"MR. CHADBAND 'IMPROVING' A TOUGH SUBJECT"
Facsimile of the Original Drawing for "Bleak House" by H. K. BROWNE ("Phiz")
In the Etching the figure of Jo is placed on the opposite side of the picture.
Lent by Her Grace the Duchess of St. Albans.
Several letters from Dickens to Forster at this time express solicitude concerning these plates. Writing from Lausanne on the 18th of July 1846, he said: "The prints for illustration, and the enormous care required, make me excessively anxious." A nervous dread of caricature on the face of his merchant-hero had led him to indicate by a living person the type of city gentleman he would have had the artist select. "The man for Dombey," he explained, "if Browne could see him, the class man to a T, is Sir A—— E——, of D——'s;" and this is all he meant by his reiterated urgent request, "I do wish he could get a glimpse of A., for he is the very Dombey." It seems, however, that the "glimpse of A." was impracticable, so it was resolved to send, for selection by himself, glimpses of other letters of the alphabet—actual heads as well as fanciful ones—and the sheetful of sketches forwarded for this purpose contains no less than twenty-nine typical Dombey portraits, comprising full-length and half-length presentments, as well as studies of heads in various poses, but with the same hard characteristic expression.[26] Against four of them "Phiz" has placed little arrows, to indicate that (in his opinion) they best accorded with the author's conception. The Dombey actually etched was not, after all, an absolute transcript of these tentative ideas, but seems to be a combination of several; and it is curious to note that, in the various representations of the proud city merchant as seen in the plates, "Phiz" did not keep religiously to the same type. That Dickens considered the artist's presentment as satisfactory is proved by his remark to Forster, "I think Mr. Dombey admirable," this doubtless referring to the illustration entitled "Mr. Dombey and the World." In a fragment of a letter preserved by Mr. J. F. Dexter may be read a few instructions to the artist with reference to the delineation of Mr. Dombey and his second wife: "It is a part of his character that he should be just the same as of yore. And in the second subject, I should like Edith Granger to possess the reader with a more serious notion of her having a serious part to play in the story. I really hardly know, however, what [part] beyond an expression of utter indifference towards Mr. Dombey...."
In the letter to Forster already quoted, the novelist sent (for transmission to the artist) a few hints for the earlier designs: "Great pains will be necessary with Miss Tox. The Toodle family should not be too much caricatured, because of Polly. I should like Browne to think of Susan Nipper, who will not be wanted in the first number. After the second number, they will all be nine or ten years older, but this will not involve much change in the characters, except in the children and Miss Nipper." After the completion of the first two plates, Dickens seems to have been in better heart about his illustrator, for, again writing to Forster from Lausanne, he said: "Browne seems to be getting on well. He will have a good subject in Paul's christening. Mr. Chick is like D., if you'll mention that when you think of it." Then, a little later: "Browne is certainly interesting himself and taking pains." He seems, however, to have been greatly disappointed with the designs in the second number, viz., "The Christening Party" (which he anticipated would be a success) and "Polly Rescues the Charitable Grinder," declaring them to be so "dreadfully bad" (in the sense of not keeping strictly to the text) that they made him "curl his legs up." This failure on the part of the artist caused him to feel unusually anxious in regard to a special illustration on which he had set much store, intended for the number he then had in hand. Communicating with Forster anent this, he said: "The best subject for Browne will be at Mrs. Pipchin's; and if he liked to do a quiet odd thing, Paul, Mrs. Pipchin, and the Cat, by the fire, would be very good for the story. I earnestly hope he will think it worth a little extra care." On first seeing the etching of this subject, he was sorely displeased, and could not refrain from thus expressing himself to Forster: "I am really distressed by the illustration of Mrs. Pipchin and Paul. It is so frightfully and wildly wide of the mark. Good Heaven! in the commonest and most literal construction of the text it is all wrong. She is described as an old lady, and Paul's 'miniature arm-chair' is mentioned more than once. He ought to be sitting in a little arm-chair down in the corner of the fireplace, staring up at her. I can't say what pain and vexation it is to be so utterly misrepresented. I would cheerfully have given a hundred pounds to have kept this illustration out of the book. He never could have got that idea of Mrs. Pipchin if he had attended to the text. Indeed, I think he does better without the text; for then the notion is made easy to him in short description, and he can't help taking it in." It is certainly strange that the sketch for this subject was not submitted to Dickens for approval before it was etched. We are told by Forster that the author felt the disappointment more keenly because "the conception of the grim old boarding-house keeper had taken back his thoughts to the miseries of his own child-life, and made her, as her prototype in verity was, a part of the terrible reality." In justice to the artist, it must be conceded that the etching of this subject seems to be an excellent rendering of the description of the scene as conveyed in the letterpress.
"Phiz" sometimes complained that Dickens did not send him more than a few printed lines as a guide to the subject to be illustrated, and, being kept in ignorance as to the context, he found it difficult to delineate the characters as well as the novelist might wish. Occasionally, as we have seen, he received quite a lengthy note when at work upon the designs, these communications sometimes being partly literal extracts from the text and partly condensation, such as the following:—
"Paul (a year older) has left Mrs. Pipchin's and gone to Doctor Blimber's establishment at Brighton. The Doctor only takes ten young gentlemen. Doctor Blimber's establishment is a good hot-house for the young mind, with a forcing apparatus always at work. Mental green peas are produced there at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable is got off the driest twigs of boys under the frostiest circumstances. Mrs. Blimber is fond of the boys not being like boys, and of their wearing collars and neckerchiefs. They have all blown before their time. The eldest boy in the school—young Toots by name, with a swollen nose and an exceedingly large head—left off blowing suddenly one day, and people do say that the Doctor rather overdid it with him, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains. All the young gentlemen have great weights on their minds. They are haunted by verbs, noun-substantives, roots, and syntactic passages. Some abandoned hope half through the Latin Grammar, and others curse Virgil in the bitterness of their souls. Classical Literature in general is an immense collection of words to them. It's all words and grammar, and don't mean anything else.
"Subject—These young gentlemen out walking, very dismally and formally (observe it's a very expensive school), with the lettering, Doctor Blimber's young gentlemen as they appeared when enjoying themselves. I think Doctor Blimber, a little removed from the rest, should bring up the rear, or lead the van, with Paul, who is much the youngest of the party. I extract the description of the Doctor. [Here follows a quotation from the eleventh chapter.]
"Paul as last described, but a twelvemonth older. No collar or neckerchief for him, of course. I would make the next youngest boy about three or four years older than he."