file which includes the original illustrations4 ,see #adcib-;h4htm or #adcib-;h4zip3 7https3_/_/www4gutenberg4org_/dirs_/#a_/ d_/c_/i_/adcib_/adcib-;h_/#adcib-;h4htm7 or 7https3_/_/www4gutenberg4org_/dirs_/#a_/ d_/c_/i_/adcib_/adcib-;h4zip7 ,,george ,,du ,,maurier1 ,,the ,,satirist ,,of ,,the ,,victorians ,a ,review of ,his ,art and ,personality by ,t4 ,,martin ,,wood ,with ,forty-,one ,illustrations ,london ,chatto ,windus #aiac ,illustration3 ,george du ,maurier ,from a portrait in water-colour by himself4 ,in the possession of the ,artist's widow4 ,,preface ,du ,maurier worked for periodicals which buried in a back number each phase of his work as it came to an end4 ,thus it is that he is1 unfortunately1 chiefly now remembered by the last--the most accessible1 but not by any means the finest--period of his work4 ,the present book is an attempt to correct this and to bring forward du ,maurier's name again in the light of his earlier achievement4 ,no book on the artist1 however1 would be complete which omitted all reference to his literary attainment2 nor would it be in order in an essay of this extent not to seek to demonstrate that connection which always exists between the life and the work of an artist of distinctive temperament4 ,the author has endeavoured1 in the chapter devoted to outlining the main incidents of du ,maurier's career1 to regard the feeling of his representatives that the autobiography of the novels is itself so complete and sensitive as scarcely to call at present for anything supplemental4 ,he wishes to acknowledge the kindness of the artist's family in lending him portraits1 sketch-books1 and manuscript with the permission for reproduction2 also of ,mr4 ,w4 ,lawrence ,bradbury1 so zealous a guardian of all that redounds to the fame of his great journal1 for every kind of assistance2 and of ,sir ,francis ,burnand1 du ,maurier's ,editor and comrade1 for letters assisting him to form an impression of du ,maurier in the flesh4 ,messrs4 ,smith1 ,elder ,co4 have also been generous in allowing the reproduction of the four drawings included here1 which appeared originally in the ,cornhill ,magazine4 ,the author only wishes that he felt that what he has written more justified this consideration from everyone who was approached in connection with his undertaking4 ,,contents ,i4 ,,the ,,world ,,of ,,du ,,maurier ,,ii4 ,,the ,,art ,,of ,,du ,,maurier ,,iii4 ,,du ,,maurier ,,as ,,author ,,iv4 ,,life ,,of ,,the ,,artist ,v4 ,,the ,,illustrations ,,illustrations ,,george ,,du ,,maurier1 from a ,portrait in ,water-colour by ,himself 7,frontispiece7 ,,illustration ,,for ,,recollections ,,of ,,an ,,english ,,gold-,,mine3 ,once a ,week1 #ahfa ,,the ,,cilician ,,pirates3 ,the ,cornhill1 #ahfc ,,illustration ,,for ,,wives ,,and ,,daughters3 ,the ,cornhill1 #ahfd ,,illustration ,,for ,,wives ,,and ,,daughters3 ,the ,cornhill1 #ahfe ,,sketch ,,for ,,above ,,pencil ,,studies ,,from ,,the ,,artist',s ,,sketch-,,book ,,illustration ,,for ,a ,,legend ,,of ,,camelot--,,part ,,iii3 ,punch1 #ahff ,,initial ,,letter ,,from ,the ,cornhill ,,illustration ,,for ,,the ,,story ,,of ,a ,,feather3 #ahfg ,,illustration ,,for ,,the ,,story ,,of ,a ,,feather3 #ahfg ,,caution3 ,punch1 #ahfg ,,berkeley ,,square1 #e ,p4,m43 ,punch1 #ahfg ,,illustration ,,for ,,esmond ,,illustration ,,for ,,the ,,adventures ,,of ,,harry ,,richmond3 ,the ,cornhill1 #ahgj ,,illustration ,,for ,,the ,,adventures ,,of ,,harry ,,richmond3 ,the ,cornhill1 #ahga ,,proxy3 ,punch's ,almanack1 #ahgd ,,queen ,,prima-,,donna ,,at ,,home3 ,punch1 #ahgd ,,honour ,,where ,,honour is ,,due3 ,punch1 #ahhj ,,canon ,,ainger1 from a ,portrait in ,water-colour by du ,maurier ,,the ,,mutual ,,admirationists3 ,punch1 #ahhj ,,manuscript ,,george ,,du ,,maurier1 from a ,photograph ,,speed ,,the ,,parting ,,guest3 ,punch1 #ahhc ,,sketch ,,for ,,initial ,,letter ,,in ,the ,cornhill1 #ahhc ,sic ,,transit ,,gloria ,,mundi6 ,punch1 #ahhd ,,post-,,prandial ,,pessimists3 ,punch1 #ahib ,,things ,,one ,,would ,,rather ,,have ,,expressed ,,differently3 ,punch1 #ahic ,there are also several ,tailpieces1 chronologically arranged ,,george ,,du ,,maurier ,i ,,the ,,world ,,of ,,du ,,maurier #a ,we have in the portfolio of du ,maurier the epic of the drawing-room4 ,many of the ,victorians1 including the ,queen1 and ,alfred ,lord ,tennyson1 seem to have viewed life from the drawing-room window4 ,they gazed straight across the room from the ,english hearthrug as from undoubtedly the greatest place on earth4 ,they were probably right4 ,but some of this confidence has gone4 ,actually in these days there are people who won't own up to having a drawing-room at all4 ,if they have a room that could possibly answer to such a description1 they go out of their way to call it the library1 though its only available printed matter is a ,bradshaw2 or the music-room1 though the only music ever heard in it is when the piano is dusted4 ,in turning over the old volumes of ,punch it is surprising how many of the points made by du ,maurier in his drawings and in the legends beneath them still hold good4 ,as a mere joker he was perhaps the least able of the ,punch staff4 ,his influence began when he started inventing imaginary