"Paul also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought about King Alfred's idea of measuring time by burning candles . . ." — Fred Barnard's fifteenth illustration for "Dombey and Son" (1877)

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Paul also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought about King Alfred's idea of measuring time by burning candles . . .

Fred Barnard

1877

17.7 cm high x 13.1 cm wide, full-page, framed.

composite wood-block engraving

Dombey and Son, facing p. 100

Illustration for Chapter 14, "Paul grows more and more old-fashioned, and goes Home for the Holidays," Dickens's Dombey and Son, in the fifteenth volume of the Household Edition.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

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Passage Illustrated

The workman on the steps was very civil; and as he said, when he observed Paul, ‘How do you do, Sir?’ Paul got into conversation with him, and told him he hadn’t been quite well lately. The ice being thus broken, Paul asked him a multitude of questions about chimes and clocks: as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people died, and whether those were different bells from wedding bells, or only sounded dismal in the fancies of the living. Finding that his new acquaintance was not very well informed on the subject of the Curfew Bell of ancient days, Paul gave him an account of that institution; and also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought about King Alfred’s idea of measuring time by the burning of candles; to which the workman replied, that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock trade if it was to come up again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the clock had quite recovered its familiar aspect, and resumed its sedate inquiry; when the workman, putting away his tools in a long basket, bade him good day, and went away. Though not before he had whispered something, on the door-mat, to the footman, in which there was the phrase "old-fashioned" — for Paul heard it. [Chapter 14, "Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home for the Holidays," 100]

Commentary

Paul is chatting affably with a workman who has come to repair the clock on the main staircase. His conversation reveals his friendly nature, totally lacking in class consciousness, and also (thanks to Blimber's Academy) arcane knowledge about Alfred the Great's notion of how to keep track of time, which would have been thoroughly impractical except for the Church and the wealthiest Anglo-Saxons. However, Barnard's focus is not the observations Paul makes but his genial relationship with a visiting tradesman whom he has just met. (This is the second of the volume's four full-page illustrations.)

Related Material including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son

Dombey and Son (homepage)
Phiz's 39 illustrations for Dombey and Son, Wholesale Retail & for Exportation (Oct. 1846 — April 1848)
Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 illustrations (1867)
The Illustrators of the Household Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens (22 vols., 1871-79)
Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards for Dombey and Son (1910)
Harry Furniss's illustrations for the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Phiz. (Hablot K. Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1848.

_______. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.

_______. Dombey and Son.16 Illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and A. V. S. Anthony (engraver). The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.

_______. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard [62 composite wood-block engravings]. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.

"Dombey and Son — Sixty-two Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Gordon Thomson, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. McL. Ralston, J. Mahoney, H. French, Charles Green, E. G. Dalziel, A. B. Frost, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1907.

Created 18 December 2020