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Cornelia Blimber and Little Pauln
Harold Copping
1893
"Little Paul Dombey," p. 106
Photographic reproduction of line drawing
5 ⅛ by 3 ¾ inches (13 x 9.3 cm) vignetted.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham
Miss Blimber expressed her opinions on the subject of Paul’s uninstructed state with a gloomy delight, as if she had expected this result, and were glad to find that they must be in constant communication. Paul withdrew with the top task, as he was told, and laboured away at it, down below: sometimes remembering every word of it, and sometimes forgetting it all, and everything else besides: until at last he ventured upstairs again to repeat the lesson, when it was nearly all driven out of his head before he began, by Miss Blimber’s shutting up the book, and saying, “Go on, Dombey!” a proceeding so suggestive of the knowledge inside of her, that Paul looked upon the young lady with consternation, as a kind of learned Guy Fawkes, or artificial Bogle, stuffed full of scholastic straw.
He acquitted himself very well, nevertheless; and Miss Blimber, commending him as giving promise of getting on fast, immediately provided him with subject B; from which he passed to C, and even D before dinner. It was hard work, resuming his studies, soon after dinner; and he felt giddy and confused and drowsy and dull. But all the other young gentlemen had similar sensations, and were obliged to resume their studies too, if there were any comfort in that. It was a wonder that the great clock in the hall, instead of being constant to its first inquiry, never said, “Gentlemen, we will now resume our studies,” for that phrase was often enough repeated in its neighbourhood. The studies went round like a mighty wheel, and the young gentlemen were always stretched upon it. [Chapter XII, "Paul's Education"]
Miss Blimber, the doctor's daughter, a learned lady in spectacles, was his special tutor, and from morning till night his poor little brains were forced and crammed, till his head was heavy and always had a dull ache in it, and his small legs grew weak again — every day he looked a little thinner and a little paler. . . . "The oddest and most old-fashioned child in the world," Dr. Blimber would say to his daughter; "but bring him on, Cornelia — bring him on."
And Cornelia did bring him on . . . . [Mary Angela Dickens, 107]
Harold Copping had no visual precedent upon which to base his picture of Cornelia Blimber's supervising Paul's Latin and other studies. In fact, in short order, the studies get the better of him. Lacking outdoor exercise, Paul grows weaker and weaker. Since Paul "could not rest from anxiety about his lessons" (107) even on Saturdays, Florence helps him prepare for the week's work. But when he passes out beside Toots, Blimber and the usher release him from his studies.
Very little of this anxiety and fatigue is evident in Copping's illustration, although Miss Blimber is certainly a stern taskmistress. The scene is presumably a classroom since the artist has included a large globe behind Paul's desk. Phiz's Paul's Exercises (January 1847), had shown Florence assisting Paul, and in the process acquiring something of a formal grammar school education herself. Phiz's illustration has the virtue of describing Paul's utter fatigue from the regimen of the stern schoolmistress.
Left: Phiz's February 1847 engraving focuses instead upon Florence's helping Paul with his lessons at DR. Blimber's: Paul's Exercises in Chapter XII. Centre: Harry Furniss's impressionist revision of the November 1846 Phiz scene, Paul Puzzling Mrs. Pipchin (1910). Right: Paul seems to learn more from talking with the clock repairman than he does from books in the Household Edition illustration Paul also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought about King Alfred's idea of measuring time by burning candles . . . in Chapter XIV (1877).
Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). [1846-48] The Clarendon Edition, ed. Alan Horsman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon and Company, 1862. Vols. 1-4.
__________. 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 W. L. Sheppard. The Household Edition. 18 vols. New York: Harper & Co., 1873.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard [62 composite wood-block engravings]. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.
__________. Dombey and Son. With illustrations by H. K. Browne. The illustrated library Edition. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, c. 1880. II.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 61 wood-engravings. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by W. H. C. Groome. London and Glasgow, 1900, rpt. 1934. 2 vols. in one.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. IX.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.
Dickens, Mary Angela, Percy Fitzgerald, Captain Edric Vredenburg, and Others. Illustrated by Harold Copping with eleven coloured lithographs. Chapter 10, "Little Paul Dombey," Children's Stories from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1893. Pp. 101-109.
Created 25 January 2022