"I Saw Elfie Glaring Down upon Us from the Rock Above" — Green's fifth illustration for John Colman's "Elfie: A Barrister's Story"

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I Saw Elfie Glaring Down upon Us from the Rock Above.

Charles Green

7 August 1886

3 ¾ inches or 9.5 cm high by 6 inches or 15.1 cm wide, framed.

John Coleman's "Elfie: A Barrister's Story," Second Instalment in The Graphic, No. 871, Vol. 34, 145.

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Passage introduced: "At first I mentioned both Victoria and Elfie in my letters to London. Then I avoided all mention of either. I began to think that a bad sign. Miss Fitzurse became distraite and fractious, I became embarrassed, while Elfie was stranger than ever." [Continued below.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

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Passage Illustrated: A Jealous Elfie hurls imprecations at "Ernie" and Victoria

At times she was angry without rhyme or reason, and would neither speak, nor even look at me.

At length matters reached a climax.

One afternoon, tempted by the glorious sunset, Victoria and I (by this time it had got to be “Ernie” and “Victoria,” another dangerous sign!) were strolling along the shore together. . . . I forget who suggested the idea, the lady or myself; enough that we found ourselves running through the two important scenes in which we were least perfect, viz. the balcony, and the parting of the ill-fated lovers [in Romeo and Juliet]. We had reached the end of our al fresco rehearsal; I had exclaimed, “Farewell! Farewell! One kiss, and I’ll begone!”

I was suiting the action to the word, when looking up I saw Elfie glaring down upon us from the rock above, her hair dishevelled, her right arm extended to its full length, her hand clenched, her eyes ablaze, her nostrils dilated, her teeth fixed. As thus she stood, erect and menacing, she recalled the image of some pythoness of ancient Isis or Osiris. The sun, pausing to make his last leap into the sea, flooded her for a moment from head to foot with his burning beams. [Part III. "Romeo and Juliet," 145]

Commentary: Elfie "beckoned me down the primrose path" (145)

The rehearsal scene might have been innocent enough to an educated English girl with some appreciation of both Shakespeare and the theatrical context of rehearsal for the company's juvenile leads, but Coleman earlier makes the point that Elfie Lee is both very young and completely illiterate. She has no sense of the couple's merely acting as she watches them from the rock above the loch. She naturally, then, interprets young Denvil's actions as a perfidious betrayal of their romantic relationship. Undoubtedly she has misinterpreted what he has read her from Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering and Rob Roy on those wet afternoons back at the cottage as indicative of his true feelings for her. Juxtaposed against Green's illustration in the narrow margin, centre page, is a passage that suggests her infatuation with the English player: "She would crouch at my feet, fix her great eyes on me, and drink in every word I uttered — living for the time in another world" (145).

Through the emphasis that the illustration gives to Elfie's denunciation, Green evokes precisely the kind of association with a primitive priestess or seer that the narrator makes, and that readers of The Graphic will encounter more forcibly in Edward K. Johnson's large-scale illustrations of the supernatural African Queen, Ayesha, for H. Rider Haggard's "SHE": A History of Adventure in the magazine's autumn numbers. But Elfie is the more human and more intelligible figure since she is prepared to give up all that she ever has known to accompany the man she loves to a new and utterly strange place: London.

Note

Part III, "Romeo and Juliet," is by far the longest section in the novella; the others are follows: I, "The White Horses," pp. 117-118; II, "Hal's Wynd," pp. 118-119; IV, "Dinna Forget!" (146); V, "After Many Years," 146; and "L'Envoi: Russell Square, December 2nd, 1885 (letter to George Filstone)," 146.

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. 117-119. "Part Two": No. 871, Vol. 34. 7 August 1886, pp. 145-148.

Haggard. H. Rider. She: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. The Graphic Magazine, Vols. XXXIV and XXXV. 2 October 1886 to 8 January 1887.

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Elfie: The
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Created 3 May 2025