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"What makes you draw off in that way, Tess?"
E. Borough Johnson
22 August 1891
30.5 cm high by 21.7 cm wide (11 ⅝ inches by 8 ⅞ inches wide), framed.
Plate 7 from the illustrated serialisation in the Graphic of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the Durbervilles, Ch. XVII, p. 217.
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Scan and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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The light which still shone was derived mainly from a large hole in the western bank of cloud; it was like a piece of day left behind by accident, dusk having closed in elsewhere. He concluded his plaintive melody, a very simple performance, demanding no great skill; and she waited, thinking another might be begun. But, tired of playing, he had desultorily come round the fence, and was rambling up behind her. Tess, her cheeks on fire, moved away furtively, as if hardly moving at all.
Angel, however, saw her light summer gown, and he spoke; his low tones reaching her, though he was some distance off.
“What makes you draw off in that way, Tess?” said he. “Are you afraid?”
“Oh no, sir — not of outdoor things; especially just now when the apple-blooth is falling, and everything is so green.”
“But you have your indoor fears — eh?”
“Well — yes, sir.”
“What of?”
“I couldn’t quite say.” [Book Third, "The Rally," Chapter XVII, 218; in the 1897 volume edition, Phase the Third: "The Rally," Chapter XIX, 159]
The reader, fully aware of Alec D'Urbeville's advances towards her in Borough Johnson's July 25th illustration, "I would rather take it, sir, in my own hand", completely comprehends Tess's diffidence when dealing in isolation with this second handsome, upper-middle-class youth; Angel Clare, of course, is mystified, but intrigued. Again, she is by herself when she encounters this man making advances. Tess, now a dairymaid at Crick's, has been thrown by chance into company with the "dairyman's pupil" (XVII: 218). It is a June evening at dusk, as the plate suggests, and Tess is walking alone on the outskirts of the garden at Talbothays, as we can see from the "tall blooming weeds" which have overrun the space. Angel, having just concluded a performance on the harp, catches sight of Tess some distance away in a light summer gown, sleeves rolled up.
To make the moment more dramatic and the design more compact Borough Johnson has placed Tess in close proximity to Angel, and accentuated the class difference by his more middle-class attire; the illustrator has also eliminated the musical instrument. Angel's dropped suspenders suggest a casual informality in the summer heat. Tess is, in fact, wearing the same dress as in his July 25th illustration. The illustrator places the viewer at a vantage point close to the figures, who appear as if on stage, rather than from the perspective of either Tess or Angel, mirroring Hardy's strategy in the letterpress, in which he reads the scene from the consciousness of first Tess, then Angel. Highly effective is Borough Johnson's rendering Tess's torso with slight contraposto as she turns away from the handsome social superior who has unexpectedly accosted her when nobody else is around.
Note: The next illustration in this serialisation is by a different illustrator. For the complete list, see here.
Allingham, Philip V. "The Original Illustrations for Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles Drawn by Daniel A. Wehrschmidt, Ernest Borough-Johnson, and Joseph Sydall for the Graphic (1891)." The Thomas Hardy Year Book, No. 24 (1997): 3-50.
Allingham, Philip V. "Six Original Illustrations for Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles Drawn by Sir Hubert Von Herkomer for the Graphic (1891)." The Thomas Hardy Journal, Vol. X, No. 1 (February 1994): 52-70.
Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles in the Graphic, 1891, 4 July-26 December, pp. 11-761.
Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman. Vol. I. The Wessex Novels.London: Osgood, McIlvaine, 1897.
Jackson, Arlene M. Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981.
Vann, J. Don. "Tess of the D'Urbervilles in the Graphic, 4 July — 26 December 1891." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985, pp. 88-89.
Created 5 December 2000.
Last modified 8 May 2024