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Trotty Veck among the Bells
Richard Doyle
1844
Wood-block engraving by W. J. Linton
12.7 cm by 7.4 cm (5 by 2 ⅞ inches), vignetted.
Full-page illustration for Dickens's The Chimes: "Third Quarter," 92.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Black are the brooding clouds and troubled the deep waters, when the Sea of Thought, [continued below].
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Giddy and confused, and out of breath, and frightened, Toby looked about him vacantly, and sunk down in a swoon. ["Second Quarter,"91]
THIRD QUARTER. Black and brooding clouds and troubled the deep waters, when the Sea of Thought, first heaving from a calm, gives up its Dead. Monsters uncouth and wild, arise in premature, imperfect resurrection; the several parts and shapes of different things are joined and mixed by chance; and when, and how, and by what wonderful degrees, each separates from each, and every sense and object of the mind resumes its usual form and lives again, no man — though every man is every day the casket of this type of the Great Mystery — can tell.
So, when and how the darkness of the night-black steeple changed to shining light; when and how the solitary tower was peopled with a myriad figures; when and how the whispered "Haunt and hunt him," breathing monotonously through his sleep or swoon, became a voice exclaiming in the waking ears of Trotty, "Break his slumbers;" when and how he ceased to have a sluggish and confused idea that such things were, companioning a host of others that were not; there are no dates or means to tell. But, awake and standing on his feet upon the boards where he had lately lain, he saw this Goblin Sight.
He saw the tower, whither his charmed footsteps had brought him, swarming with dwarf phantoms, spirits, elfin creatures of the Bells. He saw them leaping, flying, dropping, pouring from the Bells without a pause. He saw them, round him on the ground; above him, in the air; clambering from him, by the ropes below; looking down upon him, from the massive iron-girded beams; peeping in upon him, through the chinks and loopholes in the walls; spreading away and away from him in enlarging circles, as the water ripples give way to a huge stone that suddenly comes plashing in among them. He saw them, of all aspects and all shapes. He saw them ugly, handsome, crippled, exquisitely formed. He saw them young, he saw them old, he saw them kind, he saw them cruel, he saw them merry, he saw them grim; he saw them dance, and heard them sing; he saw them tear their hair, and heard them howl. He saw the air thick with them. He saw them come and go, incessantly. He saw them riding downward, soaring upward, sailing off afar, perching near at hand, all restless and all violently active. Stone, and brick, and slate, and tile, became transparent to him as to them. He saw them in the houses, busy at the sleepers’ beds. He saw them soothing people in their dreams; he saw them beating them with knotted whips; he saw them yelling in their ears; he saw them playing softest music on their pillows; he saw them cheering some with the songs of birds and the perfume of flowers; he saw them flashing awful faces on the troubled rest of others, from enchanted mirrors which they carried in their hands. ["The Third Quarter," pp. 92-95]
In the initial illustration in the 1844 first edition of the novella, Daniel Maclise's ornate frontispiece, The Tower of the Chimes, Trotty is absent, and animated goblins rather than grave, elderly, bearded Spirits of the Bells inhabit the old church's bell tower in great numbers. However, Maclise's frontispiece anticipates this very moment in the story, underscoring its importance and preparing readers for Trotty's dream vision before Dickens has even introduced his protagonist.
Robert L. Patten remarks of this conjunction of the real and the supernatural,
The first paragraph of the third Quarter envelops the scene with brooding clouds, when the Sea of Thought gives up its Dead Monsters, arising in "imperfect resurrection": these miscellaneously formed creatures populate the mind as it gradually "resumes its usual form" and becomes conscious of shining light. But when Trotty awakes, he sees a "Goblin Sight." The paragraph prepares readers for a world imperfectly assembled, populated with grotesque creatures swarming in a chaotic carnivalesque dance. [151]
Trotty puts his hands to his head, as if to keep the demon sight out, so that the illustration underscores the psychological aspect of the ticket-porters awakening, complementing both the fantastical figures frolicking among the bells and the stark print, right. Although a slender and rather youthful Toby is the composition's focal point, the legion of imaginary creatures, so physically distorted and full of joy, do not merely contrast the weeping figure: they have all turned their attentions on him, they emphasize his reality. They oggle, point, cavort, gesticulate, and whirl towards him. The picture thus realizes in great detail and with tremendous energy the final words of the facing page, "swarming with dwarf phantoms" (93).
Left: Harry Furniss's version of the same terrifyingly beautiful vision, Trotty in the Belfry (1910). Centre: Abbey's American Household Edition version emphasizes the Gothic, nightmarish side of the vision: What Trotty Saw in the Belfry (1876). Right: Charles Green's scene involves only the ancient, druidical Spirits of the Chimes: The Spirits of the Bells (1912).
Dickens, Charles. The Chimes. Introduction by Clement Shorter. Illustrated by Charles Green. The Pears' Centenary Edition. London: A & F Pears, [?1912].
_____. The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang An Old Year Out and a New Year In. Illustrated by John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and Daniel Maclise. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1844 [Printed title-page dated "1845."].
_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 22 vols. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1878. Vol. XVIII.
_____. The Christmas Books. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910, VIII, 79-157.
_____. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876. Vol. V.
Patten, Robert L. Chapter 7, "Ringing Out Change." Dickens, Death, and Christmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 127-168.
Created 20 February 2001 Last modified 19 May 2024