"The Moonstone" — "Second period. The Discovery of the Truth. (1848-1849.) First Narrative. Contributed by Miss Clack; niece of the late Sir John Verinder," Ch. V: "May modesty mention that he put his arms around her next?"

[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Wilkie Collins —> Jewett’s Illustrations of The Moonstone —> Next]

Second illustration for Part Seventeen, Ch. V: "May modesty mention that he put his arms around her next?"

Harper & Bros. house illustrator William Jewett

Wood engraving

17.3 x 11.5 cm

The second illustration for the seventeenth weekly part of Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: A Romance in the Harper's Weekly (25 April 1868), page 261. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Illustrations courtesy of the E. J. Pratt Fine Arts Library, University of Toronto, and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia.

Passage Illustrated: Godfrey's Marriage Proposal Overheard.

"And, suppose, in spite of all that — you couldn't tear her from your heart? Suppose the feeling she had roused in you (in the time when you believed in her) was not a feeling to be hidden? Suppose the love this wretch had inspired in you? Oh, how can I find words to say it in! How can I make a man understand that a feeling which horrifies me at myself, can be a feeling that fascinates me at the same time? It's the breath of my life, Godfrey, and it's the poison that kills me — both in one! Go away! I must be out of my mind to talk as I am talking now. No! you mustn't leave me — you mustn't carry away a wrong impression. I must say what is to be said in my own defence. Mind this! He doesn't know — he never will know, what I have told you. I will never see him — I don't care what happens — I will never, never, never see him again! Don't ask me his name! Don't ask me any more! Let's change the subject. Are you doctor enough, Godfrey, to tell me why I feel as if I was stifling for want of breath? Is there a form of hysterics that bursts into words instead of tears? I dare say! What does it matter? You will get over any trouble I have caused you, easily enough now. I have dropped to my right place in your estimation, haven't I? Don't notice me! Don't pity me! For God's sake, go away!"

She turned round on a sudden, and beat her hands wildly on the back of the ottoman. Her head dropped on the cushions; and she burst out crying. Before I had time to feel shocked, at this, I was horror-struck by an entirely unexpected proceeding on the part of Mr. Godfrey. Will it be credited that he fell on his knees at her feet? — on both knees, I solemnly declare! May modesty mention that he put his arms round her next? And may reluctant admiration acknowledge that he electrified her with two words?

"Noble creature!"

No more than that! But he did it with one of the bursts which have made his fame as a public speaker. She sat, either quite thunderstruck, or quite fascinated — I don't know which — without even making an effort to put his arms back where his arms ought to have been. As for me, my sense of propriety was completely bewildered. I was so painfully uncertain whether it was my first duty to close my eyes, or to stop my ears, that I did neither. I attribute my being still able to hold the curtain in the right position for looking and listening, entirely to suppressed hysterics. In suppressed hysterics, it is admitted, even by the doctors, that one must hold something.

"Yes," he said, with all the fascination of his evangelical voice and manner, "you are a noble creature! A woman who can speak the truth, for the truth's own sake — a woman who will sacrifice her pride, rather than sacrifice an honest man who loves her — is the most priceless of all treasures. When such a woman marries, if her husband only wins her esteem and regard, he wins enough to ennoble his whole life. You have spoken, dearest, of your place in my estimation. Judge what that place is — when I implore you on my knees, to let the cure of your poor wounded heart be my care. Rachel! will you honour me, will you bless me, by being my wife?" — "Second period. The Discovery of the Truth. (1848-1849.) First Narrative. Contributed by Miss Clack; niece of the late Sir John Verinder. Chapter V." 25 April 1868: p. 262.

Commentary

Collins exploits his choice of narrator for a maximum of ironic humour as Drusilla Clack, jealous of the wealthy and beautiful Rachel and utterly infatuated with Godfrey, observes and comments upon the marriage proposal. She explains her eavesdropping in a perfectly credible fashion, and yet we must remind ourselves throughout her account that Miss Clack is an unreliable and highly biased narrator whose attitude towards Godfrey's marriage proposal and fulsome flattery of Rachel is more than a little tinged with sexual jealousy. William Jewett's difficulty in illustrating this scene is that he does not have the usual instruments of the ironist at his disposal, and so much suggest through Godfrey's facial expression and posture that his offer of marriage does not stem from romantic feelings but from avarice, and that it is not as warmly received as such proposals usually were by unmarried women in 19th c. America and England. Godfrey had remarked to himself before Rachel's entrance, "I'll do it to-day!" — as if the proposal is a desperate, strategic move to stave off his creditors — and, indeed, were Rachel an orphan (as it appears she is about to be, given her mother's ill-health, just established), Godfrey Ablewhite would as her husband be able legally to exercise full control over her considerable estate. In contrast, then, to Betteredge's account of the circumstances immediately preceding and following the theft of the diamond, the reader throughout this scene is inclined to dismiss Miss Clack's interpretation of the characters and attend only to the account of Godfrey's and Rachel's actions and speech. If geniality is the hallmark of Betteredge's account, and open-mindedness is the hallmark of Franklin Blake's subsequent account, romantic and religious infatuation is the hallmark of Miss Clack's here. Blinded by her biases, she wholly misreads Godfrey's intention in proposing to his wealthy cousin because she lacks critical information about Godfrey's finances and private life (indeed, one might say "hidden" life, involving an expensive villa and an equally expensive villa, to support which he has embezzled funds).

Set against this sincere and determined faith [of the Brahmins] are the false and pallid forms represented by Europeans, especially the foolish and criminal hypocrisies of Miss Clack and Godfrey Ablewhite. — John Reed, "The Stories of The Moonstone," p. 12.

William Jewett effectively conveys Rachel's reluctance to even hear Godfrey's proposal by the tilt of her head, but is not entirely faithful to the text in placing Rachel on an over-stuffed coach rather than on an ottoman.

Relevant Illustrations from Other Editions, 1890 to 1946

Left: The proposal, delivered with sham romantic conviction, in Alfred Pearse's "I won't even rise from my knees till you have said yes!" (1910). Centre: William Sharp's vignette of Godfrey's rather more perfunctory proposal in the drawing-room, Godfrey on bended knee [uncaptioned] (1946). Right: F. A. Fraser's depiction of Godfrey Ablewhite and Miss Clack earlier as observers of Rachel's devotion to her mother, "She stopped, ran across the room — and fell on her knees at her mother's feet." (1890). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Related Materials

The Moonstone and British India (1857, 1868, and 1876)
Detection and Disruption inside and outside the 'quiet English home' in The Moonstone
Illustrations by F. A. Fraser for Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: A Romance (1890)
Illustrations by John Sloan for Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: A Romance (1908)
Illustrations by Alfred Pearse for The Moonstone: A Romance (1910)
The 1944 illustrations by William Sharp for The Moonstone (1946).

Last updated 11 September 2016