"Here Was Louisa, On The Night Of The Same Day, Watching The Fire As In Days Of Yore." by Harry French

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Here Was Louisa, On The Night Of The Same Day, Watching The Fire As In Days Of Yore

Harry French

Wood engraving

1870s

10.6 cm wide x 13.7 cm high

Illustration for Dickens's Hard Times for These Times in the British Household Edition, p. 132

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

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After Tom's escape from Bitzer, the most developed scene in the last chapter of the letterpress and the comedic climax is the quarrel between Mr. Bounderby and Mrs. Sparsit. French, however, passes over this uproarious scene to dwell upon a small but significant sentimental moment. In contrast to Dickens's reward for Sissy's virtue, "happy children loving her" (III: 9), Louisa is and will be alone, although like the reformed Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1843), she will derive consolation from others' children.

Louisa's image recalls that of many a nineteenth-century heroine; the pensive, alienated young woman, recalling "Patient Griselda," is almost a Victorian commonplace--compare Louisa here to Bathsheba Everdene in Helen Paterson's initial-letter vignette "B" of her in November 1874 issue of The Cornhill Magazine's serialisation of Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, lost in thought at the window of the Three Choughs Inn after learning of the (supposed) drowning of her husband, Frank Troy. It is an image of loss and resignation. Like Bathsheba, Louisa has health, affluence, and youth, but contemplates a future without her beloved brother or a husband and children of her own. Books, lining the shelves of her room, are henceforth to be her intimate companions and the basis of her inner life. Despite the wistful smile on her countenance, French depicts her as unfilled, but, as the vases on her mantle suggest, her life will have greater balance than when she was Bounderby's ornament and trophy.

Created 17 April 2002

Last modified 25 December 2019