"'Away with Melancholy'" — Furniss's twenty-sixth illustration for Dickens's "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1910)

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"Away with Melancholy"

Mr. Swiveller drew a little table to his bedside, and arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the best advantage, took his flute from its box, and began to play most mournfully.

Harry Furniss

1910

14.1 x 9.2 cm, vignetted

Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing V, Chapter LVIII, facing 432.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: The Musical Mr. Swiveller

Melting from this stern and obdurate, into the tender and pathetic mood, Mr. Swiveller groaned a little, walked wildly up and down, and even made a show of tearing his hair, which, however, he thought better of, and wrenched the tassel from his nightcap instead. At last, undressing himself with a gloomy resolution, he got into bed.

Some men in his blighted position would have taken to drinking; but as Mr Swiveller had taken to that before, he only took, on receiving the news that Sophy Wackles was lost to him for ever, to playing the flute; thinking after mature consideration that it was a good, sound, dismal occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but calculated to awaken a fellow-feeling in the bosoms of his neighbours. In pursuance of this resolution, he now drew a little table to his bedside, and arranging the light and a small oblong music-book to the best advantage, took his flute from its box, and began to play most mournfully.

The air was “Away with melancholy” — a composition, which, when it is played very slowly on the flute, in bed, with the further disadvantage of being performed by a gentleman but imperfectly acquainted with the instrument, who repeats one note a great many times before he can find the next, has not a lively effect. [Chapter LVIII, 428]

Related Material about The Old Curiosity Shop

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. V.

Created 8 May 2020

Last modified 27 November 2020