year". Between his sales of goods, which seem almost nonexsistent, and his half a dozen commissions, how does this man live? I can't imagine that this is enough to feed and lodge himself and any family he may have, which if he does, I missed it. But he reminded me of Trotty and I felt sorry for him until Mr. Boffin entered his life. Noddy Boffin tells Silas he has often gone by his stall and has heard Silas singing. To Mr. Boffin that makes him a "literary man", and this means that "all print is open to him." Mr. Boffin is retired and he and his wife live on a compittance, under the will of his diseased governor. Now that he is retired he wants to read. He has never had the time before and had never learned to read, and now he wants to read. He says however, that he is too old to be learning how to read and is "getting to be a old bird", but still he wants reading.
"But I want some reading—some fine bold reading, some splendid book in a gorging Lord-Mayor’s-Show of wollumes’ (probably meaning gorgeous, but misled by association of ideas); ‘as’ll reach right down your pint of view, and take time to go by you. How can I get that reading, Wegg? By,’ tapping him on the breast with the head of his thick stick, ‘paying a man truly qualified to do it, so much an hour (say twopence) to come and do it.’
‘Hem! Flattered, sir, I am sure,’ said Wegg, beginning to regard himself in quite a new light. ‘Hew! This is the offer you mentioned, sir?’
‘Yes. Do you like it?’
‘I am considering of it, Mr Boffin.’
This is where Mr. Wegg and I begin to part, instead of being glad of getting a job that seems like it would be easy work, enjoyable work, and work that should last for a long time, he starts to plot how to make the most money he can. When Mr. Boffin tells him it would be half a crown per week, Wegg replies "It ain't much, sir". Also, poetry would be dearer, for,
" when a person comes to grind off poetry night after night, it is but right he should expect to be paid for its weakening effect on his mind"
And when Mr. Boffin asks whether he agrees to the terms, Silas replies:
‘Mr Boffin, I never bargain.’
‘So I should have thought of you!’ said Mr Boffin, admiringly. ‘No, sir. I never did ‘aggle and I never will ‘aggle. Consequently I meet you at once, free and fair, with—Done, for double the money!’
Mr Boffin seemed a little unprepared for this conclusion, but assented, with the remark, ‘You know better what it ought to be than I do, Wegg,’ and again shook hands with him upon it."
The man certainly seems to need money, but I don't like the way he is planning and plotting how to get the most money out of Mr. Boffin as possible. They agree to the terms and Wegg promises to come to Boffin's Bower that evening to begin the reading. When he finally arrives, after getting a little lost, and asking directions from a few different people, he arrives. The Bower is described:
"It was the queerest of rooms, fitted and furnished more like a luxurious amateur tap-room than anything else within the ken of Silas Wegg. There were two wooden settles by the fire, one on either side of it, with a corresponding table before each. On one of these tables, the eight volumes were ranged flat, in a row, like a galvanic battery; on the other, certain squat case-bottles of inviting appearance seemed to stand on tiptoe to exchange glances with Mr Wegg over a front row of tumblers and a basin of white sugar. On the hob, a kettle steamed; on the hearth, a cat reposed. Facing the fire between the settles, a sofa, a footstool, and a little table, formed a centrepiece devoted to Mrs Boffin. They were garish in taste and colour, but were expensive articles of drawing-room furniture that had a very odd look beside the settles and the flaring gaslight pendent from the ceiling. There was a flowery carpet on the floor; but, instead of reaching to the fireside, its glowing vegetation stopped short at Mrs Boffin’s footstool, and gave place to a region of sand and sawdust. Mr Wegg also noticed, with admiring eyes, that, while the flowery land displayed such hollow ornamentation as stuffed birds and waxen fruits under glass-shades, there were, in the territory where vegetation ceased, compensatory shelves on which the best part of a large pie and likewise of a cold joint were plainly discernible among other solids. The room itself was large, though low; and the heavy frames of its old-fashioned windows, and the heavy beams in its crooked ceiling, seemed to indicate that it had once been a house of some mark standing alone in the country."
Mr. Boffin explains that his wife is a "highflyer at Fashion", but he doesn't go higher than comfort, so they've split the room, Mrs. Boffin's half is in fashion, and his is in comfort. This way they don't quarrel, since they've never quarelled before, he sees no reason they should now. I like Mr. Boffin. Now it is time for Silas to begin reading, but first he must have gin and water, next he needs fed:
"You read my thoughts, sir. Do my eyes deceive me, or is that object up there a—a pie? It can’t be a pie.’
‘Yes, it’s a pie, Wegg,’ replied Mr Boffin, with a glance of some little discomfiture at the Decline and Fall.
‘Have I lost my smell for fruits, or is it a apple pie, sir?’ asked Wegg.
‘It’s a veal and ham pie,’ said Mr Boffin.
‘Is it indeed, sir? And it would be hard, sir, to name the pie that is a better pie than a weal and hammer,’ said Mr Wegg, nodding his head emotionally.
‘Have some, Wegg?’
‘Thank you, Mr Boffin, I think I will, at your invitation. I wouldn’t at any other party’s, at the present juncture; but at yours, sir!—And meaty jelly too, especially when a little salt, which is the case where there’s ham, is mellering to the organ, is very mellering to the organ.’ Mr Wegg did not say what organ, but spoke with a cheerful generality."
I know that from the earlier description of his working day he probably is hungry, but it all feels like he is trying to get all he can out of them. We're told:
"His wooden conceit and craft kept exact pace with the delighted expectation of his victim. The visions rising before his mercenary mind, of the many ways in which this connexion was to be turned to account, never obscured the foremost idea natural to a dull overreaching man, that he must not make himself too cheap."
And now the reading begins with Silas struggling with names like Commodious, Hadrian, Trajan, Antonines and Polybius. Mr. Buffin has no idea of whether the names are being pronounced correctly, he is just fascinated by all of it. We end with this:
‘Commodious,’ gasped Mr Boffin, staring at the moon, after letting Wegg out at the gate and fastening it: ‘Commodious fights in that wild-beast-show, seven hundred and thirty-five times, in one character only! As if that wasn’t stunning enough, a hundred lions is turned into the same wild-beast-show all at once! As if that wasn’t stunning enough, Commodious, in another character, kills ‘em all off in a hundred goes! As if that wasn’t stunning enough, Vittle-us (and well named too) eats six millions’ worth, English money, in seven months! Wegg takes it easy, but upon-my-soul to a old bird like myself these are scarers. And even now that Commodious is strangled, I don’t see a way to our bettering ourselves.’ Mr Boffin added as he turned his pensive steps towards the Bower and shook his head, ‘I didn’t think this morning there was half so many Scarers in Print. But I’m in for it now!’