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Cross, cadaverous, odd, and ill-natured
Fred Barnard
13.8 cm x 10.6 cm, vignetted, p. 228.
three-quarter-page wood-engraving for Chapter 11 in "Tales," in Dickens's Sketches by Boz, the thirteenth volume of the Household Edition (1876).
[Click on the image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham
Mr. Nicodemus Dumps, or, as his acquaintance called him, "Long Dumps" — was a bachelor, six feet high, and fifty years old: cross, cadaverous, odd, and ill-natured. He was never happy but when he was miserable; and always miserable when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real comfort of his existence was to make everybody about him wretched — then he might be truly said to enjoy life. He was afflicted with a situation in the Bank worth five hundred a-year, and he rented a "first-floor furnished," at Pentonville, which he originally took because it commanded a dismal prospect of an adjacent churchyard. He was familiar with the face of every tombstone, and the burial service seemed to excite his strongest sympathy. His friends said he was surly — he insisted he was nervous; they thought him a lucky dog, but he protested that he was "the most unfortunate man in the world." Cold as he was, and wretched as he declared himself to be, he was not wholly unsusceptible of attachments. He revered the memory of Hoyle, as he was himself an admirable and imperturbable whist-player, and he chuckled with delight at a fretful and impatient adversary. He adored King Herod for his massacre of the innocents; and if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child. However, he could hardly be said to hate anything in particular, because he disliked everything in general; but perhaps his greatest antipathies were cabs, old women, doors that would not shut, musical amateurs, and omnibus cads. He subscribed to the "Society for the Suppression of Vice" for the pleasure of putting a stop to any harmless amusements; and he contributed largely towards the support of two itinerant methodist parsons, in the amiable hope that if circumstances rendered any people happy in this world, they might perchance be rendered miserable by fears for the next. — "The Bloomsbury Christening," Chapter 11 in "Tales," running head, "Dumps and Nephew," p. 225.
Dumps, Nicodemus. Misanthropic bachelor uncle of Charles Kitterbell, who disrupts the christening party for Kitterbell's son by toasting the infant with a list of the dangers he faces in the world. As a result, Dumps is not asked again to sponsor one of his nephew's children. — Paul Davis, p. 122.
Although it is one of the last stories in the 1839 volume, "The Bloomsbury Christening" was one of seven early stories first published in The Monthly Magazine, the other six being "Sentiment" (January 1834), "Horatio Sparkins" (February 1834), "The Boarding House" (two parts: May and August 1834), "The Steam Excursion" (October 1834), and "A Passage in the Life of Watkins Tottle" (two parts: January and February 1835).
The Monthly requested more, but because they were '"rather backward in coming forward" with the needful', he ceased sending contributions there once he could earn money by placing them elsewhere (to H. W. Kolle, ?10 December 1833). Except for 'The Boarding House', these farcical tales deal with a social sphere higher than the one he knew personally at the time, and as a result are largely unoriginal, lacking a distinctively Dickensian touch. — Paul Schlicke, 532.
Although this is one of Dickens's earliest short stories, it seems to fit nicely towards the end of the book as a statement that the English middle-class is thriving, and that it has an assured future. The issue in both the Cruikshank illustration The Bloomsbury Christening and that for Mr. Minns and His Cousin, for example, is the recognition of an heir; and the pictures share heavy, elegant furnishings and patterned carpet, also seen in Cruikshank's Mr. Watkins Tottle and Miss Lillerton. Barnard does none of this here, presenting instead an entirely decontextualised portrait of the gloomy protagonist of "The Bloomsbury Christening."
Reacting to Cruikshank's group study of Nicodemus Dumps and the Kitterbell christening party, Barnard presents a three-quarter-page study of the curmudgeon by himself, an older man of the rising middle-classes with neither wife nor family who dislikes children, but somehow (improbably) finds himself in the company of young women oohing at the infant during the Kitterbells' lavish christening celebration after the church service. Since Dickens does not go out of his way to account for Dumps's dour disposition and inveterate misanthropy, Barnard must have felt that presenting his emotional suppuration without background context was entirely appropriate as emphasizing character over action.
