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"We shall have him on our hands"
Fred Barnard
October 1895
Wood-engraving illustrating Gissing's "The Fate of Humphrey Snell"
15 cm by 11.2 cm.
The English Illustrated Magazine XIV (October 1895): p. 5.
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Image scan and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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James and Andrew shook their heads after trying to converse with him of such things as delighted their souls — profit and loss, the theatres and music-halls, the pleasures of the street.
"He'll get chucked one of these days," Andrew remarked to his father, as they smoked together over a pot of old Burton.
"We shall have him on our 'ands."
Yet they were not actively unkind to Humphrey -- decent people, they could not pick a quarrel with one so amiably disposed. For all his sharpness at school, they thought he must have a "weak place." How otherwise explain the fact that a fellow of his age would walk himself to death for the sake of gathering a few flowers, which he pressed in sheets of paper and stored away as if they were worth money? He had a collection of this rubbish, and Mrs Snell declared that it bred fleas. Humphrey never attempted to explain his unaccountable taste; as yet, perhaps, he was unable to make any defence which even to himself would have seemed valid. He went his way in silence, and by habitual gentleness apologised for his unprofitable character. [The English Illustrated Magazine, October 1895, p. 5]
In this large-scale lithographic study of the brother and the father, Barnard contrasts Humphrey's romantic and somewhat unworldly nature (evident in his encounter with the tearful housemaid in the initial illustration "It isn't my fault") with the mundane, practical, and money- and pleasure-oriented natures of his fleshy father and brother, men of a far more realistic mentality. As sturdy and unimaginative as the oaken cask on which the older brother, Andrew, sits in Barnard's twin character study, Humphrey's father Thomas and sibling regard Humphrey as a mere encumbrance. Compared to the aesthetic, slender Humphrey, who has rapidly become a denizen of the woods and fields, these other Snells are mere animals. The younger man is but a slighter reflection of the solid elder; the natural milieu of such commonplace thinkers is the public house, a setting which Barnard admirably and economically suggests through the pewter drinking mug (centre) and beer taps (left of centre). In their expressions and postures, as in their pipes, the father and son are reflections of each other.
Gissing, George. "The Fate of Humphrey Snell." Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The English Illustrated Magazine. No. 145 (Oct., 1895): 1-10.
Created 24 January 2021