"As his hand went up above his head and came down on the table, it might have been a blacksmith's" by James Mahoney, re-engraved from the Household Edition of the novel, Volume V, p. 241. Photogravure. 1912. 13 cm wide by 9.3 cm high. Facing 21, p. 537, in Dickens's Little Dorrit in the Co-operative Publication Society Edition. Terry-Lynn Johnson Collection. [Click on the illustration to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated
"Uncle?" cried Fanny, affrighted and bursting into tears, "why do you attack me in this cruel manner? What have I done?"
"Done?" returned the old man, pointing to her sister's place, "where's your affectionate invaluable friend? Where's your devoted guardian? Where's your more than mother? How dare you set up superiorities against all these characters combined in your sister? For shame, you false girl, for shame!"
"I love Amy," cried Miss Fanny, sobbing and weeping, "as well as I love my life — better than I love my life. I don't deserve to be so treated. I am as grateful to Amy, and as fond of Amy, as it's possible for any human being to be. I wish I was dead. I never was so wickedly wronged. And only because I am anxious for the family credit."
"To the winds with the family credit!" cried the old man, with great scorn and indignation. "Brother, I protest against pride. I protest against ingratitude. I protest against any one of us here who have known what we have known, and have seen what we have seen, setting up any pretension that puts Amy at a moment's disadvantage, or to the cost of a moment's pain. We may know that it's a base pretension by its having that effect. It ought to bring a judgment on us. Brother, I protest against it in the sight of God!"
As his hand went up above his head and came down on the table, it might have been a blacksmith's. After a few moments' silence, it had relaxed into its usual weak condition. He went round to his brother with his ordinary shuffling step, put the hand on his shoulder, and said, in a softened voice, "William, my dear, I felt obliged to say it; forgive me, for I felt obliged to say it!" and then went, in his bowed way, out of the palace hall, just as he might have gone out of the Marshalsea room. — Book the Second, "Riches," Chapter 5, "Something Wrong Somewhere," p. 248 in the 1873 edition.
Related Material
Above: James Mahoney's original 1873 composite woodblock engraving of the same scene: "As his hand went up above his head and came down upon the table. . ." in Book II, Chapter 5, p. 248.
Scanned image and text 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
Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). London: Chapman and Hall, 1857.
Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by James Mahoney. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1873. Vol. 5.
Dickens, Charles. Works. Photogravure-Illustrated Edition. New York and London: Co-operative Publication Society, [n. d., 1912?].
Created 12 August 2012
Last modified 30 January 2025