Mr. Dombey and His Confidential Agent
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
13.2 cm high by 9.7 cm wide
Dickens's Dombey and Son, Chapter 42; facing 193 in the second volume of the Illustrated Library Edition (1880)
Image scan and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Psssage Illustrated: After the Marital Breakup
"The first Mrs. Dombey lived very happily," said Carker.
"The first Mrs. Dombey had great good sense," said Mr Dombey, in a gentlemanly toleration of the dead, "and very correct feeling."
"Is Miss Dombey like her mother, do you think?" said Carker.
Swiftly and darkly, Mr. Dombey’s face changed. His confidential agent eyed it keenly.
"I have approached a painful subject," he said, in a soft regretful tone of voice, irreconcilable with his eager eye. ‘Pray forgive me. I forget these chains of association in the interest I have. Pray forgive me."
But for all he said, his eager eye scanned Mr. Dombey’s downcast face none the less closely; and then it shot a strange triumphant look at the picture, as appealing to it to bear witness how he led him on again, and what was coming.
"Carker," said Mr. Dombey, looking here and there upon the table, and saying in a somewhat altered and more hurried voice, and with a paler lip, "there is no occasion for apology. You mistake. The association is with the matter in hand, and not with any recollection, as you suppose. I do not approve of Mrs. Dombey’s behaviour towards my daughter."
"Pardon me," said Mr. Carker, "I don’t quite understand."
"Understand then," returned Mr. Dombey, "that you may make that — that you will make that, if you please — matter of direct objection from me to Mrs. Dombey. You will please to tell her that her show of devotion for my daughter is disagreeable to me. It is likely to be noticed. It is likely to induce people to contrast Mrs. Dombey in her relation towards my daughter, with Mrs Dombey in her relation towards myself. You will have the goodness to let Mrs. Dombey know, plainly, that I object to it; and that I expect her to defer, immediately, to my objection. Mrs. Dombey may be in earnest, or she may be pursuing a whim, or she may be opposing me; but I object to it in any case, and in every case. If Mrs. Dombey is in earnest, so much the less reluctant should she be to desist; for she will not serve my daughter by any such display. If my wife has any superfluous gentleness, and duty over and above her proper submission to me, she may bestow them where she pleases, perhaps; but I will have submission first! — Carker," said Mr. Dombey, checking the unusual emotion with which he had spoken, and falling into a tone more like that in which he was accustomed to assert his greatness, "you will have the goodness not to omit or slur this point, but to consider it a very important part of your instructions." [Chapter 42, "Confidential and Accidental," 192]
Commentary: Embedded Details as Phiz's Comments on the Scene
Phiz communicates far less about the underlying meaning of the scene through the characters' postures and expressions than he does through such embedded details as the oil-paintings, the playful spaniel, and the caged parrot. Whereas Dombey still has his exotic pet tightly confined, his wife, over whom he meant to exert absolute dominion, has defied him, and fled the confines of the Dombey mansion. Her portrait, in contradiction of Dombey's futile attempts to exert his make authority after the marital breakup, still dominates the parlour, and hovers in the minds of the devious manager and the haughty husband.
The other ornately framed, large-scale painting in the room, positioned above Carker, is a narrative rather than a portrait. "The first in a series of plates depicting the course of Dombey's, Edith's, and Carker's headlong flights to self-destruction, Mr. Dombey and his 'confidential agent (ch. 42), is of special interest for the care with which Browne sets forth visually the drift of Dickens' text. Carker regards covertly the painting on the wall which happens to resemble Edith; but Browne has added another painting depicting a seminude woman at her outdoor bath" (Steig, 99). The meaning of the neoclassical scene with the kneeling, semi-nude female figure, resides, according to Steig, in its representing the hunter Actaeon suddenly coming upon Diana the huntress as she bathes in a woodland pool. In fact, Actaeon is not in charge at all, and will subsequently be destroyed by his own hounds, upon whom Diana has cast a spell. "That Actaeon was torn to pieces by his own hounds as a consequence of his spying may allude to Carker's ultimate self-destruction resulting from his interference in Edith's life. Another apparent contribution of Browne's is the small dog near Carker's feet; since it is a lapdog, looking up at Dombey with its tongue out, it seems to function as an emblem of Carker himself, fawning upon his master; consistent with this emblem, Carker's teeth are here concealed, while in all previous plates they are very much in evidence" (Steig, 99).
Other Illustrators' Depictions of Carker and Dombey in Other Editions (1867 to 1910)
Left: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s character study of Dombey's devious Manager:
Related Material, including Other Illustrated Editions of Dombey and Son
- Dombey and Son (homepage)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 1, 1862)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 2, 1862)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 3, 1862)
- Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 Diamond Edition Illustrations (1867)
- Fred Barnard's 61 illustrations for the Household Edition (1872)
- Groome's illustrations of the Collins Pocket Edition of Dombey and Son (1900, rpt. 1934)
- Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards, 1910
- Harry Furniss's illustrations for the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. With illustrations by H. K. Browne. The illustrated library Edition. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, c. 1880. Vol. II.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). The Clarendon Edition, ed. Alan Horsman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 61 wood-engravings. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.
_________. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. IX.
Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 16: Dombey and Son." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. 17, 294-337.
Kitton, Frederic George. Dickens and His Illustrators: Cruikshank, Seymour, Buss, "Phiz," Cattermole, Leech, Doyle, Stanfield, Maclise, Tenniel, Frank Stone, Landseer, Palmer, Topham, Marcus Stone, and Luke Fildes. Amsterdam: S. Emmering, 1972. Re-print of the London (1899) edition.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Ch. 12, "Work, Work, Work." Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004, pp. 128-160.
Steig, Michael. Chapter 4. "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 86-112.
Vann, J. Don. Chapter 4."Dombey and Son, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, October 1846-April 1848." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. 67-68.
Created 8 August 2015 Last modified 7 February 2021