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A Cutting Reception
Phiz
December 1842 instalment
Steel-engraving
12.6 cm by 10.9 cm (4 ⅞ by 4 ¼ inches), vignetted
Twenty-fourth steel-engraving and thirty-third serial illustration for Charles Lever's Jack Hinton, The Guardsman (1843), facing page 356.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Leaving Corny to his oration before the mob, of which, happily for the safety of his own skin, they did not comprehend one word, I took the direction he mentioned, and soon found out the door, on which a visiting card with my mother's name was fastened.
We were now introduced into a large and splendidly furnished saloon, with all that lightness and elegance of decoration which in a foreign apartment is the compensation — a poor one sometimes — for the more comfortable look of our English houses. The room was empty, but the morning papers and all the new publications of the day were scattered about with profusion. Consigning my friend for a short time to these, I followed the femme-de-chambre, who had already brought in my card to my mother, to her ladyship's dressing-room. The door was opened noiselessly by the maid, who whispered my name. A gentle "Let him come in" followed, and I entered.
My mother was seated before a glass, under the hands of a coiffeur, and dared not turn her head. As I approached she reached me her hand, however, which having kissed dutifully, I drew my chair, and sat down beside her. "My dear boy!" said she, as her eyes turned towards me, and a tear fell from the lid and trickled down her cheek. In spite of the unnatural coldness of such a meeting, the words, the accents, and the look that accompanied them came home to my heart, and I was glad to hide my emotion by again pressing my lips to her hand. Having kindly informed me that the ceremony she was then submitting to was imperative, inasmuch as if she had not M. Dejoncourt then, she could not have him at all — that his time was so filled up, every moment of it, from eight in the morning till eleven at night, that the Emperor Alexander himself couldn't obtain his services, if he wished for them — she proceeded to give me some details of my father, by which I could learn that the change in his circumstances had never been made known to her, and that she had gone on since we last met in her old career of extravagance and expense, the indulgence of which, and the cares of her ever-declining health, having given her abundant occupation.
As I looked at her beautiful features and delicately fair complexion, upon which time had scarcely laid a touch, I sighed to think at what a frightful sacrifice of feeling, of duty, and of happiness, too, such loveliness had been purchased. If the fine pencilling of that brow had never known a wrinkle, the heart had never throbbed to one high or holy thought; if the smile sat easily on the lip, it was the habitual garb of fashionable captivation, and not the indication of one kind thought or one affectionate feeling. I felt shocked, too, that I could thus criticise my mother; but in truth for a minute or two I forgot she was such. [Chapter LVII, "Paris in 1814," pp. 355-356]
Having arrived in the French capital with other occupying forces, Colonel O'Grady and Captain Hinton set out from their hotel in the Faubourg St. Denis for No. 4, Place Vendôme, in the 1st arrondissement, Lady Hinton's fashionable residence. The comical conflict between Corny Delany and the Russian Cossack over the broken eggs in the street nearby (see previous illustration) sharply contrasts with the cool reunion of mother and son, whose emotional conflict is rendered more complex because in ignorance of husband's recent financial reversal in the bond market she is continuing to lead her customarily lavish lifestyle. The clash of wills and tastes is evident in her insisting that Jack attend a forthcoming diplomatic ball.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. Jack Hinton, The Guardsman. Illustrated by Hablột Knight Browne (Phiz). London: Downey & Co., 1901. [First published serially in The Dublin University Magazine January through December 1842; and subsequently in a single volume, Dublin: William Curry, Jun. December 1842, pp. 396. Illustrated with wood and steel engravings by H. K. Browne: 27 full-page plates. 8vo, 396pp. Boston: Little, Brown, 1894; New York: Croscup, 1894. 2 vols.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter VI, "Editor, 1841-1843." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. 92-107.
Sutherland, John A. "The Dublin University Magazine." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 200.
Thomson, David Croal. Life and Labours of Hablột Knight Browne, "Phiz". London: Chapman and Hall, 1884.
Created 11 June 2023