On the fourteenth night, he kissed Miss Pecksniff's snuffers in the passage, when she went up-stairs to bed: meaning to have kissed her hand, but missing it." (1872). Thirty-eighth illustration by Fred Barnard for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit (Chapter XXXII), page 257. [The physical comedy of the awkward courtship of the bashful Mr. Moddle and the elder, far less comely Miss Pecksniff at Todgers's boarding-house] 10.5 cm x 13.8 cm, or 4 ¼ high by 5 ½ inches, framed, engraved by the Dalziels. Running head: “Todger's Again." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Realised: The Unlikely Courtship of Miss Charity Pecksniff
On the seventh night of cribbage, when Mrs. Todgers, sitting by, proposed that instead of gambling they should play for "love," Mr. Moddle was seen to change colour. On the fourteenth night, he kissed Miss Pecksniff’s snuffers, in the passage, when she went upstairs to bed; meaning to have kissed her hand, but missing it.
In short, Mr. Moddle began to be impressed with the idea that Miss Pecksniff’s mission was to comfort him; and Miss Pecksniff began to speculate on the probability of its being her mission to become ultimately Mrs Moddle. He was a young gentleman (Miss Pecksniff was not a very young lady) with rising prospects, and ‘almost’ enough to live on. Really it looked very well.
Besides — besides — he had been regarded as devoted to Merry. Merry had joked about him, and had once spoken of it to her sister as a conquest. He was better looking, better shaped, better spoken, better tempered, better mannered than Jonas. He was easy to manage, could be made to consult the humours of his Betrothed, and could be shown off like a lamb when Jonas was a bear. There was the rub! [Chapter XXXII, "Treats of Todgers's Again; and of Another Blighted Plant Besides the Plants upon the Leads," 259]
Augustus Moddle in The Diamond Edition (1867) and the Household Edition (1872)
Left: Mrs. Todgers and Mr. Moddle by Sol Eytinge, Jr. (1867): "Only because she's so like her who is Another's, Mrs. Todgers," rejoined the youth. "When she talks, and when she smiles, I think I'm looking on HER brow again, Mrs. Todgers." [Ch. 32, Diamond Edition, p. 294, facing the illustration]. Right: Phiz's realisation of the scene in which Miss Pecksniff flirts with Augustus Moddle in the drawing-room of Todgers's, Mr. Moddle is Both Particular and Peculiar in his Attentions (December 1843). [Click on these images to enlarge them.]
Above: Fred Barnard's realisation of the scene in which Augustus Moddle confesses to Tom Pinch that he has no appetite for marrying Charity Pecksniff, Mr. Moddle, with a dark look, replied: "The drivers won't do it.".
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.
Davis, Paul. "Martin Chuzzlewit, The Life and Adventures of." Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts-on-file and Checkmark, 1998. Pp. 229-237.
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. 1 of 4.
_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, with 59 illustrations by Fred Barnard. 22 vols. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871-1880. Vol. 2. [The copy of the Household Edition from which this picture was scanned was the gift of George Gorniak, proprietor of The Dickens Magazine, whose subject for the fifth series, beginning in January 2008, was this novel.]
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 7.
"The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit: Fifty-nine Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-Six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. Mahoney, Charles Green, A. B. Frost, Gordon Thomson, J. McL. Ralston, H. French, E. G. Dalziel, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. Printed from the Original Woodblocks Engraved for "The Household Edition." London: Chapman and Hall, 1908. Pp. 185-216.
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.
3 February 2008
Last modified 24 November 2024