Spread out over the hearth was a deer skin, on which there lay a girl of some eighteen or twenty years by Charles Green in John Coleman's "Elfie: A Barrister's Story," serialised in The Graphic for 31 July and 7 August 1886, Vol. XXXIV, Nos. 870 and 871 (p. 117). 11.6 cm high by 15.9 cm or 4 ½ by 6 ¼ inches, framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: What the Strolling Players See in the Semi-darkness
One of the women, an imposing, weird, Sibylline figure, whose deep glowing eyes, dark complexion, and strongly-marked features sufficiently attested her gipsy origin, was smoking her pipe, the fumes of which she placidly contemplated as she puffed them through her nostrils. A piece of crimson drapery, twisted round her head, contrasted vividly with her beautiful and abundant white hair. Her dress was of some soft dark stuff, the colour of which I could not clearly define. This remarkable personage pricked up her ears at sight of us, paused over her pipe for a moment, looked us through and through, then quietly returned to her tobacco, as if utterly oblivious of our presence.
Spread out over the hearth was a worn, stained, and greasy deer skin, on which there lay, extended at full length, in an attitude of unstudied and indolent grace, a girl of some eighteen or twenty years. Her right arm was thrown carelessly behind her head which rested with her face turned upwards towards the light. What a face it was — and what a figure! What exquisite undulations the simple garb suggested or revealed! She was clad in a short kirtle of some dark stuff, with a petticoat of crimson, from which the bare limbs extended, round and beautiful as those of some antique statue. As I caught sight of the group (I can see it now as vividly as I saw it then), illuminated by the red glow of the fire, I thought, "What a picture for Salvator Rosa to paint!" [Part II, "Hal's Wynd," 118]
Commentary
Here Green's seizing upon a picturesque scene for his large-scale plate for the opening number of the Coleman serial proves more effective than his choice for the opening, uncaptioned vignette of Donald and Bogey because the weird nocturnal fireside scene introduces the eponymous Elfie, the voluble but unschooled Scottish lass who so fascinates the narrator, but who fails to have him reciprocate her passion. He is attracted to her physically, as if she were "some wild doe of the mountains" (118), but does not appreciate her as a person, a lack of male perception often explored in fiction associated with the figure of The New Woman of the latter part of the Victorian period, although the term itself was not coined until 1894.
The composition juxtaposes the harridan (the dark-complexioned Sibyl of the hearth) with the striking beauty, but keeps the brother, the swarthy and slightly menacing Donald, well in the chiaroscuro of the background. That the mother of the girl smokes a pipe immediately classifies her socially for the late-Victorian reader, even as Coleman's allusion to the Italian Baroque painter Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) gives the artistically sophisticated reader a sense of the picturesque principal figure who dominates the foreground of the first instalment's major illustration. Slightly lost in the darkness, right rear, are the narrator and his fellow strolling player who have sought refuge here in the middle of the night after being ferried across the loch to Hal's Wynd.
Scanned image and text by 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
Coleman, John. "Elfie: A Barrister's Story — Part One." The Graphic Magazine. Illustrated by Charles Green, R. I. No. 870, Vol. 34. 31 July 1886, pp. 117-118.
Created 3 May 2025