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Yorick and the Grisette: "The Pulse"
Tony Johannot
Quartley
1857
Engraving on wood
9.4 cm high by x 6.9 cm wide, vignetted
Sixty-second illustration for A Sentimental Journey (1857), bottom of page 98.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"He will be ready, monsieur," said she, "in a moment." "And in that moment," replied I, "most willingly would I say something very civil to you for all these courtesies. Any one may do a casual act of good nature, but a continuation of them shows it is a part of the temperature; and certainly," added I, "if it is the same blood which comes from the heart which descends to the extremes (touching her wrist) I am sure you must have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world." "Feel it," said she, holding out her arm. So laying down my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the two forefingers of my other to the artery.
Would to heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-day-sical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had been watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever: how wouldst thou have laughed and moralized upon my new profession! And thou shouldst have laughed and moralized on. "Trust me, my dear Eugenius," I should have said, "there are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman’s pulse.” "But a grisette’s!" thou wouldst have said, "and in an open shop! Yorick?" ["The Pulse. Paris," pp. 91-92]
Significantly, the usual engraver, Brevier, has not placed his name at the foot of the engraving, which Johnannot has adapted directly from the 1841 edition's title-page vignette, Yorick and the Grisette, "Paris." However, the 1857 engraving is much sharper, although dispensing with no detail from the earlier wood-engraving. Moreover, Johannot has reversed the figures, so that Yorick is now to the right and the glove-vendor to the left. However, the 1857 larger-scale plate contains all the elements of the 1841 original, right down to the small dog beside the chair leg.
Right: The original Jacque and Fussell design for this chapter, which appears as the title-page vignette in the 1841 edition: The Grisette and Yorick (1841), which influenced Johannot's choice of subject. Right: Thomas Stothard's late 18th c. illustration of the romantic interlude in the glove-maker's shop, "The Pulse": Yorick and the Grisette (1792). [Click on these images to enlarge them.]
Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy by Mr. Yorick. Illustrated by Thomas Stothard. London: J. Good, No. 159, New Bond Street; and E. and S. Harding, No. 102, Pall Mall, 1792.
Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Illustrated with one hundred engravings on wood, by Bastin and G. Nichols, from original designs by Jacque and Fussell. London: Joseph Thomas, 1841.
Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. With 100 illustrations by Tony Johannot. London: Willoughby, 1857.
Last modified 27 September 2018