The Harefield Estate by George Du Maurier. The Cornhill Magazine, Vol. XXXII (December 1875), facing page 733; sixth full-page illustration for Thomas Hardy's The Hand of Ethelberta, 10.3 cm high by 16 cm wide (4 ¼ by 6 ⅜ inches), framed. Engraver Joseph Swain. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Realised: Ethelberta's Investigation Reveals Neigh's "Estate" a Sham
Ethelberta could not resist being charmed with the repose of the spot, and hastened on with curiosity to reach the other side of the pool, where, by every law of manorial topography, the mansion would be situate. The fog concealed all objects beyond a distance of twenty yards or thereabouts, but it was nearly full moon, and though the orb was hidden, a pale diffused light enabled them to see objects in the foreground. Reaching the other side of the lake the drive enlarged itself most legitimately to a large oval, as for a sweep before a door, a pile of rockwork standing in the midst.
But where should have been the front door of a mansion was simply a rough rail fence, about four feet high. They drew near and looked over.
In the enclosure, and on the site of the imaginary house, was an extraordinary group. It consisted of numerous horses in the last stage of decrepitude, the animals being such mere skeletons that at first Ethelberta hardly recognized them to be horses at all; they seemed rather to be specimens of some attenuated heraldic animal, scarcely thick enough through the body to throw a shadow: or enlarged castings of the fire-dog of past times. These poor creatures were endeavouring to make a meal from herbage so trodden and thin that scarcely a wholesome blade remained; the little that there was consisted of the sourer sorts common on such sandy soils, mingled with tufts of heather and sprouting ferns.
‘Why have we come here, dear Berta?’ said Picotee, shuddering.
‘I hardly know,’ said Ethelberta. [Chapter XXVII, "The Royal Academy — The Harefield Estate," 733]
Commentary
Chapter 25 in the volume edition is designated as 27 in the serial; and whereas Hardy in The Cornhill Magazine calls Neigh's lands "The Harefield Estate," in the volume edition he uses the place name "Farnfield" — which is suggestive of an actual place in Surrey, Farnham. The term "estate" seems either pretentious or deceptive, given the fact that the gaunt horses are all doomed for the glue factory. Du Maurier imparts a Bruegelesque and nightmarish quality to the scene by contrasting the fashionably dressed young women in the foreground with the starving horses and the dilapidated outbuildings in the background. The picture of the "estate" underscores Hardy's pun on the name of its owner, "Neigh."
Related Material
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
Allingham, Philip V. "The Only Artist to Illustrate Two of Thomas Hardy's Full-length Novels, The Hand of Ethelberta and A Laodicean: George du Maurier, Illustrator and Novelist." The Thomas Hardy Year Book, No. 40" Hardy's Artists. 2012. 54-128.
Hardy, Thomas. The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters. The Cornhill Magazine. Vol. XXXII (1875).
Hardy, Thomas. The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters. Intro. Robert Gittings. London: Macmillan, 1975.
Jackson, Arlene M. Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981.
Page, Norman. "Thomas Hardy's Forgotten Illustrators." Bulletin of the New York Public Library 77, 4 (Summer, 1974): 454-463.
Sutherland, John. "The Cornhill Magazine." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989. 150.
Vann, J. Don. "Thomas Hardy (1840-1928. The Hand of Ethelberta in the Cornhill Magazine, July 1875-May 1876." in Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985. 83.
Created 16 January 2008
Last updated 17 January 2025