"Is the mosquito happier for having stung one's nose?" — staff artist William Newman's twentieth composite woodblock engraving for Charles Lever's A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance, first published on 10 November 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Chapter XVIII, "Mrs. Keats Moves My Indignation." 2 ⅝ by 3 ½ inches (6.6 cm by 8.8 mm), framed, centre of page 714. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Reflections on Mrs. Martha Keats as a Bothersome Mosquito
How I hated that old woman; I don't think I ever detested a human creature so much as that I have often speculated as to whether venomous reptiles have any gratification imparted to them when they inflict a poisonous wound. Is the mosquito the happier for having stung one's nose? And, in the same spirit, I should like to know, do the disagreeable people of this world sleep the better from the consciousness of having offended us? Is there that great ennobling sense of a mission fulfilled for every cheek they set on fire and every heart they depress? and do they quench hope and extinguish ambition with the same zeal that the Sun or the Phoenix put out a fire? [Chapter XVIII, "Mrs. Keats Moves My Indignation," 714; p. 156 in Chapman and Hall edition]
Commentary: Mrs. Keats, Blocking Potts's Way to Romance
"I am forced to the confession, Mrs. Keats was not what is popularly called an agreeable old lady," remarks the narrator as he recalls a particularly awkward meal shared with her and her beautiful charge, Miss Herbert. He wants to drink wine; Mrs. Keats decrees that she and Miss Herbert shall drink water; Potts orders brandy in his coffee, whereupon she peremptorily rises from the table, remarking that ladies "are not bound to assist at an orgie." She had not represented a blocking figure on their journey from the little village of Kalbbratonstadt to Bomerstein through an idyllic forest as she had been in her own lumbering carriage, with her servants, guidebooks, and terrier, while the enchanted Potts and the witty Miss Herbert had proceeded separately, in a cabriolet in front.
Scanned images 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 26 May 2022