conversations4 ,in many cases these do not represent the discussion of topical subjects at all1 but deal with social aberrations1 dated only in the illustration by the costume of the time4 ,in these imaginary conversations he is already a novelist4 ,they record the strokes of finesse and the subterfuges necessary to the attainment of the vain ambitions which are the preoccupation of human genius in superficial levels of ,society in all ages4 ,we realise the waste of energy and diplomacy expended to score small points in the social game4 ,his art is a mirror to weed-like qualities of human nature which enjoy a spring-time with every generation4 ,but it also provides a remarkable record of the effect of the sudden replacement of old by new ideals in the world which it depicted4 ,the rise of the merchant capitalist upon the results of industrial enterprises rendered possible through the invention and rapid perfecting of machinery1 created a class who suddenly appeared in the drawing-rooms of the aristocrats as strangers4 ,du ,maurier himself seems to join in the amazement at their intrusion4 ,much of this first surprise is the theme of his art4 ,before the death of the artist the newcomers had proved their right to be there1 having shamed an ,aristocracy1 which had lost nearly all its natural occupations1 by bringing home to it the fact that the day was over for despising men who traded instead of fighting1 who achieved through barter what the brave would once have been too proud to take except by conquest4 ,the business of the original division of human possessions by the sanguinary method was well over2 it was now the merchant's day4 ,it was plain that trade could no longer be despised1 when1 literally in an age of peace and inventive commerce1 indolence was the only alternative to engagement in it4 ,du ,maurier was very tolerant to social intruders when they were pretty4 ,he rather entered into ,mrs4 de ,tomkyns' aims1 and showed it by making her pretty4 ,her ends might not be the highest1 but the tact and the subtlety displayed in her campaign were aristocratic in character1 and he would not have her laughed at personally1 though we may laugh at the topsy-turvy of a ,society in which the entrance into a certain drawing-room becomes the fun reward for the perseverance of a lifetime4 ,but du ,maurier shuddered when behind this lady1 distinguished in the fact of the possession of genius1 he saw a multitude of the aspirateless at the door4 ,we never lose upon the face1 which showed as his through his art1 the expression of well-bred resentment1 yet certainly of amusement also4 ,during the period of du ,maurier's work for ,punch the actor gets his position in ,society2 and we see desolate gentlemen in other professions drifting about at the back of the room like ships that drag their anchor1 while all the feminine blandishment of the place is concentrated on the actor4 ,by following up his drawings we can see the whole surface of ,victorian ,society change in character2 we can see one outrageous innovation after another solidify into what was correct4 ,there never was a period like the ,victorian2 in many respects the precedents of all older periods of ,society fail to apply4 ,in it the aristocrats believed in democracy1 and resented the democrat who was practically their own creation4 ,while the democrat held no faith with the same fervour as his belief that whatsoever is lovely and of good report could only be obtained by mingling with the upper classes4 ,it was the commercial glory of the great ,industrial ,reign that turned the whole character of ,london ,society upside down in du ,maurier's time4 ,it became the study of the ,suburbs to model themselves on ,mayfair1 to imitate its rages and crazes in every shade4 ,it is all the vanities of this emulation which du ,maurier records2 there is little in his art to betray the great influences ,ecclesiastically1 scientifically1 and politically1 which expressed the genius of the ,victorians4 ,his splendid ,bishops are as tranquil as if the controversial ,newman1 and ,gladstone with his ,disestablishment programme1 had never disturbed the air4 ,and one fancies that politics must have bored him1 so studiously does he through over thirty years avoid even a slanting glance at the events which preoccupied ,mr4 ,punch in his cartoons4 ,there is evidence that there was more than the policy of the ,paper in this4 ,du ,maurier was an optimist4 ,an optimist is a man who thinks that everything is going right when it is going wrong4 ,it requires an effort of the imagination to recall and picture the fact that in the first hour of ,du ,maurier's mere amusement ,ruskin was adding his lachrymation to ,carlyle's over a society going swiftly to ,gehenna4 ,it is the entire absence of despair1 bitterness1 or cynicism in his work that gives it its altogether unique place in the history of social satire4 ,never before was there such a lenient barb on such a well-aimed arrow4 ,but if his business is not with the causes which contributed to the character of ,english ,society in his time1 it is with their effects4 ,no satirist has ever put more highly representative figures on to his stage4 ,they are so highly