“He brought the tray to the front of the couch" — Arthur Hopkins' Tenth Monthly Illustration for Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native' (October 1878)

He brought the tray to the front of the couch.

Arthur Hopkins

6.375 by 4.3125 inches, framed

Hardy's The Return of the Native

Belgravia, Vol. XXXVI (October 1878), to face 506.

[Click on the illustration to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Text illustrated

He lit the fire, Eustacia dreamily observing him from her couch. When it was blazing up he said, “Shall I wheel you round in front of it, ma’am, as the morning is chilly?”

“Yes, if you like.”

“Shall I go and bring the victuals now?”

“Yes, do,” she murmured languidly.

When he had gone, and the dull sounds occasionally reached her ears of his movements in the kitchen, she forgot where she was, and had for a moment to consider by an effort what the sounds meant. After an interval which seemed short to her whose thoughts were elsewhere, he came in with a tray on which steamed tea and toast, though it was nearly lunch-time.

“Place it on the table,” she said. “I shall be ready soon.”

He did so, and retired to the door; when, however, he perceived that she did not move he came back a few steps.

“Let me hold it to you, if you don’t wish to get up,” said Charley. He brought the tray to the front of the couch, where he knelt down, adding, “I will hold it for you.”

Eustacia sat up and poured out a cup of tea. “You are very kind to me, Charley,” she murmured as she sipped.

“Well, I ought to be,” said he diffidently, taking great trouble not to rest his eyes upon her, though this was their only natural position, Eustacia being immediately before him. “You have been kind to me.”

“How have I?” said Eustacia.

“You let me hold your hand when you were a maiden at home.” [Book Five, “The Discovery,” Chapter IV, “Ministrations of a Half-forgotten One,” 506]

Comment: A Self-pitying Sophisticate Among the Egdonites

At the curtain not merely of the tenth instalment but of Volume 36 in Belgravia, Eustacia seems afflicted by ennui or the overwhelming boredom of life on Egdon Heath. In the two detailed studies that Hopkins provides of her she is very much of a class, disposition, education, tastes that separate her from almost all the other characters. In this posture in a well-furnished parlour Eustacia seems overcome with what Belgravia's sophisticated readership might have recognised as "Bovarysme," the self-pitying ennui of the egocentric heroine Emma of Gustave Flaubert's best-selling 1856 French novel Madame Bovary, although the sensational novel itself was not translated into English and published for American readers until 1881, and for British readers until 1886.

Like Flaubert's heroine, Eustacia feels trapped in an alien environment and a loveless marriage, and years for a more sophisticated, urban lifestyle far from the uncouth confines of Egdon Heath. Love is her solution, preferably the love of an exciting, upper-middle-class, and educated man such as Damon Wildeve, although Eustacia as the daughter of a sea captain comes from a lower social sphere than Emma Bovary. This aspect of Hardy's malcontent is the subject of both Hopkins' tenth illustration and David Eggenschwiler's 1971 analysis of her "dark seductiveness" (444) and self-delusion, both evident in He brought the tray to the front of the couch (October 1878).

Previous Illustrations in which Eustacia Vye Appears

Related Materials

Illustrations for the Monthly Serialisation of Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native

Bibliography

Hardy, Thomas. Book V, “The Discovery.” Chapters 1-4. The Return of the Native. Illustrated by Arthur Hopkins. Belgravia, A Magazine of Fashion and Amusement (London), Vol. XXXVI. October 1878. 484-508.

Eggenschwiler, David. "Eustacia Vye, Queen of Night and Courtly Pretender." Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 25, No. 4 (March 1971): 444-454.

Jackson, Arlene M. Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Towtowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981.

Purdy, Richard Little, and Millgate, Michael, eds. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978. Vol. 1 (1840-1892).

Seymour-Smith, Martin. Hardy. London: Bloomsbury, 1994.

Vann, J. Don. “Part Ten. Book V, "The Discovery," Chapters 1-4. October 1878. The Return of the Native in Belgravia, January-December 1878.” Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. 84.

Wright, Sarah Bird. "The Return of the Native." Thomas Hardy A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Works. New York: Facts On File, 2002. 261-270.

Created 5 December 2000

Last modified 12 June 2025