"Look about you," he said, pointing to the graves; "And remember that from your bridal hour to the day which sees you brought as low as these, and laid in such a bed, there will be no appeal against him." (1872) — Fred Barnard's thirtieth wood-engraving for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, Chapter XXIV, page 201. 9.5 cm by 13.8 cm, or 3 ¾ high by 5 ½ inches, framed, engraved by the Dalziels. Running head: "Tom Pinch Makes a New Friend," 201. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: A Warning Delivered among the Graves
"If it be odd in me to desire to know whether you love the young man whom I understand you are to marry, I am very odd," said Martin. "For that is certainly my wish."
"He’s such a monster, you know," said Merry, pouting.
"Then you don’t love him?" returned the old man. "Is that your meaning?"
"Why, my dear Mr. Chuzzlewit, I’m sure I tell him a hundred times a day that I hate him. You must have heard me tell him that."
"Often," said Martin.
"And so I do," cried Merry. "I do positively."
"Being at the same time engaged to marry him," observed the old man.
"Oh yes," said Merry."‘But I told the wretch — my dear Mr. Chuzzlewit, I told him when he asked me — that if I ever did marry him, it should only be that I might hate and tease him all my life."
She had a suspicion that the old man regarded Jonas with anything but favour, and intended these remarks to be extremely captivating. He did not appear, however, to regard them in that light by any means; for when he spoke again, it was in a tone of severity.
"Look about you," he said, pointing to the graves; "and remember that from your bridal hour to the day which sees you brought as low as these, and laid in such a bed, there will be no appeal against him. Think, and speak, and act, for once, like an accountable creature. Is any control put upon your inclinations? Are you forced into this match? Are you insidiously advised or tempted to contract it, by any one? I will not ask by whom; by any one?"
"No," said Merry, shrugging her shoulders. "I don’t know that I am." [Chapter XXIV, "Reports Progress in Certain Homely Matters of Love, Hatred and Revenge," 203. Running head: "Old Martin and Miss Merry," 203]
Commentary: Memento Mori!
Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s dual portrait, Old Martin and Mary in the 1867 Diamond Edition.
The scene shifts back to England, to the Blue Boar Inn in Wiltshire, where Old Martin Chuzzlewit and his comely attendant, Mary Graham, are staying while they visit the Pecksniffs. Old Martin, certainly not the old dolt his doting relatives imagine him, privately counsels Mercy Pecksniff about the folly of marrying so mean a brute as his rapacious and vicious nephew, Jonas. His gesture of command and his grasp of the girl's perilous situation anticipate his acting as the principle of Nemesis in the final scene, The Fall of Pecksniff, in Chapter LII.
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use the images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Dickens, Charles. The Dickens Souvenir Book. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871-1880. The copy of The Dickens Souvenir Book from which these pictures were scanned is in the collection of the Main Library of The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B. C.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
_____. Martin Chuzzlewit. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1863. Vol. 2 of 4.
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. 2.
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated Sterling Edition. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne and Frederick Barnard. Boston: Dana Estes, n. d. [1890s]
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 7.
Steig, Michael. "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Ch. 3, Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U.P., 1978. Pp. 51-85. [See e-text in Victorian Web.]
Steig, Michael. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz." Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-149.
31 January 2008
Last modified 21 November 2024