Since Barnard's caption is merely a brief description of Nicodemus Dumps at the opening of the story, the reader should consider the protagonist acting upon his misanthropy by giving a rather cheerless speech about the possible threats of disease to the future health and even the existence of the infant, throwing the poor mother into hysterics — a response that brings a secret smile to Dumps's face when he arrives back in his Pentonville rooms:
"Ladies and gentlemen," resumed Dumps, somewhat recovered, and not much disconcerted, for he was always a pretty good hand at a speech — "In accordance with what is, I believe, the established usage on these occasions, I, as one of the godfathers of Master Frederick Charles William Kitterbell — (here the speaker's voice faltered, for he remembered the mug) — venture to rise to propose a toast. I need hardly say that it is the health and prosperity of that young gentleman, the particular event of whose early life we are here met to celebrate — (applause). Ladies and gentlemen, it is impossible to suppose that our friends here, whose sincere well-wishers we all are, can pass through life without some trials, considerable suffering, severe affliction, and heavy losses!" — Here the arch-traitor paused, and slowly drew forth a long, white pocket-handkerchief—his example was followed by several ladies. ‘That these trials may be long spared them is my most earnest prayer, my most fervent wish (a distinct sob from the grandmother). I hope and trust, ladies and gentlemen, that the infant whose christening we have this evening met to celebrate, may not be removed from the arms of his parents by premature decay (several cambrics were in requisition): that his young and now apparently healthy form, may not be wasted by lingering disease. (Here Dumps cast a sardonic glance around, for a great sensation was manifest among the married ladies.) You, I am sure, will concur with me in wishing that he may live to be a comfort and a blessing to his parents. ("Hear, hear!" and an audible sob from Mr. Kitterbell.) But should he not be what we could wish — should he forget in after times the duty which he owes to them — should they unhappily experience that distracting truth [quoting The Tragedy of King Lear], "how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child"' — Here Mrs. Kitterbell, with her handkerchief to her eyes, and accompanied by several ladies, rushed from the room, and went into violent hysterics in the passage, leaving her better half in almost as bad a condition, and a general impression in Dumps's favour; for people like sentiment, after all. — "The Bloomsbury Christening," p. 233.
The challenge that Barnard faced here with composing a plausible image of the misanthropic Dumps was typical of his 1870s revisions of the original illustrations of such initial illustrators of Dickens's work as Hablot Knight Browne, John Leech, and George Cruikshank in that, working in the realistic "New Men of the Sixties" vein rather than caricatural mode of the early Victorian illustrators he had to honour their conceptions and provide suitable images to realise such distinctively Dickensian "voices" as that of Nicodemus Dumps in this passage. Barnard complements Dickens's descriptions of the behaviour and physical characteristics of Nicodemus Dumps with a balding, white-haired scowling visage, hands behind his back, and clothing appropriate to the business level of the middle class in the early Victorian period. What he fails to convey is the character's perverse sense of humour as manifested in his speech at the christening party which serves as the climax of the short story. As the following selection of Barnard's portraits in the Household Edition suggests, Barnard tended to favour group action scenes and dual character studies, so that such individual, uncontextualised portraits are rare in his work, except as title-page vignettes.
Above: George Cruikshank's original depiction of the scene, showing the rake-thin, long-headed Dumps as a member of the christening party, The Bloomsbury Christening. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
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Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z. The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. "The Bloomsbury Christening," Chapter 11 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Chapman and Hall, 1839; rpt., 1890. Pp. 355-68.
Dickens, Charles. "The Bloomsbury Christening," Chapter 11 in "Tales," Christmas Books and Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1875 [rpt. of 1867 Ticknor and Fields edition]. Pp. 485-94.
Dickens, Charles. "The Bloomsbury Christening," Chapter 11 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. Pp. 225-33.
Dickens, Charles. "The Bloomsbury Christening," Chapter 11 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. 1. Pp. 455-71.
Hawksley, Lucinda Dickens. Chapter 3, "Sketches by Boz." Dickens Bicentenary 1812-2012: Charles Dickens. San Rafael, California: Insight, 2011. Pp. 12-15.
Schlicke, Paul. "Sketches by Boz." Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999. Pp. 530-535.
Slater, Michael. Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing. New Haven and London: Yale U. P., 2009.
Last modified 3 June 2017