"Where the —— are you driving to, sir?" cried I. — staff artist William Newman's tenth composite woodblock engraving for Charles Lever's A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance, instalment 7, published on 29 September 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, Chapter IX, "My Interest in a Lady Fellow-Traveller," 2 ⅝ by 3 ½ inches (6.6 cm by 8.8 cm), framed, upper left, page 621. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated
What a world of sorrow on every side! and how easily might it be made otherwise. What gigantic efforts are we forever making for something which we never live to enjoy I Striving to be freer, greater, better governed, and more lightly taxed, and all the while forgetting that the real secret is to be on better terms with each other, — more generous, more forgiving, less apt to take offence or bear malice. Of mere material goods, there is far more than we need. The table would accommodate more than double the guests, could we only agree to sit down in orderly fashion; but here we have one occupying three chairs, while another crouches on the floor, and some even prefer smashing the furniture to letting some more humbly born take a place near them. I wish they would listen to me on this theme. I wish, instead of all this social science humbug and art-union balderdash, they would hearken to the voice of a plain man, saying, Are you not members of one family — the individuals of one household? Is it not clear to you, if you extend the kindly affections you now reserve for the narrow circle wherein you live to the wider area of mankind, that, while diffusing countless blessings to others, you will yourself become better, more charitable, more kind-hearted, wider in reach of thought, more catholic in philanthropy? I can imagine such a world, and feel it to be a Paradise — a world with no social distinctions, no inequalities of condition, and, consequently, no insolent pride of station, nor any degrading subserviency of demeanor, no rivalries, no jealousies — love and benevolence everywhere. In such a sphere the calm equanimity of mind by which great things are accomplished, would in itself constitute a perfect heaven. No impatience of temper, no passing irritation ———
“Where the ——— are you driving to, sir?” cried I, as a fellow with a brass-bound trunk in a hand-barrow came smash against my shin.
“Don't you see, Sir, the train is just starting?” said he, hastening on; and I now perceived that such was the case, and that I had barely time to rush down to the pay-office and secure my ticket.
“What class, Sir?” cried the clerk.
“Which has she taken?” said I, forgetting all save the current of my own thoughts.
“First or second, Sir?” repeated he, impatiently.
“Either, or both,” replied I, in confusion; and he flung me back some change and a blue card, closing the little shutter with a bang that announced the end of all colloquy. [Chapter IX, "My Interest in a Lady Fellow-Traveller," 621; pages 79-80 in the Chapman and Hall edition]
Commentary
Potts is constantly a victim, but usually of others' attitudes; here, the railway baggage-handler runs his wagon directly into Potts's shins, foiling Potts's high-flown rhetoric with physical humour. The narrator has just remarked that the mysterious young lady whom he has encountered on the platform is heading precisely in his direction since her luggage is labelled "Miss K. Herbert, per steamer Ardent, Ostend." Potts is travelling to Belgium aboard the same channel streamer in search of his missing mount, Blondel. From these scant clues Potts invents a Jane Eyre-like identity for her, surmising that she is about to become a governess "to an upstart, mill-owning, vulgar family at Brussels."
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 photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Brown, Jane E., and Richard Samuel West. "William Newman (1817—1870): A Victorian Cartoonist in London and New York." American Periodicals, 17, 2: "Periodical Comics and Cartoons." (Ohio State University Press, 2007), 143-183. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20770984.
Lever, Charles. A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by William Newman. Vols. IV-V (13 April 1860 through 23 March 1861) in thirty-five weekly parts. Only a dozen of these weekly instalments were illustrated: p. 541 (one), 549 (two), 573, 589, 605, 621, 637, 649, 661, 678, 701, and 714.
_______. A Day's Ride; A Life's Romance. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1863, rpt. Routledge, 1882.
_______. A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance. London: Chapman and Hall, 1873.
Lever, Charles James. A Day's Ride; A Life's Romance. http://www.gutenberg.org//files/32692/32692-h/32692-h.htm
Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.
Sutherland, John. "Charles Lever." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989. Pp. 372-374.
Created 25 May 2022