Re: Taking off glasses and polishing them


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Posted by Tim on November 09, 1997 at 12:43:11:

In Reply to: Taking off glasses and polishing them posted by Peter on November 06, 1997 at 12:13:39:

Having also been a spectacle-wearer from an early age (my parents blamed my reading of Arthur Ransome in bed until late into the night), I was particularly interested by Peter's posting. On looking through the series again, I realised for the first time how the significance of Dick's spectacle-cleaning changes from novel to novel. At first, in Winter Holiday, it is entirely for the practical purpose of clearing them of condensation or snow: for example


  1. Dick took off his spectacles and blinked while he wiped the steam that had settled on them as he crawled in out of the cold air. (Chapter VI)
  2. Dick's glasses were crusted over with driven snow. He tried to wipe them, but the sledge leapt suddenly as a runner struck some small thing, perhaps a bit of loose ice, or a stone, or perhaps just a crack. (Chapter XXVI)

The one example in Coot Club is associated with relaxation after successful effort:

  1. "That were well done," said an old sailor, looking down at her from the bridge, when, at last, all was ready for making sail once more. Tom with a cheerful smile wiped the sweat from his forehead. Dick sat on the cabin roof cleaning his spectacles. (Chapter XVIII)

It is in Pigeon Post that spectacle cleaning starts to take on deeper significance. Certainly, it may still be necessary simply in order to see clearly:

  1. Dick stopped blowing. The sweat was standing on his forehead. He put blowpipe and charcoal carefully down, rolled over, sat up, took off his spectacles and wiped them and put them on again. (Chapter XVIII)
  2. The sweat off Dick's forehead kept dripping on the glasses of his spectacles. ... "Stick to it, Dot," said Dick, trying to wipe his spectacles without stopping his climb. (Chapter XXV)

However in this novel Dick acquires new responsibilities as expedition geologist and metallurgist, and spectacle-cleaning, at times with trembling fingers, becomes associated with the problems of dealing with those responsibilities (the metaphor of "seeing clearly" is obvious enough not to need stressing).

  1. "Er ... Er ..." said Squashy Hat. "I wonder if you have such a thing as a small blowpipe ..." Dick's mouth fell open. He shut it again. He took off his spectacles and wiped them. His fingers shook so that he nearly dropped his spectacles. (Chapter XXVII)
  2. Dick, as in all moments of great excitement, took off and wiped his spectacles. John suddenly gasped. "There's no crucible," he said. (Chapter XXX)
  3. Dick, wiping his spectacles, blinked as he looked from face to face. He looked at them but hardly saw them. He knew mistily that they were all miserable. He was miserable himself. They had counted on him and everything had gone wrong, but his mind was not on their misery nor on his own. Everything had gone wrong. But why? How had it gone wrong? (Chapter XXX)

The pattern established in Pigeon Post is repeated in The Big Six, where Dick once more has important responsibilities. This time he is the chief detective, and now spectacle-polishing is linked more specifically with logical thinking, Dick's spectacles being an equivalent of Inspector Maigret's pipe, or Miss Marples' knitting.. Citations 12 and 14 are particularly interesting in that they show that the significance of Dick's spectacle-cleaning is for the first time recognised by others: by the whole group of children in 12, and with greater understanding and sympathy by his sister in 14. Moreover, so far has this by now become a symbolic gesture that it can from now on be carried out by the removal of the spectacles alone, without any effort at lens-cleaning (see 15-17)


  1. "I'm pretty sure they didn't do it," said Tom. "I'm sure they didn't," said Dorothea. Dick was nervously cleaning his spectacles. He put them on again. "Why should they want to do it?" (Chapter X)
  2. Dick had come ashore and was polishing his spectacles. "I couldn't have done it if it hadn't been for that rain yesterday," he said.(Chapter XIV)
  3. "Do you get many punctures to mend?" he asked, and they saw Dick pull his spectacles off. This was the vital point.(Chapter XX)
  4. "Fingerprints," said Dick. "He'll come and feel the chimney." "But it don't take no mark," said Bill. "It would if it was wet paint," said Dick, pulling off his spectacles, polishing them hurriedly and putting them on again. (Chapter XX)
  5. Dick had a close look at the shackles, pulled off his spectacles, polished them with his handkerchief and put them on again. "What is it, Dick?" asked Dorothea, who knew the signs. "Clue," said Dick. (Chapter XXIII)
  6. He thought for a moment, pulled off his spectacles, looked at them with eyes that hardly saw them and smiled with the happiness of the successful scientist. (Chapter XXIII)
  7. Dick jumped. "I say," he said. "We could do something even better. I've still got a lot of that flashlight powder." "Torches are better," said Tom. "Not to take a photograph," said Dick. He pulled his spectacles off at the thought. (Chapter XXIII)
  8. There was a general move towards the Cachalot. It was stopped by Dick. He was polishing his spectacles, always a sign of thought, and he said, "We'd better not, don't you think? If someone saw us all sailing with you the villain might get to know. . . ." (Chapter XXVI)
  9. There was a stir by the window. Dick was fumbling with something in his hands. "It's done," he said. "It'll go black if you keep it in the light. But I can print another." He dropped his printing frame on the floor, pushed his way to the table and laid a photograph in front of Mr. Farland. Then he tore his spectacles off and began wiping them, and then, with his spectacles in one hand, groped blindly over the carpet for the dropped frame. (Chapter XXXII)

The Picts and the Martyrs shows a new and wider range of reasons for spectacle-cleaning:
puzzling out a problem, as in BS (19, 20, 27), settling oneself before carrying out a task (26), worry (22, 23, 25), relief (21) and pride and pleasure (24). With the D's thrown together on their own for so much of the time in this book, there is increased emphasis on Dorothea's ability to read the significance of her brother's behaviour (20, 23), an ability which is, to some extent at least, shared by Nancy (19). Also, by now the spectacle-cleaning may be purely in the mind, as in 21 and 24.