representative because they conform so strictly to type4 ,he puts a valuation upon everyone whom he introduces on his stage4 ,he shows exactly the regard in which we are to hold them and their profession4 ,and it is interesting1 in the light of the favour with which he always treated the typical savant1 to hear from his son that he was always as much interested in what was being accomplished in science as in anything else in the world4 ,we must conclude scientists were first in his estimation as men1 from the pains he was at to give them the appearance of distinction in his pictures4 ,then he had much regard for ,generals1 great ,admirals1 and other magnificent specimens1 the ,adonis1 for instance1 that figures almost as often1 and nearly always in company with1 his charming woman4 ,this gentleman is difficult to describe4 ,he seems too languid even for the profession of man-about-town1 but his clothes are such that one would think their irreproachability could only be maintained by a life of dedication to them4 ,did he ever exist8 ,du ,maurier is very subtle here4 ,he fully appreciated the great aim of the public-school-trained man in his own time--the elaborate care with which an officer studied to conceal an enthusiasm for the profession of arms1 the great air of indolence with which over-work was concealed in the other fashionable professions4 ,as a matter of fact these beautiful priests in the temple of good form were splendid stoics4 ,they would lay it down that as long as correctness of attitude was maintained nothing mattered4 ,the artist seems to share many of the prejudices of the older aristocrats4 ,he makes his ,jews too ,jewish4 ,he believes that they produce great artists1 and as if this wasn't enough1 he still holds them at arm's length4 ,we have in his art not only the record of social innovations1 but a picture of the aristocrats before the barbarian invasion4 ,as a picture of them then his art has now its value4 ,and yet he was not quite an aristocrat in temperament1 which is a little different from being one by birth4 ,he would have been less tolerant of the ,philistines if he had been1 and more ,bohemian too4 ,he made his great excursions into ,bohemia1 but he reached it always by a journey through the suburbs4 ,his love of glamour and enchantment was aristocratic1 but he did not keep it to the end4 ,he loses it in later drawings4 ,his satire1 too1 grows less pointed after the eighties1 with an equivalent decline in the art by which it is conveyed4 ,the poetic vein that once distinguished him from the ,society he depicted tended also to disappear1 as he succumbed to a process of absorption into a ,society which he had once been able to observe with the freshness of a stranger4 ,it is familiarity that blunts our sense of beauty4 ,it is in its last phase in ,punch that his drawing loses the poetry that characterised it in the seventies and eighties1 and which gave his satire then such a potent stealthy influence over those for whom it was intended4 ,illustration3 ,illustration for ,recollections of an ,english ,gold-,mine ,once a ,week1 #ahfa4 #b ,if it were possible to imagine a world without any women or children in it1 du ,maurier's contemporary1 ,keene1 so far as we can judge from his art1 would have got along very well in such a world4 ,he would have missed the voluminous skirt that followed the crinoline1 with its glorious opportunity for beautiful spacing of white in a drawing1 more than he would have missed its wearer4 ,but du ,maurier's art is ,romantic2 in the background of its chivalric regard for women there is the history of the worship of the ,virgin4 ,the source of such an art would have to be sought for in the neighbourhood of ,camelot4 ,it is impossible to overlook the chivalry that will not allow him1 except with pain1 to make a woman ugly4 ,he was first of all a ,poet1 and though it may be a man's business to put a poem on to paper1 it is a woman's to create it4 ,he was a poet put into the business of satire with sufficient wit to sustain himself there4 ,many a time he has to make the satire rest almost entirely with the legend at the foot of his drawing2 by obscuring their legends we find that drawing after drawing has nothing to tell us but of the beauty of those involved in the joke1 and this1 as we shall show further on1 gives a peculiar salt1 or rather sweetness1 to satire from his pencil4 ,he is a romancer4 ,his dialogues are romances4 ,it is the novelist and artist running side by side in the legend and the drawing1 but almost independently of each other1 the wit and the poet in him trying to play each other's game1 that provides the contradictoriness--the charm in his pictures4 ,the point of the joke seems very often a mere excuse for working off several incidents of beauty that have been perceived4 ,in dealing with fashion du ,maurier scores with posterity4 ,beauty1 when it really is recorded1 is the one element in any transitory fashion that survives the challenge of time4 ,it is natural for one generation to hate more than anything else in the world the fashions immediately preceding the one affected4 ,pointed contemporary satire has1 from the very shape it must assume1 an ephemeral