[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> John McLenan —> The Woman in White —> Next]
My head drooped over, my tears fell on it, my lips pressed it.
John McLenan
7 January 1859
11.7 cm high by 9.5 cm wide (4 ½ by 3 ⅝ inches), framed, p. 12.
Seventh regular illustration for Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (1860).
[Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
You may use these images 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.
My head drooped over, my tears fell on it, my lips pressed it. — staff artist John McLenan's seventh composite woodblock engraving for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, Instalment 7, published on 7 January 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, close of Part Seven: "The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, of Clement's Inn, Teacher of Drawing," p. 12; Chapter XV, facing p. 113 in volume. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
The farewell sadness in the kind blue eyes shone dimly through her gathering tears.
“I promise it,” she said in broken tones. “Oh, don’t look at me like that! I promise it with all my heart.”
I ventured a little nearer to her, and held out my hand.
“You have many friends who love you, Miss Fairlie. Your happy future is the dear object of many hopes. May I say, at parting, that it is the dear object of my hopes too?”
The tears flowed fast down her cheeks. She rested one trembling hand on the table to steady herself while she gave me the other. I took it in mine — I held it fast. My head drooped over it, my tears fell on it, my lips pressed it — not in love; oh, not in love, at that last moment, but in the agony and the self-abandonment of despair.
“For God’s sake, leave me!” she said faintly.
The confession of her heart’s secret burst from her in those pleading words. I had no right to hear them, no right to answer them — they were the words that banished me, in the name of her sacred weakness, from the room. It was all over. I dropped her hand, I said no more. The blinding tears shut her out from my eyes, and I dashed them away to look at her for the last time. One look as she sank into a chair, as her arms fell on the table, as her fair head dropped on them wearily. One farewell look, and the door had closed upon her — the great gulf of separation had opened between us — the image of Laura Fairlie was a memory of the past already. — "The End of Hartright’s Narrative." [Chapter XV, 12; pages 110-113 in the volume edition]
See also F. A. Fraser’s full-page wood-engraving “Don’t cry, my love,’ I said.”, which depicts the old family attorney’s attempting to comfort Laura Fairlie:
“There is some one else,” she said, not noticing my last words . . . who might like a little keepsake, if – if I might leave it. There would be no harm , if I should die first —” No. 8 (14 January 1860) “The Narrative of Vincent Gilmore,Solicitor, of Chancery-Lane, London,” Chapter II, p. 60 in the 1861 volume.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. New York: Harper & Bros., 1860.
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by John McLenan. Vols. III-IV (16 November 1859 through 8 September 1860).
Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Ed. Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox. Illustrated by Sir John Gilbert. London: Minerva, 2006.
Peters, Catherine. "Chapter Twelve: The Woman in White (1859-1860)." The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva Press, 1992. Pp. 205-225.
Vann, J. Don. "The Woman in White in All the Year Round, 26 November — 25 August 1860." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 44-46.
Created 20 June 2024