"Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism" (See 625.) — Book 2, Chapter 15, "No Just Cause or Impediment Why These Two Persons Should Not Be Joined Together." 9.6 cm high x 14.4 cm wide, vignetted, in Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910), facing XII, 625. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Context of the Illustration: A Change in Mrs. General's Position
"Mrs General," said Mr Dorrit, "take a chair."
Mrs. General, with a graceful curve of acknowledgment, descended into the chair which Mr. Dorrit offered.
"Madam," pursued that gentleman, "as you have had the kindness to undertake the — hum — formation of my daughters, and as I am persuaded that nothing nearly affecting them can — ha — be indifferent to you —"
"Wholly impossible," said Mrs General in the calmest of ways.
"— I therefore wish to announce to you, madam, that my daughter now present —"
Mrs. General made a slight inclination of her head to Fanny, who made a very low inclination of her head to Mrs General, and came loftily upright again.
"— That my daughter Fanny is — ha — contracted to be married to Mr Sparkler, with whom you are acquainted. Hence, madam, you will be relieved of half your difficult charge — ha — difficult charge." Mr. Dorrit repeated it with his angry eye on Fanny. "But not, I hope, to the — hum — diminution of any other portion, direct or indirect, of the footing you have at present the kindness to occupy in my family."
"Mr. Dorrit," returned Mrs General, with her gloved hands resting on one another in exemplary repose, "is ever considerate, and ever but too appreciative of my friendly services."
(Miss Fanny coughed, as much as to say, "You are right.")
"Miss Dorrit has no doubt exercised the soundest discretion of which the circumstances admitted, and I trust will allow me to offer her my sincere congratulations. When free from the trammels of passion," Mrs. General closed her eyes at the word, as if she could not utter it, and see anybody; "when occurring with the approbation of near relatives; and when cementing the proud structure of a family edifice; these are usually auspicious events. I trust Miss Dorrit will allow me to offer her my best congratulations."
Here Mrs. General stopped, and added internally, for the setting of her face, "Papa, potatoes, poultry, Prunes, and prism." [Book 2, "Riches," Chapter 15, "No Just Cause or Impediment Why These Two Persons Should Not Be Joined Together," 626-27]
Commentary
Furniss, perhaps at J. A. Hammerton's suggestion, has provided the much abbreviated version of the scene on the facing page as a caption for this lithograph from pen-and-ink: "I therefore wish to announce to you, madam," said Mr. Dorrit, "that my daughter Fanny is — ha — contracted to be married to Mr Sparkler, with whom you are acquainted." "I trust," returned Mrs. General, "Miss Dorrit will allow me to offer her my best congratulations." She added added internally, for the setting of her face, "Papa, potatoes, poultry, Prunes, and prism." — Dorrit, 625.
Furniss has attired both the younger Fanny Dorrit and the governess Mrs. General in voluminous mid-Victorian skirts to make their outward forms more impressive, and to contrast the opulence of their attire with the vacuity of their minds. Although the scene occurs in Italy, the trio might be in any overstuffed,lavishly decorated sitting-room in any mansion in Victorian England. The furnishings underscore the Dorrits' translation to socially elevated sphere whose outward and visible signs of wealth and ease engulf them. Money, if not Mrs. General, has worked a miraculous change in Fanny, who is now very much the grande dame as she is to marry a member of high society, Edmund Sparkler, and presumably set up such an extravagant establishment for herself.
Furniss has made this very much a study in surfaces or appearances. Although inwardly cowed and in awe of the governess, Dorrit affects an easy grace. Mrs. General, the Dorrit girls' chaperone and polisher of their manners, is a social parasite; Bentley et al. in The Dickens Index describe the widow of a military officer with an exaggerated opinion of herself as "an absurdly genteel woman exuding an aura of refinement characterized by her avoidance of looking at or discussing anything 'disagreeable'" (101). Furniss, accordingly, has made her dress excessive. Although the illustrator positions her opposite Fanny so that she serves as one of Mr. Dorrit's well-accoutered bookends, Furniss perhaps has failed to make her as supercilious and self-serving as Dickens consistently reveals her in action and speech.
Furniss's description of Mrs. General here, whom he characterizes through the caption by her elocutionary phrase designed to show the face to advantage, owes something to Dickens's introduction of her at the close of the second chapter of Book Two, in which her appearance is suggested by her "floury appearance" in an ornate hairstyle that the illustrator has complemented with luxuriant flounces in the skirt and abundant fringes on the richly brocaded sleeves:
In person, Mrs General, including her skirts which had much to do with it, was of a dignified and imposing appearance; ample, rustling, gravely voluminous; always upright behind the proprieties. She might have been taken—had been taken — to the top of the Alps and the bottom of Herculaneum, without disarranging a fold in her dress, or displacing a pin. If her countenance and hair had rather a floury appearance, as though from living in some transcendently genteel Mill, it was rather because she was a chalky creation altogether, than because she mended her complexion with violet powder, or had turned grey. If her eyes had no expression, it was probably because they had nothing to express. If she had few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name or any other inscription on her face. A cool, waxy, blown-out woman, who had never lighted well.
Mrs. General had no opinions. Her way of forming a mind was to prevent it from forming opinions. She had a little circular set of mental grooves or rails on which she started little trains of other people's opinions, which never overtook one another, and never got anywhere. Even her propriety could not dispute that there was impropriety in the world; but Mrs. General's way of getting rid of it was to put it out of sight, and make believe that there was no such thing. This was another of her ways of forming a mind — to cram all articles of difficulty into cupboards, lock them up, and say they had no existence. It was the easiest way, and, beyond all comparison, the properest.
Mrs. General was not to be told of anything shocking. Accidents, miseries, and offences, were never to be mentioned before her. Passion was to go to sleep in the presence of Mrs General, and blood was to change to milk and water. The little that was left in the world, when all these deductions were made, it was Mrs. General's province to varnish. In that formation process of hers, she dipped the smallest of brushes into the largest of pots, and varnished the surface of every object that came under consideration. The more cracked it was, the more Mrs General varnished it. [467]
Perhaps more than a little exaggerated is Furniss's framing Fanny as a reflection (only moderately younger) of the haughty widow. The lorgnette which Fanny dangles in her right hand suggests that Miss Dorrit has adopted Mrs. General myopia when it comes to regarding anything less than proper, placid, and varnished to a glossy surface.
Mrs. General and Mr. Dorrit in the Diamond (1867) and Household Edition (1873)
Left: Sol Eytinge, Juniuor's study of the formidable governess, Prunes and Prism/span> (1867). Right: James Mahoney's version of the same scene, but with less Victorian bric-a-brac, "To preserve your approbation, Mrs. General," said Fanny, returning the smile with one in which there was no trace of those ingredients, "will of course be the highest object of my married life; to lose it, would of course be perfect wretchedness" (Household Edition, Book II, Chap. 15, 305).
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.]
Bibliography
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The Authentic Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1901 [rpt. 30 May 1857 volume].
_____. Little Dorrit. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. Vols. I-IV.
_____. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867.
_____. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by James Mahoney. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1873. Vol. V.
_____. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. XII.
Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 19: Little Dorrit." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. XVII, 398-427.
Created 11 February 2020
Last modified 18 November 2020