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Passage Illustrated: “a levity unbecoming their time of life,” remarks Sister Lydia

Nothing short of long practice with this argument could have stored her mind with all her instances, her quotations, and her references. Nor could anything short of a firm conviction have made her so courageously indifferent to the feelings she was outraging, for she never scrupled to arraign the two strangers before her for ignorance, apathy, worldliness, sordid and poor ambitions, and, last of all, a levity unbecoming their time of life.

“I'm not quite sure that I understand her aright,” whispered Peter, whose familiarity with French was not what it had once been; “but if I do, Dinah, she's giving us a rare lesson.”

“She's the most insolent old woman I ever met in my life,” said his sister, whose violent use of her fan seemed either likely to provoke or to prevent a fit of apoplexy.

“It is usual,” resumed Sister Lydia, “to give persons who are about to exercise the awful responsibility now devolving upon you the opportunity of well weighing and reflecting over the arguments I have somewhat faintly shadowed forth.”

“Oh, not faintly!” groaned Barrington.

But she minded nothing the interruption, and went on, —

“And for this purpose a little tract has been composed, entitled 'A Word to the Worldling.' This, with your permission, I will place in your hands. You will there find at more length than I could bestow — But I fear I impose upon this lady's patience?”

“It has left me long since, madam,” said Miss Dinah, as she actually gasped for breath. [Chapter XXVII, “The Convent of the Meuse,” 221]

Commentary: Dinah Barrington's Hauteur

In this scene, the Abbess of the Convent of Bramaigne, Sister Lydia, reproves the Barringtons for removing Josephine from her institution and thereby denying her a religious vocation. Luckily, the full force of her argument is lost on the elderly couple since only Peter remembers any French. Dinah, informed by her brother that they are being given "a rare lesson" for their apparent "ignorance, apathy, worldliness, sordid and poor ambitions, and, last of all, a levity unbecoming their time of life" (221), waves her fan in contempt. However, Lever immediately forgets Dinah's lack of fluency in the language of the abbess by having her reply directly to her.

Phiz implies the Abbess's slightly sanctimonious nature by placing her directly under the portrait of a saint. The reproving gesture of the Abbess forces the viewer to look upward, as if the speaker implies that the elderly couple have robbed their daughter of a spiritual vocation, although Sister Lydia hardly seems "aged," and visually lacks the rigour of Lever's description: "a grim-looking little woman in a nun's costume" (221). However, by her facial expression and her deployment of her fan Phiz brilliantly conveys Dinah Barrington's hauteur.

Related Material

• A Synopsis of Charles Lever's Barrington
• The Novels of Charles Lever, 1839-72
• Charles Lever (1806-1872): Anglo-Irish Novelist, Physician, and Diplomat
• Hablot Knight Browne, 1815-1882; A Brief Biography

Scanned image and text Philip V. Allingham [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. Barrington. With 25 engravings by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. London: Chapman and Hall, 1863.

Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978.

Sutherland, John A. "Barrington." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 48-49.

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