All Before Them Was A Sheet of Whiteness — twentieth composite woodblock-engraving by George du Maurier for The Cornhill Magazine edition of Thomas Hardy's The Hand of Ethelberta, Volume 33 (April 1876), facing page 385. 10.2 cm high by 15.8 cm wide (4 by 6 ⅛ inches), framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Watching The Spruce Helplessly from the Shore
‘Shall we go down to the shore and see what the night is like?’ said Ethelberta. ‘This is the last opportunity I shall have.’
‘Is it right for us to go, considering you are to be married to-morrow?’ said Picotee, who had small affection for nature in this mood.
Her sister laughed. ‘Let us put on our cloaks — nobody will know us. I am sorry to leave this grim and primitive place, even for Enckworth Court.’
They wrapped themselves up, and descended the hill.
On drawing near the battling line of breakers which marked the meeting of sea and land they could perceive within the nearly invisible horizon an equilateral triangle of lights. It was formed of three stars, a red on the one side, a green on the other, and a white on the summit. This, composed of mast-head and side lamps, was all that was visible of the Spruce, which now faced end-on about half-a-mile distant, and was still nearing the pier. The girls went further, and stood on the foreshore, listening to the din. Seaward appeared nothing distinct save a black horizontal band embodying itself out of the grey water, strengthening its blackness, and enlarging till it looked like a nearing wall. It was the concave face of a coming wave. On its summit a white edging arose with the aspect of a lace frill; it broadened, and fell over the front with a terrible concussion. Then all before them was a sheet of whiteness, which spread with amazing rapidity, till they found themselves standing in the midst of it, as in a field of snow. Both felt an insidious chill encircling their ankles, and they rapidly ran up the beach.
‘You girls, come away there, or you’ll be washed off: what need have ye for going so near?’ [Chapter XLV, "The Railway — The Sea — The Shore Beyond," 404]
Commentary
Comparing the pictorial-narrative sequence with Hardy's text, one is struck by the general lack of suspense generated by most of the plates. Whereas, for example, the plates allude only obliquely to the possible intervention of relatives — Sol and Edgar Mountclere in league and Christopher and Ethelberta's father (unbeknownst to one another even this late in the plot) converge on Knollsea, bent on preventing the wedding only to find themselves five minutes too late at the end of the tenth instalment — Hardy generates far more suspense through continually hinting at some immoral secret buried in Lord Mountclere's past. Once she has discovered Mountclere's toy cottage, which houses his ex-mistrss, Miss Gruchette, the reader wonders what the proud and clever Ethelberta will do. [Allingham, pp. 64-65]
Ethelberta is awaiting the arrival of her wedding dress by ship, but rough weather will prevent the Spruce from tying up at the Knollsea pier and discharging her passengers. Little does the bride-to-be know that among those attempting to land at the port are her brother Sol and Mountclere’s brother, both determined to prevent the marriage by revealing the secret of her low birth. And little do the meddlers know that the randy Viscount has already uncovered this plot secret.
Related Material
- An Introduction to the plates
- Melodrama, Sensation, and Tragedy in Hardy's Novels, 1872-1895
- The Victorian Sensation Novel: Selected Bibliography
- A Review of The Cambridge Companion to Sensation Fiction (2013)
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. "Part Two: Du Maurier's Twenty-Two Illustrations for the Cornhill Magazine's Serialisation of Thomas Hardy's The Hand of Ethelberta, July, 1875-May, 1876." The Thomas Hardy Year Book No. 40: Hardy's Artists by Philip Allingham. Guernsey: Toucan Press, 2012. 58-66.
Hardy, Thomas. The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters. The Cornhill Magazine. Vol. XXXIII (1876).
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. Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985.
Created 16 January 2008
Last updated 19 January 2025