success4 ,it is only when something more than the mere object of the satire is involved by some grace of the satirist's genius--some response on his part to charm in the thing assailed1 that the work of satire comes down from its own time with an indestructible ingredient in it4 ,as a record of feminine fashion du ,maurier's drawings in ,punch are remarkable4 ,it must not be imagined that the history of fashion is merely the tale of dressmakers' caprice4 ,the very language of changing ideals is the variation of the toilet4 ,when women were restricted to an oriental extent within convention1 when to be prim was the aim of life1 no feature of dress was lacking that could put abandonment of any but a moral kind1 out of the question4 ,a shake of the head too quickly and the coiffure was imperilled2 the movements that came within the prescribed circle of dignity within the circle of the crinoline were all of a rhythmical order4 ,women did not take to moving with freedom because the crinoline went out1 but the crinoline went out when they took to moving with freedom4 ,it went out simply because it was a confounded nuisance4 ,it was a natural costume only as long as women imagined it was natural to them to be very still in demeanour4 ,once they began to have opinions about that matter they soon sent the crinoline on its way4 ,the same process goes on with the fashions of wearing the hair4 ,the ,blue-stocking1 constantly running her nervous fingers up her forehead into her hair1 has given to ,girton a style of its own1 equivalent to none at all4 ,fashion is more sensible than most things4 ,if it changes with a rapidity that dazzles man1 is not that only because man is stupid8 ,to study hair-dressing in du ,maurier's pictures1 is to study the growth of the nineteenth-century woman's mind4 ,the head-dress becomes more natural as woman herself becomes more natural4 ,it becomes more ,greek when she takes up the ,amazon idea1 and simple when she discards some of the complications of convention1 always to return to elaboration in the winter when it is not easy to live the simple life after the bell goes for dinner4 ,when the crinoline went out the train came in2 so that though woman had allowed herself more freedom1 man could only walk behind her at a respectful distance with a ceremonial measure of pace4 ,the dressmaker did not control all this2 the resources of her transcendent art were strained to keep up with the march of womanhood--that was all4 ,if we may believe du ,maurier's art1 the note of beauty never entirely disappeared from fashion until the sthetic women of the eighties seemed to take in hand their own clothes4 ,the sthetic ladies failed1 as the movement to which they attached themselves did1 for beauty is something attendant upon life1 arriving when it likes1 going away very often when everyone is on his knees for it to remain4 ,illustration #c ,when it comes to his drawings of children du ,maurier is very far away from the sentimentalist of the ,barrie school4 ,he does not attempt to go through the artifice of pretended possession of the realm of the child's mind4 ,he was of those who find the curious attractiveness of childhood in the unreality1 and not1 as claimed by the later school1 the superior reality of the child's world4 ,his view of the child is the affectionate1 but the ,olympian one1 with its amused appreciation of the navet and the charm of childhood's particular brand of self-possession4 ,it is possible that his nursery scenes played some part in promoting the respect that is given to-day to the impulses of childhood1 the enlightened and beautiful side of which respect after all so far outweighs the ridiculous and sentimental one4 ,his nursery drawings contribute much of the fragrance associated with his work in ,punch4 ,he takes rank under the best definition of an artist1 namely1 one who can put his own values upon the things that come up for representation on his paper4 ,by his insistence upon certain pleasant things he helped to establish them in the ideal1 which1 on the morrow1 always tends to become the real4 ,he was a realist only to the extent of their possibility4 ,it gave him no pleasure whatever to enumerate1 and represent over again1 the many times in which the beautiful intentions of nature had gone astray4 ,he liked to be upon the side of her successes4 ,he constantly helped us to believe in1 and to will towards the existence of such a world here on earth1 as we have set our heart upon4 ,he is not an idealist in the vague sense1 for he imports no beauty merely from dreamland4 ,like the ,greeks1 he makes the possible his single ideal4 ,in insisting upon the possibility of beauty and suppressing every reference to the monstrous story of failure which the existence of hideousness implies1 once more he puts the world in debt to art after the fashion of the old masters4 ,for after all it seems to have been left for modern artists to grow wealthy and live comfortably upon the proceeds of their own relation of the world's despair2 if they are playwrights1 to live most snugly upon the box-receipts of an entrapped audience unnerved for the struggle of life by their ghastly picture of life's gloom4 ,however