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The Brahmins and Their Clairvoyant. (uncaptioned)
William Sharp
Chromolithograph (ink and chalk)
18 x 12.7 cm
Illustration for Part 1, Ch. 3 in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, facing p. 20 in the 1946 Doubleday edition. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
I went and had a look at the bedroom which had been got ready for our guest, and saw that all was straight. Then, being butler in my lady's establishment, as well as steward (at my own particular request, mind, and because it vexed me to see anybody but myself in possession of the key of the late Sir John's cellar) — then, I say, I fetched up some of our famous Latour claret, and set it in the warm summer air to take off the chill before dinner. Concluding to set myself in the warm summer air next — seeing that what is good for old claret is equally good for old age — I took up my beehive chair to go out into the back court, when I was stopped by hearing a sound like the soft beating of a drum, on the terrace in front of my lady's residence.
Going round to the terrace, I found three mahogany-coloured Indians, in white linen frocks and trousers, looking up at the house.
The Indians, as I saw on looking closer, had small hand-drums slung in front of them. Behind them stood a little delicate-looking light-haired English boy carrying a bag. I judged the fellows to be strolling conjurors, and the boy with the bag to be carrying the tools of their trade. One of the three, who spoke English and who exhibited, I must own, the most elegant manners, presently informed me that my judgment was right. He requested permission to show his tricks in the presence of the lady of the house.
Now I am not a sour old man. I am generally all for amusement, and the last person in the world to distrust another person because he happens to be a few shades darker than myself. But the best of us have our weaknesses — and my weakness, when I know a family plate-basket to be out on a pantry-table, is to be instantly reminded of that basket by the sight of a strolling stranger whose manners are superior to my own. I accordingly informed the Indian that the lady of the house was out; and I warned him and his party off the premises. He made me a beautiful bow in return; and he and his party went off the premises. On my side, I returned to my beehive chair, and set myself down on the sunny side of the court, and fell (if the truth must be owned), not exactly into a sleep, but into the next best thing to it. — "First Period. The Loss of the Diamond (1848). The events related by Gabriel Betteredge, house-steward in the service of Julia, Lady Verinder," Chapter 3, p. 17-18.
As opposed to the Indians in the Harper's Weekly illustrations of 1868, Sharp's characters actually look like people from the Indian subcontinent; moreover, he has made them shrewd and observant, and giving them clothing appropriate to their assumed occupation as jugglers, acrobats, and ​musicians, comparable to the figures seen in F. A. Fraser's 1890 illustration complementing the arrival in Yorkshire of the Brahmins, The Indian — first touching the boy's head and making signs over it in the air — then said, "Look!" (1890). However, whereas Fraser focuses on the private meeting of the Brahmins in front of the hedge (unaware that they are being overheard), Sharp situates them in the gardens of the Verinder esatate. The main building, a large Tudor mansion, is not entirely plausible since the country-house is much more likely to be of eighteenth-century construction, and would not be in Betteredge's field of vision, since he would have the building behind him as he approaches the Indians on the terrace, where they will appear again on the night of Rachel Verinder's eighteenth birthday. If we are seeing what Betteredge sees, the leader should be prominent in the composition.
Since this is the second of the book's fifteen full-page ink-and-chalk drawings reproduced as chromolithographs, Sharp is using both the colour medium and the dimensions of the illustration to underscore its importance. He reserves this type of illustration for story's most important characters (including Colonel Herncastle, Godfrey Ablewhite, and Franklin Blake) and such significant events as Franklin and Rachel's painting the doors of her sitting-room, the arrival of Sergeant Cuff, and the Brahmins' taking ship for India. Thus, his two Brahmin chromolithographs establish the importance of the Brahmins and their influence on the action at the beginning of the story, when they have tracked the Moonstone to the Verinder estate, and again at the end of the story when, having murdered Godfrey Abelwhite, they take clipper-ship in order to return the sacred gem to Somnath. Significantly, Sharp does not depict them as thugs, thieves, or murderers, whereas the earlier illustrators have consistently depicted the mysterious Indians assaulting Ablewhite in order to learn where he or Luker has deposited the Moonstone.
Left: The original serial wood-engraving of the Brahmins' consulting the clairvoyant, "The boy became quite stiff, and stood like a statue, looking into the ink in the hollow of his hand." (4 January 1868). Centre: F. A. Fraser's sombre study of the scene outside the Verinder estate in which the Brahmins consult their clairvoyant, The Indian — first touching the boy's head and making signs over it in the air — then said, "Look!" (1890). Right: A. Pearse's frontispiece which foreshadows the three priests' restraining Godfrey Ablewhite in order to recover the diamond, He felt himself suddenly seized round the neck (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone: A Romance. with sixty-six illustrations. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Vol. 12 (1868), 4 January through 8 August, pp. 5-503.
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone: A Romance. All the Year Round. 1 January-8 August 1868.
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_________. The Moonstone. With 19 illustrations. The Works of Wilkie Collins. New York: Peter Fenelon Collier, 1900. Volumes 6 and 7.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. With four illustrations by John Sloan. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. Illustrated by A. S. Pearse. London & Glasgow: Collins, 1910, rpt. 1930.
_________. The Moonstone. Illustrated by William Sharp. New York: Doubleday, 1946.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. With nine illustrations by Edwin La Dell. London: Folio Society, 1951.
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Nayder, Lillian. Unequal Partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, & Victorian Authorship. London and Ithaca, NY: Cornll U. P., 2001.
Peters, Catherine. The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva, 1991.
Reed, John R. "English Imperialism and the Unacknowledged crime of The Moonstone. Clio 2, 3 (June, 1973): 281-290.
Stewart, J. I. M. "A Note on Sources." Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966, rpt. 1973. Pp. 527-8.
Vann, J. Don. "The Moonstone in All the Year Round, 4 January-8 1868." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 48-50.
Winter, William. "Wilkie Collins." Old Friends: Being Literary Recollections of Other Days. New York: Moffat, Yard, & Co., 1909. Pp. 203-219.
Last updated 25 September 2016