"Come," said Tim, "let’s be a comfortable couple." — Chapter 63. C. S. Reinhart's fifty-first and final illustration for Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby" (1875)

"Come," said Tim, "let’s be a comfortable couple." [Page 333] by Charles Stanley Reinhart (1875), in Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Harper & Bros. New York Household Edition, for Chapter LXIII, page 333. 9.3 x 13.6 cm (3 ⅝ by 5 ¼ inches), framed. Running head: "A Comfortable Couple" (333). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Passage Illustrated: Closure for the Elderly Couple

Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s 1867 Diamond Editioncomposite woodblock portrait of the kindly minaturist: Miss La La Creevy (Chapter 5).

"Oh, Mr. Linkinwater, you’re joking!"

"No, no, I’m not. I’m not indeed," said Tim. "I will, if you will. Do, my dear!"

"It would make people laugh so."

"Let ‘em laugh," cried Tim stoutly; "we have good tempers I know, and we’ll laugh too. Why, what hearty laughs we have had since we’ve known each other!"

"So we have," cried Miss La Creevy — giving way a little, as Tim thought.

"It has been the happiest time in all my life; at least, away from the counting-house and Cheeryble Brothers,’ said Tim. ‘Do, my dear! Now say you will."

"No, no, we mustn’t think of it," returned Miss La Creevy. "What would the brothers say?"

"Why, God bless your soul!" cried Tim, innocently, "you don’t suppose I should think of such a thing without their knowing it! Why they left us here on purpose."

"I can never look ‘em in the face again!" exclaimed Miss La Creevy, faintly.

"Come," said Tim, "let’s be a comfortable couple. We shall live in the old house here, where I have been for four-and-forty year; we shall go to the old church, where I’ve been, every Sunday morning, all through that time; we shall have all my old friends about us — Dick, the archway, the pump, the flower-pots, and Mr. Frank’s children, and Mr. Nickleby’s children, that we shall seem like grandfather and grandmother to. Let’s be a comfortable couple, and take care of each other! And if we should get deaf, or lame, or blind, or bed-ridden, how glad we shall be that we have somebody we are fond of, always to talk to and sit with! Let’s be a comfortable couple. Now, do, my dear!" [Chapter LXIII, "The Brothers Cheeryble make various Declarations for themselves and others. Tim Linkinwater makes a Declaration for himself," 332-333]

Commentary: Reinhart versus Barnard in Parallel Proposal Scenes

Fred Barnard's 1875 British Household Editioncomposite woodblock engraving of Tim Linkinwater's marriage proposal: "Oh, Mr. Linkinwater, you’re joking!" "No, no, I'm not. I'm not indeed," said Tim. "I will, if you will. Do my dear!".

C. S. Reinhart in the American Household Edition reduces Tim Linkinwater's proposal to its fundamentals — and gives us a middle-aged bachelor dressed in contemporary 1870s fashion (tailcoat and stirrup trousers), rather than the somewhat antiquated fashion of Barnard's slightly more elderly clerk in the British Household Edition's proposal scene. However, Barnard furnishes considerably more detail about Tim's proposing to little Miss La Creevy in the Cheerybles' window-seat. Reinhart deliberately seems to be evoking another celebrated retired Dickensian: Samuel Pickwick. And Reinhart's Miss La Creevy seems much more elderly and far less coquettish than Barnard's. But in both illustrations they are indeed already a "comfortable couple" as Tim talks close to her head and takes her arm.

Related material by other illustrators (1838 through 1910)

Scanned image, colour correction, sizing, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose, as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Barnard, J. "Fred" (il.). 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.

Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1839.

__________. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Ed. Andrew Lang. Illustrated by 'Phiz' (Hablot Knight Browne). The Gadshill Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1897. 2 vols.

__________. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With fifty-two illustrations by C. S. Reinhart. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1875.

__________. "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 25 September 2021
Last modified 15 February 2022