splendid the art in such a case we put it well down below that art which exerts the same amount of effort in trying to sustain the will to believe in1 and so to bring about the reign of things we really want4 ,du ,maurier's art was nearer to reality1 and not farther away1 in the charming side of it4 ,realism does not necessarily imply only the representation of the mean and the defaulting4 ,it is perhaps because humanity so passionately desires the reign of beauty that it is inclined to doubt that art which witnesses to the dream of it as already partly true4 ,although du ,maurier's art in its tenderness is romantic1 in its belief in the ideal and in its insistence upon type rather than individuality it is ,classic4 ,in the fact that it is so it fails in intimacy of mood--just the intimacy that is the soul of ,keene's art1 which descends from ,rembrandt's4 ,but this point will come up for consideration farther on4 ,here it only concerns us in its connection with the psychology of the people it interprets in satire4 ,there is the psychology of individuals and the psychology of a whole society--the latter was du ,maurier's theme4 ,it is generally an obsession1 a fad1 a craze1 or fashion that his pencil exploits4 ,he does not with ,keene laugh with an individual at another individual4 ,his art is well-bred in its style partly through the fact of its limitations4 ,moreover1 in ,society individuality tends to be less evident than amongst the poorer classes1 with whom eccentricity is respected4 ,in ,society the force of individuality now runs beneath the surface of observable varieties of costume1 taking a subterranean course with an impulse to avoid everything that would give rise to comment4 ,but the conformity of ,society in small things is only a mask4 ,du ,maurier's real weakness in satire was that he did not quite perceive this4 ,he was inclined to accept appearances for realities1 with the consequence that the record he transmits of late ,victorian ,society obscures the quite feverish genius of that age4 #d ,it has often been remarked that the comparative failure of du ,maurier's successors seems the result of a difficulty in drawing a lady unmistakably4 ,we can forgive much to the artist who brought the ,english lady1 by many accounted the finest in the world1 into real existence in modern comic art4 ,we shall have to forgive him for turning into a lady every woman who was not middle-aged4 ,du ,maurier's picture of ,society was largely falsified by his inability to appreciate variety in feminine genius4 ,but we are quite prepared to believe that his treatment of the dainty parlour-maid1 for instance1 helped to confirm that tradition of refinement in table service which is the pleasant feature of ,english home life4 ,all the servants shown in his pictures are ladies1 and this before the fashion had made any headway of engaging ladies as servants4 ,and we cannot help feeling such delightful child-life as he represents could only have retained its characteristics under the wing of the beautiful women who nurse it in his pictures4 ,illustration3 ,the ,cilician ,pirates ,the ,cornhill1 ,april #ahfc4 ,both du ,maurier and ,keene knew the genus artist in all its varieties2 and it is very interesting to contrast1 and note the difference between1 the ,artist whom du ,maurier brings into his society scenes and the one of ,keene's drawings4 ,in ,keene's case the artist is generally a slouching ,bohemian creature who belongs to a world of his own1 and bears the stamp of stranger upon him in any other4 ,but the artist of du ,maurier1 putting aside the sthete coterie1 with whom we shall deal presently1 wears upon him every outward symbol of peace with the world--,the world1 ,mayfair4 ,he is always an ,r4,a4--symbol of respectability--whether du ,maurier mentions it or not4 ,with this type ,art is one of the great recognised professions like ,the ,army or ,the ,bar4 ,we have no curiosity as to what sort of pictures they paint4 ,we know that their art was suitable for the ,academy1 therefore for the ,victorian ,drawing-room4 ,we are merely amused at the solemnity of manner with which they assumed that their large-sized ,christmas cards had anything to do with art at all--cards which lost the purchasers of them such enormous sums when sold again at ,christie's that the shaken confidence of the public as to the worth of modern pictures has not recovered to this day4 ,all through this state of things1 too1 the really vital work of the time was left to the encouragement of those whom ,society would then have called outsiders1 and it was just this failure on the part of the aristocracy to enlist the genius of the period on its own side that betrayed its decrepitude4 #e ,the enduring feature of du ,maurier's art1 that which survives in it better than its sometimes scathing commentary upon a passing craze1 is his close representation of the air with which people seek to foil each other in conversation and conceal their own trepidations4 ,his ,social ,agonies are among the best of this series4 ,if he does not lay stress upon individual character1 he still remains the master draughtsman of a state of mind4 ,he succeeds thus in the very field where