The Two Armadales
George Housman Thomas, 1824-1868
Engraved by William Luson Thomas (Thomas's brother)
1866
Frontispiece to Wilkie Collins's novel Armadale, Vol.1
Taken from the 1866 edition published by Smith, Elder, uploaded to the Internet Archive by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
[See commentary below.]
Caption and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee.
Commentary
In the frontispiece to the original two-volume edition of Armadale, the illustrator George Housman Thomas helps to bring out Wilkie Collins's central theme. He depicts a scene only reported in the book, when Allan Armadale and the young man who has taken the name of Ozias Midwinter encounter each other for the first time. If they but knew it, they actually share the same name, as the caption makes clear, and are the sons of two bitter rivals. Such a meeting might be and is expected, in the narrative that follows, to prove disastrous, but Allan looks at the dazed outcast with unmistakable concern and sympathy. The bond thus forged will help to lay old ghosts to rest.
Thomas's depiction of Midwinter is based on the description of him that follows this episode. On behalf of Allan's mother, who is ever fearful of repercussions from the past, Allan's mentor, the kindly Reverend Brock, has come to try and assess the mysterious newcomer:
Ozias Midwinter, recovering from brain-fever, was a startling object to contemplate, on a first view of him. His shaven head, tied up in an old yellow silk handkerchief; his tawny, haggard cheeks; his bright brown eyes, preternaturally large and wild; his rough black beard; his long supple, sinewy fingers, wasted by suffering, till they looked like claws — all tended to discompose the rector at the outset of the interview. When the first feeling of surprise had worn off, the impression that followed it was not an agreeable one. Mr. Brock could not conceal from himself that the stranger's manner was against him. The general opinion has settled that if a man is honest, he is bound to assert it by looking straight at his fellow-creatures when he speaks to them. If this man was honest, his eyes showed a singular perversity in looking away and denying it. Possibly they were affected in some degree by a nervous restlessness in his organization, which appeared to pervade every fibre in his lean, lithe body. The rector's healthy Anglo-Saxon flesh crept responsively at every casual movement of the usher's supple brown fingers, and every passing distortion of the usher's haggard yellow face. "God forgive me!" thought Mr. Brock, with his mind running on Allan, and Allan's mother, "I wish I could see my way to turning Ozias Midwinter adrift in the world again!" (Armadale 73-4)
Thomas has caught the details of Midwinter's appearance, while avoiding showing the rector's apparently prejudiced response to it (those "supple brown fingers," emphasis added). But the Reverend Brock realises even now that he is being unchristian ("God forgive me!"), and soon catches up with Allan, developing the same sympathy for the mysterious stranger. Eventually he will call Midwinter his "poor suffering brother" and "hardly-tried, . . . well-loved friend." At this point he will remind him of God's mercy and wisdom, and tell him that "No evil exists, out of which, in obedience to his laws, Good may not come" (623). And, despite all fears to the contrary, such proves to be the reassuring case in Collins's narrative.
Related Material
References
Collins, Wilkie. Armadale Ed. Catherine Peters. Oxford: Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2008.
Last modified 8 November 2011