"The Wedding Feast" — Furniss's twenty-sixth illustration for Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby" (1910)

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The Wedding Feast

Harry Furniss

1910

5 ½ by 3 ¾ inches (13.8 cm high x 9.2 cm wide), vignetted

Arthur Gride chattered and mowed over his ledger until peg Sliderskew interrupted him. "It's the fowl, said peg, holding up a plate containing a phenomenally small and skinny one. "A beautiful bird!" said Arthur. There’ll only be she and me — and you, Peg, when we’ve done — nobody else." — p. 717.

Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing IV, 720.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: The Gride/Nickleby Plot Frustrated by an Untimely Death

"Well-a-day!" he chuckled, as sinking on his knees before a strong chest screwed down to the floor, he thrust in his arm nearly up to the shoulder, and slowly drew forth this greasy volume. "Well-a-day now, this is all my library, but it’s one of the most entertaining books that were ever written! It’s a delightful book, and all true and real — that’s the best of it — true as the Bank of England, and real as its gold and silver. Written by Arthur Gride. He, he, he! None of your storybook writers will ever make as good a book as this, I warrant me. It’s composed for private circulation, for my own particular reading, and nobody else’s. He, he, he!"

Muttering this soliloquy, Arthur carried his precious volume to the table, and, adjusting it upon a dusty desk, put on his spectacles, and began to pore among the leaves.

"It’s a large sum to Mr. Nickleby," he said, in a dolorous voice. "Debt to be paid in full, nine hundred and seventy-five, four, three. Additional sum as per bond, five hundred pound. One thousand, four hundred and seventy-five pounds, four shillings, and threepence, tomorrow at twelve o’clock. On the other side, though, there’s the per contra, by means of this pretty chick. But, again, there’s the question whether I mightn’t have brought all this about, myself. “Faint heart never won fair lady.” Why was my heart so faint? Why didn’t I boldly open it to Bray myself, and save one thousand four hundred and seventy-five, four, three?"

These reflections depressed the old usurer so much, as to wring a feeble groan or two from his breast, and cause him to declare, with uplifted hands, that he would die in a workhouse. Remembering on further cogitation, however, that under any circumstances he must have paid, or handsomely compounded for, Ralph’s debt, and being by no means confident that he would have succeeded had he undertaken his enterprise alone, he regained his equanimity, and chattered and mowed over more satisfactory items, until the entrance of Peg Sliderskew interrupted him.

"Aha, Peg!" said Arthur, "what is it? What is it now, Peg?"

"It’s the fowl," replied Peg, holding up a plate containing a little, a very little one. Quite a phenomenon of a fowl. So very small and skinny.

"A beautiful bird!" said Arthur, after inquiring the price, and finding it proportionate to the size. "With a rasher of ham, and an egg made into sauce, and potatoes, and greens, and an apple pudding, Peg, and a little bit of cheese, we shall have a dinner for an emperor. There’ll only be she and me — and you, Peg, when we’ve done."

"Don’t you complain of the expense afterwards," said Mrs. Sliderskew, sulkily. [Chapter LIII, "Containing the further Progress of the Plot contrived by Mr. Ralph Nickleby and Mr. Arthur Gride," 717]

Commentary: The Misers in Outmaneuvered by Fate

Editor J. A. Hammerton's comment about Gride ("an old miser and money-lender") in the "Who's Who" in the front matter does not provide much of a clue as to his relationship to Ralph Nickleby. The illustrations involving this character in the various editions, 1839 through 1910, suggest that the relationship between the middle-aged money-lender and the septuagenarian is one of mutual interests and closely guarded confidences. Here, Gride begrudgingly considers having to repay Ralph for the money he has just laid out to pay the outstanding debts of Walter Bray. However, if their plan to leverage Bray's debts into his acquiescence about Gride's marrying the adolescent Madeline is to succeed, Gride must pay. However, fate deals the misers a bad hand when Walter Bray dies before the wedding day, and Nicholas runs off with the bride in the next chapter. Here, Furniss shows the miser expending far more care on his ledger than on his bottle-green wedding coat, hanging on the chair in the foreground. The other ledgers (left) and the locked trunk point towards the scene in which Peg and Squeers attempt to lay their hands on the Bray will: Squeers and Peg play havoc with Gride's Papers (Chapter LVII).

Relevant Illustrations from Earlier Editions (1839-1875)

Left: Phiz shows how Nicholas outwits Gride and his uncle Ralph in Nicholas Congratulates Arthur Gride on His Wedding Morning (August 1839). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition study of the novel's miserly villains: Ralph Nickleby and Arthur Gride (1867). Right: Fred Barnard's Household Edition illustration for this chapter involves Nicholas's entreating Madeline not to go through with the marriage: "I must beseech you to contemplate again the fearful curse to which you have been impelled." (1875)

Above: C. S. Reinhart's 1875 woodblock engraving of Nicholas's stealing the aged miser's bride: And then, taking the beautiful burden in his arms, rushed out in Chapter 54 of the American Household Edition.

Related material by other illustrators (1838 through 1910)

Bibliography

Barnard, J. "Fred" (illustrator). Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, with fifty-nine illustrations. The Works of Charles Dickens: The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. Volume 15. Rpt. 1890.

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With fifty-two illustrations by C. S. Reinhart. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1872. I.

__________. Nicholas Nickleby. With 39 illustrations by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman & Hall, 1839.

__________. Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. IV.

__________. "Nicholas Nickleby." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, being eight hundred and sixty-six drawings by Fred Barnard et al. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1908.

Created 18 September 2021