probably all that is most important in modern art1 whether of the novel or of illustration1 will be found4 ,behind the economy of word and gesture in the conversational method of to-day there lies the history of the long struggle of the race through volubility to refinement of expression4 ,du ,maurier's ,punch pictures take their place in the field of psychology in which the modern novel has secured its greatest results1 and the best appreciation of his ,punch work was written in the eighties by ,mr4 ,henry ,james1 the supreme master in this field2 the master of suspenses that are greater than the conversations in which they happen2 the explorer of twilights of consciousness in which little passions contend4 ,the ,society du ,maurier depicted held its position upon more comfortable terms than any preceding it in history4 ,it did not have1 on the one hand1 to trim to a court party1 or1 on the other1 to concede anything to the people to keep itself in power4 ,yet it was as swollen with pride in its position as any society has ever been4 ,the industrial phenomena of the age had suddenly filled its pockets2 and it had nothing else in the world to do but to blow itself out with pride4 ,but a ,society holding its position without an effort of some kind of its own is bound to lose in character1 and the confession of all the best literature of this time was of the baffled search for the soul of the prosperous class4 #f ,for the appreciation of the artist's management of dialogue we must move for a page or two in ,mrs4 de ,tomkyns' circle with ,miss ,lyon ,hunter1 ,sir ,gorgius ,midas the ,plutocrat1 ,sir ,pompey ,bedel 7of ,bedel1 ,flunke ,co47 the successful professional man1 and the rest of the whole set1 who understand each other in the freemasonry of a common ambition to get into another set4 ,mamma4 ,enfin1 my love6 ,we're well out of this6 ,what a gang666 ,where shall we go next8 ,daughter4 ,to ,lady ,oscar ,talbot's1 ,mamma4 ,mamma4 ,she snubs one so ,i really can't bear it6 ,let us go to ,mrs4 ,ponsonby de ,tomkyns4 ,it's just as select 7except the ,host and ,hostess7 and quite as amusing4 ,daughter4 ,but ,mrs4 ,tomkyns snubs one worse than ,lady ,oscar1 ,mamma6 ,mamma4 ,pooh1 my love6 who cares for the snubs of a ,mrs4 ,ponsonby de ,tomkyns ,i should like to know1 so long as she's clever enough to get the right people4 ,this is the conversation in the hall between two ladies leaving a party in one of du ,maurier's most characteristic drawings4 ,on every side there are footmen and a crowd of guests cloaking and departing4 ,of ,mrs4 ,ponsonby de ,tomkyns ,mr4 ,henry ,james has said3 ,this lady is a real creation4444 ,she is not one of the heroines of the sthetic movement1 though we may be sure she dabbles in that movement so far as it pays to do so4 ,mrs4 ,ponsonby de ,tomkyns is a little of everything1 in so far as anything pays4 ,she is always on the look-out2 she never misses an opportunity4 ,she is not a specialist1 for that cuts off too many opportunities1 and the sthetic people have the tort as the ,french say1 to be specialists4 ,no1 ,mrs4 ,ponsonby de ,tomkyns is--what shall we call her8--well1 she is the modern social spirit4 ,she is prepared for everything2 she is ready to take advantage of everything2 she would invite ,mr4 ,bradlaugh to dinner if she thought the ,duchess would come to meet him4 ,the ,duchess is her great achievement--she never lets go of her ,duchess4 ,she is young1 very nice-looking1 slim1 graceful1 indefatigable4 ,she tires poor ,ponsonby completely out2 she can keep going for hours after poor ,ponsonby is reduced to stupefaction4 ,this unfortunate husband is indeed almost stupefied4 ,he is not1 like his wife1 a person of imagination4 ,she leaves him far behind1 though he is so inconvertible that if she were a less superior person he would have been a sad encumbrance4 ,he always figures in the corner of the scenes in which she distinguishes herself1 separated from her by something like the gulf that separated ,caliban from ,ariel4 ,he has his hands in his pockets1 his head poked forward2 what is going on is quite beyond his comprehension4 ,he vaguely wonders what his wife will do next2 her manoeuvres quite transcend him4 ,mrs4 ,ponsonby de ,tomkyns always succeeds4 ,she is never at fault2 she is as quick as the instinct of self-preservation4 ,she is the little ,london lady who is determined to be a greater one--she pushes1 gently but firmly--always pushes4 ,at last she arrives4 ,we have quoted this delightful picture almost in its entirety from the essay upon du ,maurier written by ,mr4 ,henry ,james in the eighties to which we have referred4 ,it describes the type of woman revealed in ,mrs4 de ,tomkyns when we have followed her adventures up a little way in the back numbers of ,punch4 ,but1 if we may be permitted the slang1 the type itself is anything but a back number4 ,du ,maurier's work bids fair to live in the enjoyment of many generations1 from the fact that its chaff1 for the most part1 is directed against vanities that recur in human nature4 ,mr4 ,james tells us that the lady of whom we write hesitates at nothing2 she is very modern4 ,if she doesn't take the sthetic line more than is necessary1 