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Passage Illustrated: Humphrey encounters Annie Frost a second time nears Wells

Her voice broke, and she was ready to begin crying again. Apart from its note of distress, the voice itself affected the listener in a way that was very strange to him. He wished to hear it once more.

"Don't call me 'Sir'! I'm only a common man, as you'd see if it was daylight. Is it anything you can tell a stranger?"

"It isn't my fault," sobbed the girl. "They've turned me out, and I don't know where to go. I've got a little money, but I don't like to go to an inn 'cause they might know me and it 'ud look funny. It ain't my fault; I don't know what to do. I haven't done nothing —"

She seemed to be about eighteen, and betrayed a weakness of character even in excess of the failing common to her kind; her manner was childish, and could not have excited suspicion in the most experienced observer. Humphrey Snell, whose seven and twenty years represented the minimum of experience with regard to women, felt a profound pity as he listened to her; and therewith blended that other vague emotion stirred by the first sound from her lips — an emotion which reminded him of early manhood, when he was wont to shrink from girls and yet to worship afar off. He began to speak more freely; to urge that she should not remain out of doors at so late an hour. The dialogue was prolonged, and presently Humphrey learned all the particulars of the distressful story. Disentangled from a confusion of superfluous words, feeble ejaculations, repetitions endless, and periods of indiscoverable connection, the narrative can be briefly set forth. This young woman, having long ago lost her parents, had for three years been in service at Bristol; her only home was the house of a married sister, Mrs. Davis, who lived at Wells. Now, for chosen friend she had a sister of her brother-in-law, Jenny Davis by name, who also took service in Bristol; and this, as it turned out, was anything but a happy circumstance, for Miss Davis one day disappeared from her situation, and left behind her some disagreeable rumours. Arriving in search of his sister, the man from Wells made inquiries which threw an unpleasant light not only on her behaviour, but also on that of her friend Annie Frost, who was under notice to leave her situation. Annie, after living alone in Bristol for some weeks, obtained another place, but kept it only a short time. "It wasn't my fault," she declared. "I did nothing." The latter statement might be true enough; doubtless it accounted for Annie's failure to procure another engagement. Having all but exhausted her money, she took a ticket for Wells, and presented herself at her sister's house. Mrs. Davis received her coldly, and could not promise hospitality; it depended upon her husband, who would not be home till late that night. When Davis returned, he was somewhat the worse for liquor; without a moment's hesitation, he turned his sister-in-law out of the house, forbidding her, with many oaths, ever to show her face there again. [The English Illustrated Magazine, October 1895]

Commentary: Barnard masters the Lithograph

Fred Barnard quickly developed a style of drawing well suited to the dominant medium of the era (the composite woodblock engraving) when he entered the world of commercial art in the 1860s. However, by the 1890s a new development in printing, the lithograph, was overtaking the wood engraving so popular in book, newspaper, and magazine publishing for three decades. The painterly qualities of this highly emotional scene suggest that Barnard was making himself a master of the new form, which emphasizes the nuances of mood, atmosphere, and the subjects' attitudes over the patiently drawn background detailing and three-dimensional realism of the previously popular medium. Barnard effectively conveys Humphrey's diffidence and Annie's discomposure, engaging the reader in these characters' lives through this full-page frontispiece which anticipates a crucial meeting later in the Gissing short story.

In the frontispiece, Barnard gives the reader a tearful maid-servant who is hiding her face in her hands in the painterly lithograph lengthily captioned "'It isn't my fault,' sobbed the girl.'They've turned me out, and I don't know where to go'." Although her clothing and hat as well as the tree trunk provide visual continuity, Barnard introduces an entirely new figure, that of the herb-gatherer Humphrey Snell himself, dressed in fustian and carrying one of those large wicker baskets which he learned to fashion under his relatives the Doggetts in the little Essex village in which the Snells originated. In profile Humphrey in this picture resembles his moustached brother in the illustration on page 3 of The English Illustrated Magazine. No. 145, but he wears an untrimmed beard and cloth cap more suitable to his calling. Although he is hardly disreputable, Humphrey in Barnard’s study wears his pant-cuffs rolled up, and wears a labourer’s neckcloth. Despite his roughness, Barnard’s Humphrey facially has a certain aesthetic delicacy. And Barnard effectively communicates the atmosphere and the setting, the woods at ten on an autumn evening, with its tangle of branches and deep shade. However, Barnard may also be utilizing the realistic tangle of branches (right) symbolically, to foreshadow the romantic snare into which the girl is about to lead him. The specific caption as well as the postures and juxtapositions of the two very different figures point the reader to a specific passage at the top of page 8. Thus, Barnard compels the reader to push on to this significant textual moment, so out of character with the bashful failed postman with whom the story begins.

Related Material

• The Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Illustration: Woodblock Engraving, Steel Engraving, and Other Processes
• The English Illustrated Magazine
• A Select Periodical Bibliography of George Gissing's Short Fiction (1893-98)

Bibliography

Gissing, George. "The Fate of Humphrey Snell." Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The English Illustrated Magazine. No. 145 (Oct., 1895): 1-10.

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Created 22 January 2021