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Mr. Moddle is Both Particular and Peculiar in his Attentions
Phiz
December 1843: Part XII
Steel-engraving
11.5 cm high by 9 cm wide (4 ⅜ by 3 ⅜ inches), vignetted
Twenty-fourth monthly illustration for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, facing p. 384 (1844 edition) in Ch. XXXII. Headline: "Charity Receives an Offer" (1897).
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Determining to regulate her conduct by this opinion, the young lady received Mr. Moddle, on the earliest subsequent occasion, with an air of constraint; and gradually leading him to inquire, in a dejected manner, why she was so changed, confessed to him that she felt it necessary for their mutual peace and happiness to take a decided step. They had been much together lately, she observed, much together, and had tasted the sweets of a genuine reciprocity of sentiment. She never could forget him, nor could she ever cease to think of him with feelings of the liveliest friendship, but people had begun to talk, the thing had been observed, and it was necessary that they should be nothing more to each other, than any gentleman and lady in society usually are. She was glad she had had the resolution to say thus much before her feelings had been tried too far; they had been greatly tried, she would admit; but though she was weak and silly, she would soon get the better of it, she hoped.
Moddle, who had by this time become in the last degree maudlin, and wept abundantly, inferred from the foregoing avowal, that it was his mission to communicate to others the blight which had fallen on himself; and that, being a kind of unintentional Vampire, he had had Miss Pecksniff assigned to him by the Fates, as Victim Number One. Miss Pecksniff controverting this opinion as sinful, Moddle was goaded on to ask whether she could be contented with a blighted heart; and it appearing on further examination that she could be, plighted his dismal troth, which was accepted and returned. He bore his good fortune with the utmost moderation. Instead of being triumphant, he shed more tears than he had ever been known to shed before; and, sobbing, said:
"Oh! what a day this has been! I can’t go back to the office this afternoon. Oh, what a trying day this has been! Good Gracious!" [Chapter XXXII, "Treats of Todgers's Again; and of Another Blighted Plant besides the Plants upon the Leads," page 384 in the 1844 edition]
Moddle's complacency at keeping company with the unattractive Pecksniff sister in Phiz's illustration may seem misleading, but careful reading of the text reveals the motive for his lachrymose condition: he is pining for "another," the beautiful, younger sister who has married Jonas. However, Dickens himself is somewhat misleading as to Moddle's accepting the somewhat less attractive consolation prize:
In short, Mr. Moddle began to be impressed with the idea that Miss Pecksniff's mission was to comfort him; and Miss Pecksniff began to speculate on the probability of its being her mission to become ultimately Mrs. Moddle. He was a young gentleman (Miss Pecksniff was not a very young lady) with rising prospects, and "almost" enough to live on. Really it looked very well.
Besides, besides, he had been regarded as devoted to Merry. Merry had joked about him, and had once spoken of it to her sister as a conquest. He was better looking, better shaped, better spoken, better tempered, better mannered than Jonas. He was easy to manage, could be made to consult the humours of his Betrothed, and could be shown off like a lamb when Jonas was a bear. There was the rub! [pp. 114-15 in the 1887 edition]
Thus, Phiz's illustration offers no foreshadowing of Moddle's decamping for Australia on the eve of the wedding. In fact, the illustration misleads the reader by suggesting Charity's likelihood of making good progress towards matrimony, despite her age and plainness. Just left of centre, the light of domesticity that fills the harmonious, middle-class sitting-room, Cherry's knitting, the luxuriant curtains,the capacious couch, and, above all, the studious cherubim all seem to suggest that the couple are destined for a matrimonial idyll. But Phiz offers a modest clue that Moddle's emtoion is at best self-serving, maudlin, so to speak, for he carries a large, white silk handkerchief of a type that we have seen before in this series in the hands of duplicitous characters: Colonel Diver in Jefferson Brick proposes an Appropriate Sentiment, Jonas Chuzzlewit in Mrs. Gamp Has Her Eye on the Future, and, in particular, Mr. Tigg Montague in The Board. Moreover, the lamp that illuminates the scene exists within the composition as a reflection in the large mirror behind Augustus Moddle, and is, therefore something of an illusion. Just as Pecksniff's emotions are counterfeit in the initial December 1843 plate, Mr. Pecksniff Discharges a Duty Which He Owes to Society rather than heart-felt, so Moddle is going through motions in acquiescing to an engagement which he neither particularly desires nor can afford.
