Passage Illustrated: The Comedic Aspect of Target Practice

“I'll not try again,” said she, pettishly. “Either the pistols don't suit me, or the place or the light is bad. Something is wrong, that's certain.”

Haggerstone bit his lip in silence, and went on reloading the pistols without trusting himself to reply. A little conflict was going on within him, and all his intended flatteries for her Ladyship were warring with the desire to display his own skill, for he was a celebrated shot, and not a little vain of the accomplishment. Vanity carried the day at last, and taking up the weapon, he raised it slowly to a level with his eye. A second or two he held it thus, his hand steady as a piece of marble.

“I have taken my aim, and now you may give the word for me to fire when you please,” said he, turning his eyes from the object, and looking straight at Lady Hester.

She stared at him as if to reassure herself of the direction of his glance, and then called out “Fire!” The shot rang out clear and sharp; with it arose a shrill cry of agony, and straight before them, at the foot of the pillar, lay something which looked like a roll of clothes, only that by its panting motion it indicated life. Haggerstone sprang forward, and to his horror discovered the dwarf, Hans Roeckle, who, with his arm broken, lay actually bathed in blood. With his remaining hand he clasped the little statue to his bosom, while he muttered to himself the words “Gerettet! saved! saved!” [Chapter VII, "A Lesson in Pistol-Shooting," 52]

Commentary: Phiz fills in the narrative gap

Into his narrative-pictorial sequence Phiz now introduces several new characters. Lever had introduced Colonel Haggerstone in the opening chapter as one of Peter Dalton's friends, staying at the Hotel de Russie in the New Town, Baden Baden. The aristocratic woman in the picturesque illustration is Lady Hester Onslow, wife of an English banker, Sir Stafford, who is suffering from acute gout and therefore is unable as yet to travel south. All her continental friends have already departed for Italy since it is now November. Without companionship, acquaintance, employment, or entertainment, Lady Hester is bored, and therefore makes everyone else's life miserable since she has left all her books behind in England. Thus, she agrees to receive the Colonel when he leaves his card.

Very quickly, their conversation turns to a mutual interest, pistol-shooting. They thus agree to stage a shooting-match in the hotel garden on the following afternoon, a Monday. Much younger than her ill husband, Lady Hester finds the Colonel the ideal field companion as she "could ride, drive, shoot and fence" (50), to say nothing of playing billiards and rowing. Although the present fashion is to target shoot at statuettes, the Colonel has been able to procure none, until his servant arrives with a figurine that he has purchased at Hans's toy-shop, a hand-carved wooden statue of Goethe's Marguerite.

Thus, Lever sets the scene for Lady Hester's ineptly discharging her pistol, and the Colonel's hurriedly firing at the statuette. In his haste, he has failed to see the dwarf, rushing forward to protect the statuette, and will accidentally wound Roeckle in the arm. However, the artist has taken pains to show the reader what Lever has not narrated, namely how, while Lady Hester and the Colonel are distracted by her complaining about the quality of the Colonel's pistols to cover her own ineptitude at missing the mark, the dwarf has sprung forward to rescue the figurine, undoubtedly carved by Kate Dalton and one of those he purchased from her the day before Frank left. Phiz's approach complements Lever's description of the Colonel's taking aim: “I have taken my aim, and now you may give the word for me to fire when you please,” said he, turning his eyes from the object, and looking straight at Lady Hester."

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