she finds it necessary to take it a little2 for if we are to believe du ,maurier1 the passion for strange raiment and blue china has during the last few years made ravages in the ,london world4 ,mr4 ,henry ,james himself is one of the experts of the ,london world4 ,there is almost a hint in the last sentence that he thought du ,maurier's genius helped to nurse the crazes it made fun of4 ,since writing this ,i have been told by one to whom du ,maurier related the incident1 that the hero of the sthetic movement himself1 ,oscar ,wilde1 offered to sit to du ,maurier for the chief character in his skit4 ,wilde was very young1 but already master of that art of self-advertisement which he received from ,byron and ,disraeli1 perfected1 and1 ,i think1 handed on to ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw4 ,but such anxiety for every kind of celebrity at any cost seems to have lost the youthful genius the esteem of the great ,punch artist once and for all4 ,the representative of humorous journalism seems the one upon whom the delicate humour of the proposal was lost4 ,as far as du ,maurier was capable of vindictiveness it was reserved for ,maudle and ,postlethwaite4 ,he went out of his way to give a contemptible appearance to those who took the name of ,art in vain4 ,his only spiteful drawings are those of sthetes4 ,they are spiteful to the extent of the great disgust which he1 the most amiable of satirists1 felt for them4 ,but still he was careful not to treat a craze which afforded him inexhaustible variations of subject matter with so much bitterness as to kill it right out4 ,it was only towards this craze that he showed any bitterness at all1 for the rest he is always amused with ,society4 ,he has none of the bitter ,jeremiahlike anger against it of a ,swift4 ,mr4 ,henry ,james defending du ,maurier from a charge of being malignant1 brought against him for his ugly representation of queer people1 failures1 and grotesques1 refused to allow that the taint of ,french ferocity of which the artist was accused1 existed4 ,but ,mr4 ,henry ,james sees in du ,maurier's ugly people a real specification of type1 where we confess that we have felt that his ferocity missed the point of resemblance to type through clumsy exaggeration4 ,one noticeable instance1 however1 to our mind1 where the too frequent outrageousness is replaced by an exquisite study of character1 is in the face of the fair authoress who1 when the gallant ,colonel1 anxious to break the ice1 and full of the fact that he has just been made a proud father1 asks if she takes any interest in very young children1 replies1 ,i loathe all children6 7,january #ac1 #ahhj74 ,illustration3 ,illustration for ,wives and ,daughters ,the ,cornhill1 #ahfd4 #g ,the story of children's conversation has perhaps never been told quite so charmingly as du ,maurier tells it4 ,we could quote endlessly from the admirably constructed nursery dialogues in which he does not attempt to make a joke1 and in which he very carefully refrains from giving a fantastic precocity to his little characters--dialogues in which he is quite content to rely upon our sympathetic knowledge of children's way of putting things1 while he rests the appeal of the drawing and legend entirely upon a nave literalness to their remarks4 ,the charming atmosphere of the well-ordered nursery must be felt by readers1 and then we can quote from the text of some of his drawings of the kind2 this we shall do somewhat at random and as they come to mind4 ,are you asleep1 dearest8 ,yes1 ,mamma1 and the ,doctor particularly said that ,i wasn't to be waked to take my medicine 7,july #aj1 #ahhj74 ,oh1 ,auntie6 ,there's your tiresome cook's been and filled my egg too full 7,april #bb1 #ahhb74 ,already we are seized with misgivings as to whether1 with the reader very much on the look-out for the jokes1 we shall be successful in making our point in claiming for du ,maurier that1 as much as any author who has ever written upon children1 he captures the note of children's speeches4 ,but anyhow we will try4 ,for an instance there is the delightful picture of a child clasping its mother round the knees1 whilst the mother1 shawled for an evening concert1 bends affectionately down-- ,good ,night6 ,good ,night6 my dear1 sweet1 pretty mamma6 ,i like you to go out1 because if you didn't you'd never come home again1 you know4 ,the artist perhaps invented this pretty speech1 but the ,good ,night6 ,good ,night6 my dear1 sweet1 pretty mamma is of the very spirit of the redundancy by which children hope in heaping words together to express accumulation of emotion4 ,du ,maurier's children never make the nasty pert answers upon which1 for their nearly impossible but always vulgar smartness1 the providers of jokes about children for the comic papers generally depend4 ,he is simply going on with his novel--,the ,tale of the ,house it might be called--when he affords us realistic glimpses of nursery conversation4 ,mamma4 ,what is ,baby crying for1 ,maggie8 ,maggie4 ,i don't know4 ,mamma4 ,and what are you looking so indignant about8 ,maggie4 ,that nasty1 greedy dog's been and took and eaten my punge-take6 ,mamma4 ,why1 ,i saw you eating a sponge-cake a minute