"Oh! as soft as possible, if you please."
Fred Barnard
1875
13.9 x 10.7 cm (5 ½ by 4 ⅛ inches), framed.
Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, The Household Edition, p. 53; running head: "Hard or Soft?" (53).
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Miss Squeers glanced at the door, as if dubious of the propriety of advancing any nearer to an utter stranger; then round the schoolroom, as though in some measure reassured by the presence of forty boys; and finally sidled up to Nicholas and delivered the pen into his hand, with a most winning mixture of reserve and condescension.
"Shall it be a hard or a soft nib?" inquired Nicholas, smiling to prevent himself from laughing outright.
"He has a beautiful smile," thought Miss Squeers.
"Which did you say?’ asked Nicholas.
"Dear me, I was thinking of something else for the moment, I declare," replied Miss Squeers. "Oh! as soft as possible, if you please." With which words, Miss Squeers sighed. It might be, to give Nicholas to understand that her heart was soft, and that the pen was wanted to match.
Upon these instructions Nicholas made the pen; when he gave it to Miss Squeers, Miss Squeers dropped it; and when he stooped to pick it up, Miss Squeers stooped also, and they knocked their heads together; whereat five-and-twenty little boys laughed aloud: being positively for the first and only time that half-year. [Chapter IX, "Of Miss Squeers, Mrs. Squeers, Master Squeers, and Mr. Squeers; and of various Matters and Persons connected no less with the Squeerses than Nicholas Nickleby," 52-53]
Left: C. S. Reinhart's American Household Edition realisation of the card-playing scene in which he introduces Tilda Price, John Browdie, and Fanny Squeers: "Dang my bones and body, if I stan' this ony longer." (1875). Right: The 1910 Clayton J. Clarke water-colour portrait of Squeers's infatuated daughter for the Player's Cigarette Card series (No. 45): Fanny Squeers.
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. XV. Rpt. 1890.
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With fifty-two illustrations by C. S. Reinhart. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1872. I.
__________. Nicholas Nickleby. With 39 illustrations by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman & Hall, 1839.
__________. Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 4.
__________. "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 10 April 2021
