Passage Illustrated: The Daltons at Home

“Shall I read it, papa?” said she, as she raised her head, and turned towards him a look of calm and beaming affection.

“You need n't,” said he, roughly. “Of course, it 's full of all the elegant phrases women like to cheat each other with. You said she will go; that's enough.”

Nelly tried to speak, but the words would not come, and she merely nodded an acquiescence.

“And, of course, too, you told her Ladyship that if it wasn't to a near relation of the family one that had a kind of right, as I may say, to ask her that I 'd never have given my consent. Neither would I!”

“I said that you could give no higher proof of your confidence in Lady Hester's goodness and worth, than in committing to her charge all that we hold so dear. I spoke of our gratitude” her voice faltered here, and she hesitated a second or so; our gratitude! strange word to express the feeling with which we part from what we cling to so fondly! “and I asked of her to be the mother of her who had none!”

“Oh, Nelly, I cannot go I cannot leave you!” burst out Kate, as she knelt down, and buried her head in her sister's lap. “I feel already how weak and how unable I am to live among strangers, away from you and dear papa. I have need of you both!”

“May I never leave this spot if you're not enough to drive me mad!” exclaimed Dalton. “You cried two nights and a day because there was opposition to your going. You fretted till your eyes were red, and your cheeks all furrowed with tears; and now that you get leave to go now that I consent to to to sacrifice ay, to sacrifice my domestic enjoyments to your benefit you turn short round and say you won't go!”

“Nay, nay, papa,” said Nelly, mildly; “Kate but owns with what fears she would consent to leave us, and in this shows a more fitting mind to brave what may come, than if she went forth with a heart brimful of its bright anticipations, and only occupied with a future of splendor and enjoyment.”

“I ask you again, is it into the backwoods of Newfoundland is it into the deserts of Arabia she is going?” said Dalton, ironically.

“The country before her has perils to the full as great, if not greater than either,” rejoined Nelly, lowly.

“There's a ring at the bell,” said Dalton, perhaps not sorry to cut short a discussion in which his own doubts and fears were often at variance with his words; for while opposing Nelly with all his might, he was frequently forced to coincide secretly with that he so stoutly resisted. [Chapter XVII, "A Family Discussion," 129]

Commentary: The Four Daltons plus the Dwarf, "Hanserl," the Toymaker of Baden-Baden

The frontispiece serves to introduce the four Daltons, their faithful but taciturn family retainer, and their frequent guest, their neighbour the toymaker, as they appear in the second and third chapters, when Peter Dalton, the pater familias, returns home from meeting English friends at the Hotel Russie, in the centre of the spa town. Although the caption for this engraving in the 1872 edition points towards a family discussion in Chapter Seventeen, this identification of the passage illustrated (probably not originating with Phiz) is erroneous since Frank has already left home for Vienna by then, and the dwarf, Hans or Hanserl, is not in fact present for that later discussion. The context of the plate, then, would appear to be a much earlier "family discussion" in which all six characters are present:

Is it any wonder if poor Hans forgot himself in such pleasant company, and sat a full hour and a half longer than he ought? To him the little intervals of silence that were occasionally suffered to intervene were but moments of dreamy and delicious revery, wherein his fancy wandered away in a thousand pleasant paths; and when at last the watchman for remember, good reader, they were in that primitive Germany where customs change not too abruptly announced two o'clock, little Hans did not vouchsafe a grateful response to the quaint old rhyme that was chanted beneath the window. [Chapter II, "An Humble Interior," 15]

Although Phiz does little to distinguish between the elder sister, Ellen, and her senior, Kate, he uses the juxtaposition of guitar and the seated sister to imply that this is the family's artist and musician. The identities of the son of the house, Frank (standing, thoughtfully surveying this family scene on the evening before he sets out for Vienna), Andy, the old family retainer, Peter Dalton himself, and the dwarf are self-explanatory.

Other, Less Symbolic Title-page Vignettes by Phiz (1844-1863)

• At the Finger Post in Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit (July 1844)
• Rob the Grinder Reading with Captain Cuttle in Dickens's Dombey and Son (April 1848)
• Little Em'ly at the Houseboat in Dickens's David Copperfield (November 1850)
• Joe the Crossing-sweeper in Dickens's Bleakhouse (1853)
• The Beacon Hill in Ainsworth's The Spendthrift (January 1855)
• Amy at the door of the Marshalsea in Dickens's Little Dorrit (June 1857)
• Pursuing the Gipsy on the River in Ainsworth's Mervyn Clitheroe (June 1858)
• Scarecrow Symbol in Lever's Davenport Dunn (April 1859)
• In the Bastille in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (November 1859)
• Polly Dill on Horseback in Lever's Barrington (1863)

Bibliography

Browne, John Buchanan. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1978.

Downey, Edmund. Charles Lever: His Life in Letters. 2 vols. london; William Blackwood, 1906.

Fitzpatrick, W. J. The Life of Charles Lever. London: Downey, 1901.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1852, rpt. 1872.

Lever, Charles James. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. http://www.gutenberg.org//files/32061/32061-h/32061-h.htm

Skinner, Anne Maria. Charles Lever and Ireland. University of Liverpool. PhD dissertation. May 2019.

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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Last modified 15 April 2022