She Lessened in His Gaze, and Was Soon Out of Sight by George Du Maurier. The Cornhill Magazine, XXXIII (May 1876), facing page 609 — final illustration for Thomas Hardy's The Hand of Ethelberta. 10.5 cm high by 15.8 cm wide (3 ¼ by 4 ½ inches), framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated
While he looked through the gate a woman stepped from the lodge to open it. In her haste she nearly swung the gate into his face, and would have completely done so had he not jumped back.
‘I beg pardon, sir,’ she said, on perceiving him. ‘I was going to open it for my lady, and I didn’t see you.’
Christopher moved round the corner. The perpetual snubbing that he had received from Ethelberta ever since he had known her seemed about to be continued through the medium of her dependents.
A trotting, accompanied by the sound of light wheels, had become perceptible; and then a vehicle came through the gate, and turned up the road which he had come down. He saw the back of a basket carriage, drawn by a pair of piebald ponies. A lad in livery sat behind with folded arms; the driver was a lady. He saw her bonnet, her shoulders, her hair — but no more. She lessened in his gaze, and was soon out of sight.
He stood a long time thinking; but he did not wish her his. ["Sequel. Anglebury — Enckworth — Sandbourne," 609]
Commentary
We view the scene as if it is staged, with the the observer well in the background, and Ethelberta in her splendid carriage, dashing away with her elderly, aristocratic husband at top speed. The caption focuses on her, but Hardy's narrative perspective is that of the young man whom she has left behind. Although its depiction of the tree-lined avenue on the Mountclere estate is adequate rather than masterful and its piebald ponies seem borrowed from a newspaper cartoon, the final scene in du Maurier's eleven-month series marks the end of the sensitive Christopher Julian's hopes of marrying the vivacious young widow. He will now propose to Ethelberta's younger sister, Picotee, as a romantic consolation prize. Instead of being a remote figure in his rear-view mirror, so to speak, Ethelberta occupies that distance in his mind. She has irretrievably gone off with the wealthy, elderly aristocrat. Du Maurier shows her in control, at the reins, an image which confirms the rustic's remark to Christopher about Ethelberta's having full control in her marriage of two-and-a-half years.
The narrative places readers in Christopher's mind as he evaluates her departure. at this moment, he not only appreciates having been spared the embarrassment of a "rencounter," but also realizes that "he did not wish her his." Du Maurier sees the heroine as the story's defining figure, for she appears in all but one of the full-page plates in The Cornhill. However, Hardy has shifted his focus to the educated but unpropertied young man who has wooed but lost the titular heroine. Like Angel Clare in Tess of the d'Urbervilles, he will simply substitute the younger sister for the unavailable elder one.
Related Material
Scanned images and texts 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
20 January 2025