  1. " ... Why should the G.A. be allowed to barge in and spoil everything? Hullo, Dick's got something to say." Dick had come in, and was standing in the doorway, wiping his spectacles with his handkerchief. Nancy, like Dorothea, knew the signs. "Spit it out, Professor," she said. (Chapter III)

  2. Dick was looking at the hammocks. He was wiping his spectacles. Dorothea knew that he was trying to work out the scientific way of getting into a hammock slung far above the floor. But he did not say anything, and neither did she. (Chapter V)

  3. "I heard a splash," said Dorothea, and Dick knew that she was no longer thinking of making Nancy change her plans. Scarab to-morrow. Sailing. And then assays in the houseboat with Timothy. If it had not been that he could not let go of the oars he would have taken off his spectacles and wiped them with relief. (Chapter IX)

  4. Dick took off and cleaned his spectacles. It was no good getting in a dither, but he could not help it. (Chapter XII)

  5. Dick, lying in the bottom of the Amazon, took off his spectacles and wiped them. Dorothea knew the signs. "It'll be all right," she whispered. "You've sailed Titmouse. And Teasel. It'll be just the same." "I know," said Dick, putting his spectacles on again, and thinking of the diagrams in his book. (Chapter XIV)

  6. For the first time in his life he was sailing a boat of his own and a boat that neither he nor anybody else had ever sailed before. Main sheet in one hand, tiller in the other, he could not wipe his spectacles, but that was what he would have liked to do. (Chapter XV)

  7. Dick stood, weak in the knees and hot as if he had been running a race in the sun. He took off his spectacles, but his hands shook so much that he did not try to wipe them. "I did it all wrong," he said. (Chapter XVI)

  8. Dick took breath, sat still for a moment, and cleaned his spectacles.Then, trying to remember what Nancy had done, they set to work to rig their boat for themselves. (Chpater XVIII)

  9. "Burglary." Dorothea stared. Dick took off his spectacles and blinked, short-sighted, at the fire. "He's got to have those things," he said. (Chapter XVIII)

The range of practical and symbolic reasons for spectacle-removal is further extended in Great Northern?, it being fitting that the last removal and wiping of Dick's spectacles is linked to his strong (and tearful?) emotion on realising that the Divers are returning to their nest (37).


  1. "It's like being a caterpillar inside a cocoon," thought Dick, hurriedly wiping his spectacles, putting them on and trying to see, not quite sure whether or not the the mist was on his spectacles as well as all about him. (Chapter II)

  2. Dick had crouched, hardly daring to move while he took off and cleaned his spectacles and, finding that made no difference, unscrewed and cleaned the eye-piece of his telescope, misted over with his breath.
    (Chapter VI)

  3. Dick put his notebook back in his pocket. What matter now that the cruise was ending? He had seen a Diver with his own eyes. He wanted to tell Dorothea. The others would hardly guess how pleased he was. He stood up, rather stiffly, took his glasses off, cleaned them, put them on again and looked up to the little hill where he had left the three explorers on the top of that prehistoric dwelling-house. (Chapter VI)

  4. Dick, desperate, took off his spectacles, wiped them and put them on again. "I've simply got to go back," he said. (Chapter X)

  5. "That boy, in spectacles?" "I am sorry if he was a nuisance to you coming aboard." "Uncle Jim's getting mad," said Nancy. Dick was wiping his spectacles. "It's all right," whispered Dorothea. "He knows you weren't." (Chapter XI)

  6. With sails drawing and the engine going full out, the old pilot boat fairly surged through the water. "Seven knots at least," said John. "She's never gone faster." Dick wiped his spectacles and looked astern. (Chapter XIII)

  7. When Dorothea and Titty came panting past the reed bed, he was standing, wiping his glasses with fingers that shook. "There's the island," he said. "And I've seen one of the birds." "What's the matter?" asked Dorothea. "Nothing," said Dick. "But I'd been thinking how awful it would be if they'd gone and it was all a mistake." (Chapter XIV)

  8. "It's just finding out how," said Dick who, if he had been on dry land, would have been taking off his spectacles and giving them a wipe while thinking about it. (Chapter XIV)

  9. Dick said nothing. He was holding his spectacles but not wiping them. He was standing there, blind, looking at the ground he could not see and thinking of the Divers betrayed to their worst enemies. (Chapter XXVI)

  10. The two birds were swimming to meet each other. Dick found he could not see them. He put down the binoculars, tore off his spectacles, wiped them as quickly as he could, put them on again, grabbed the glasses once more and, as he lifted them, saw that others beside himself had heard those cries and seen the long, white splashing furrow ploughed by the second bird as it came down on the surface of the loch.
    (Chapter XXVII)

With apologies for the length of this posting to anyone who has had the patience to plough on to the end.

Tim





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