"The Vision of Scrooge's Former Sweetheart" — Green's twelfth illustration for

"A Christmas Carol" (1912) (original) (raw)

Passage Illustrated

"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.

"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more."

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him to observe what happened next.

They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to one of them. Though I never could have been so rude, no, no. I wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul, to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value. ["Stave Two: The First of The Three Spirits," 64-66: the original caption has been emphasized.]

Commentary

Charles Green has identified Belle's cancelling the engagement as another key psychological event in Scrooge's development as it reiterates his being rejected by his father and being abandoned by his classmates at each Christmas break when he was a boy at school. Now, in this final vision, approaching the present Christmas and certainly not in the distant past, the spirit guide forces Scrooge to witness what he might have enjoyed with Belle: a home and family — indeed, a whole drawing-room full of children, presided over by a comely matron and her daughter, so like her in youth that for the moment mistakes her for her mother. The title of the illustration does not accord with the caption: "And the daughter . . . got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly" (65). The title given on page 13, then, is quite misleading as Green is not depicting Belle herself ("Scrooge's Former Sweetheart"), but Belle's adolescent daughter, as the caption beneath the illustration itself makes clear.

In contrast to Green's engaging handling of the poignant scene at the close of Stave Two, Arthur Rackham provides a yuletide water-painting of a father (looking very much like Scrooge) returning home with toys for his children, Laden with Christmas toys and presentsand its companion, A flushed and boisterous group (see below), the scene in which Belle's adolescent daughter plays with her boisterous siblings. Significantly, no illustrator before Green had focussed on these idyllic scenes of family life which Scrooge foresook when he renounced love and accepted Belle's verdict that love of gain had replaced his love for her. Perhaps Green could not resist the opportunity to make the blithe daughter a beautiful and animated young woman in mid-Victorian fashion. She has abandoned the comfortable armchair (left), suggestive of the family's solidly middle-class status, to sport with three children aged three to six, approximately (Dickens specifies neither the number of "young brigands," nor their ages, although he leads to expect a large number in "there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count").

Relevant Illustrations from the 1915 Edition

Left and right: Rackham's scenes of Scrooge's witnessing what he missed in not marrying Belle, Laden with Christmas toys and presents and A flushed and boisterous group.

Illustrations for A Christmas Carol (1843-1915)

• John Leech's original 1843 series of eight engravings for Dickens's A Christmas Carol
• Sol Eytinge, Junior's 1867-68 illustrations for two Ticknor & Fields editions for Dickens's A Christmas Carol
• E. A. Abbey's 1876 illustrations for The American Household Edition of Dickens's Christmas Books
• Fred Barnard's 1878 illustrations for The Household Edition of Dickens's Christmas Books
• Charles E. Brock's 1905 illustrations for A Christmas Carol and The Chimes
• A. A. Dixon's 1906 Collins Pocket Edition for Dickens's Christmas Books
• Harry Furniss's 1910 Charles Dickens Library Edition of Dickens's Christmas Books
• A selection of Arthur Rackham's 1915 illustrations for Dickens's A Christmas Carol

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.

_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1878. Vol. XVII.

_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by A. A. Dixon. London & Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1906.

_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. VIII.

_____. Christmas Books, illustrated by A. A. Dixon. London & Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1906.

_____. A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. Illustrated by John Leech. London: Chapman and Hall, 1843.

_____. A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1868.

_____. A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being A Ghost Story of Christmas. Illustrated by John Leech. (1843). Rpt. in Charles Dickens'sChristmas Books, ed. Michael Slater. Hardmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, rpt. 1978.

____. A Christmas Carol and The Cricket on the Hearth. Illustrated by Charles Edmund Brock. London: J. M. Dent, and New York: Dutton, 1905, rpt. 1963.

_____. A Christmas Carol. Illustrated by Charles Green, R. I. London: A & F Pears, 1912.

_____. A Christmas Carol. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. London: William Heinemann, 1915.

_____. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876.

Created 11 August 2015

Last modified 5 March 2020