Jane Rabb Cohen in "Dickens's Principal Illustrator" has noted the comments that Phiz has made about Moddle's mental instability in the embedded book-titles: Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, implying a poetic nature driven to suicide to escape a romantic triangle; and Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, foreshadowing his jilting of Charity at the close of the book. The literary allusion to the late eighteenth century German novel is particularly pertinent to Moddle's situation as Werther falls in love with Charlotte despite knowing that she is engaged to another, and eventually commits suicide. The early nineteenth century narrative poem has more to do with Moddle's perception of himself as a Byronic hero: arrogant, cynical, self-absorbed, and ultimately self-destructive. In his commentary on Phiz's creativity in the Martin Chuzzlewit illustrations, Steig in Dickens and Phiz further clarifies the importance of the plate's three embedded volumes in the illustrator's satire on Moddle's pose as a romantic lover:
Browne deals with a comic consequence of Jonas' earlier duplicity with Charity Pecksniff, her pursuit of the unwilling Moddle, in a heavily emblematic style. The incident functions more as comic relief than moral commentary; yet it is important in providing a parallel to the career and downfall of Pecksniff by centering on his favorite daughter, the one who most resembles him in self-importance and hypocrisy. The "courtship" also contrasts with the genuine love relationships in the novel, Ruth Pinch and John Wesdock, Mary and Martin, as well as Tom's unrequited love for Mary.
A parody of romantic love is the theme of Mr. Moddle is both particular and peculiar in his attentions (ch. 32), while happy domesticity is mimicked in Mr. Moddle is led to the contemplation of his destiny (ch. 46). In the first, Charity casts a proprietary look at Moddle, who seems to pull away from Cherry even as he reaches out his hand toward her. The comic but tormenting ambivalence of this reluctant lover is thus admirably conveyed. Three book titles comment ironically upon different aspects of this romance. On the cupboard behind Moddle is Jolly Songs, antithetical to his morose appearance and his sorrow at having lost Merry; at his feet is Werther, the irony of which lies in the disparity between Moddle's implausible threats of suicide and the high-Romantic passions of Goethe's protagonist; and upon the table is Childe Harold, again a story about a quintessential Romantic best known for his world-wanderings, perhaps foreshadowing Moddle's eventual escape to Van Diemen's Land. Sitting on a wall bracket behind Moddle is either a cupid or a cherub, a frequently used detail in scenes of comic disappointed love (cf. the scene of Charity's jilting); here the figure is reading, an appropriate activity for the general sense of this plate that Moddle's behavior is based on books. [pp. 72-73]
Left: Mrs. Todgers and Mr. Moddle by Sol Eytinge, Jr. (1867): "Only because she's so like her who is Another's, Mrs. Todgers," rejoined the youth. "When she talks, and when she smiles, I think I'm looking on HER brow again, Mrs. Todgers." [Ch. 32, Diamond Edition, p. 294, facing the illustration]. Right: Fred Barnard's realisation of the scene in which Miss Pecksniff flirts with Augustus Moddle in the corridors or Todgers's, On the fourteenth night, he kissed Miss Pecksniff's snuffers in the passage, when she went up-stairs to bed: meaning to have kissed her hand, but missing it. (1872). [Click on these images to enlarge them.]
Above: Fred Barnard's realisation of the scene in which Augustus Moddle confesses to Tom Pinch that he has no appetite for marrying Charity Pecksniff, Mr. Moddle, with a dark look, replied: "The drivers won't do it." (1872).
Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. Vol. 2.
_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. 2.
_____. Martin Chuzzlewit. Edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. The Works of Charles Dickens in Thirty-four Volumes, vol. III. The Gadshill Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1897. 2 vols.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Steig, Michael. "III. From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978, 51-85.
_____. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz." Dickens Studies Annual 2 (1972): 119-149.
Vann, J. Don. "Martin Chuzzlewit, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, January 1843 — July 1844." New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 66-67.
Last modified 9 January 2019
Last updated 14 November 2024