"From his Clock-side in the Chimney Corner" — Furniss's ink-and-wash frontispiece for Dickens's "Master Humphrey's Clock" (1910)

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Master Humphrey's Clock

Harry Furniss

1910

14.2 x 9.4 cm, framed

Dickens's Master Humphrey's Clock, completes Vol. 6 of the Charles Dickens Library Edition; the present frontispiece faces the engraved title-page.

In this visual introduction to one of Dickens's minor efforts at weekly serialisation, Furniss's illustration is highly specific, describing the convivial chimney-corner of his crippled but cheerful "editor," Master Humphrey, who keeps his copy in the clock piece, immediately behind his antique arm-chair. [Commentary continues below.]

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Anticipated

We are men of secluded habits, with something of a cloud upon our early fortunes, whose enthusiasm, nevertheless, has not cooled with age, whose spirit of romance is not yet quenched, who are content to ramble through the world in a pleasant dream, rather than ever waken again to its harsh realities. We are alchemists who would extract the essence of perpetual youth from dust and ashes, tempt coy Truth in many light and airy forms from the bottom of her well, and discover one crumb of comfort or one grain of good in the commonest and least-regarded matter that passes through our crucible. Spirits of past times, creatures of imagination, and people of to-day are alike the objects of our seeking, and, unlike the objects of search with most philosophers, we can insure their coming at our command.

The deaf gentleman and I first began to beguile our days with these fancies, and our nights in communicating them to each other. We are now four. But in my room there are six old chairs, and we have decided that the two empty seats shall always be placed at our table when we meet, to remind us that we may yet increase our company by that number, if we should find two men to our mind. When one among us dies, his chair will always be set in its usual place, but never occupied again; and I have caused my will to be so drawn out, that when we are all dead the house shall be shut up, and the vacant chairs still left in their accustomed places. It is pleasant to think that even then our shades may, perhaps, assemble together as of yore we did, and join in ghostly converse.

One night in every week, as the clock strikes ten, we meet. At the second stroke of two, I am alone. [Chapter I, "Master Humphrey from His Clock-side in the Chimney-Corner," 6-7]

Commentary: Master Humphrey and "The Deaf Gentleman"

In contrast to his highly specific treatment of the narrator in the ink-and-wash frontispiece, Furniss's elaboration of the principal characters in the 1910 edition, not entitled Characters in the Story on the facing title-page, but so entitled under the "List of Special Plates," is the second of the so-called six "Special Plates" for this anthology that completes the volume that contains one of the Clock's two novels, Barnaby Rudge. In the ink-and-wash dual character study, which is the most atmospheric of the six illustrations, Master Humphrey, the supposed narrator, counts his blessings because, although an aged cripple, he is not "friendless," and enjoys a comfortable retirement "in a venerable suburb of London" (1). In Furniss's frontispiece, Master Humphrey, enthroned beside his fireplace, is entertaining a guest whom he knows only by the appellation "the deaf gentleman."

Bibliography

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

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

Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge and Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. 6.

Last modified 2 December 2019