ago6 ,maggie4 ,o--that was ,baby's4 ,we need hardly labour the point of the been and took and eaten as an instance of felicity in reconstructing children's conversation1 and making the verisimilitude to their grammar the charm of the reconstruction4 ,ethel4 ,isn't it sad1 ,arthur8 ,there's the drawing-room cleared for a dance1 and all the dolls ready to begin1 only they've got no partners6 ,arthur4 ,well1 ,ethel6 ,there's the four gentlemen in my ,noah's ,ark2 but they don't look as if they cared very much about dancing1 you know6 7,february #bd1 #ahgb74 ,ethel4 ,and ,o1 ,mamma1 do you know as we were coming along we saw a horrid woman with a red striped shawl drink something out of a bottle1 and then hand it to some men4 ,i'm sure she was tipsy4 ,beatrice 7who always looks on the best side of things74 ,perhaps it was only ,castor ,oil1 after all6 ,a whispered appeal4 ,mamma6 ,mamma6 don't scold him any more1 it makes the room so dark4 ,it is the poetry of the nursery that is to be felt throughout du ,maurier's art in this vein4 ,and how well he knows the emotions of childhood4 ,for instance1 the large drawing ,farewell to ,fair ,normandy 7,october #b1 #ahhj71 extending across two full pages of ,punch1 in which the children away for their seaside holiday leave the sands for the last time in a mournful procession4 ,the sky is dimmed with an evening cloud4 ,du ,maurier has compressed much poetry into the scene4 ,it has been said that there is only one art1 and this seems to be proved on great occasions by those who can command more than one art for the expression of their feelings4 ,it is difficult to say where in this picture the artist in du ,maurier gives place to the poet1 as difficult as it is to say before a picture of ,rossetti4 ,illustration3 ,illustration for ,wives and ,daughters ,the ,cornhill1 #ahfe4 ,sometimes du ,maurier even depicted delightful children as the victims of the fashionable crazes that he loved to attack1 and thus we are brought to another series of dialogues--as a rule though only involving the grown-ups--in which the legend and the type of person depicted1 together1 form a most valuable document of the times4 ,there is for instance the ,china mania--in the following in the incipient stage3-- ,o ,mamma6 ,o6 ,o6 ,n--,n--,nurse has given me my ,c--,c--,cod-liver ,oil out of a p--p--plain white mug 7,december #bf1 #ahgd74 ,then the inimitable colloquies of the sthetes--and especially the now famous one about the six-mark tea-pot4 ,aesthetic ,bridegroom4 ,it is quite consummate1 is it not8 ,intense ,bride4 ,it is1 indeed6 ,oh1 ,algernon1 let us live up to it6 ,also the direction1 to the architect about the country house3 ,fair ,client4 ,i want it to be nice and baronial1 ,queen ,anne and ,elizabethan1 and all that2 kind of quaint and ,nuremburgy you know--regular ,old ,english1 with ,french windows opening to the lawn1 and ,venetian blinds1 and sort of ,swiss balconies1 and a loggia4 ,but ,i'm sure you know what ,i mean6 7,november #bi1 #ahij74 ,and farther on in the ,punch volumes3-- ,o1 ,mr4 ,robinson1 does not it ever strike you1 in listening to sweet music1 that the ,rudiment of ,potential ,infinite ,pain is subtly woven into the tissue of our keenest joy 7,december #b1 #ahia74 ,but perhaps before closing this chapter we should give some examples of drawing-room conversation pure and simple1 without reference to any sort of craze1 as specimens of their author's skill4 ,familiarity with the artist's characters will enable the reader to appreciate the note of a shy man's agony in some1 and of feminine spite in others4 ,among the ,speeches to be lived down1 if possible1 there are these3 ,she4 ,let me introduce you to a very charming lady1 to take down to supper4 ,he4 ,a--thanks--no4 ,i never eat supper4 ,by ,george6 ,i am so hungry ,i can't talk4 ,fair ,hostess 7on hospitable thoughts intent74 ,oh1 ,i'm so glad6 ,things one would rather have left unsaid3 ,amiable ,hostess4 ,what6 must you go already8 ,really1 ,professor1 it's too bad of this sweet young wife of yours to carry you off so early6 ,she always does6 ,professor4 ,no1 no1 not always1 ,mrs4 ,bright4 ,at most houses ,i positively have to drag her away6 ,truths that might have been left unspoken3 ,hostess4 ,what8 haven't you brought your sisters1 ,mr4 ,jones8 ,mr4 ,jones4 ,no1 they couldn't come1 ,mrs4 ,smith4 ,the fact is1 they're saving themselves for ,mrs4 ,brown's ,dance to-morrow1 you know6 7,january #i1 #ahhf74 ,under the heading ,feline ,amenities3 ,fair ,hostess 7to ,mrs4 ,masham1 who is looking her very best74 ,how-dy-do1 dear8 ,i hope you're not so tired as you look6 ,sympathetic ,lady ,guest4 ,don't be unhappy about the rain1 dear ,mrs4 ,bounderson--it will soon be over1 and your garden will be lovelier than ever4 ,little ,mrs4 ,goldmore ,bounderson 7who is giving her first ,garden ,party74 ,yes2 but ,i'm afraid it will keep my most desirable guests from coming6 ,this last duologue is pure du ,maurier4 ,it is subtle4 ,feline ,amenities again3 ,how kind of you to call--,i'm sorry to have kept you waiting6 ,oh1 don't mention it4--,i've not been at all bored6 ,i've been trying to imagine what ,i should do to make this room look comfortable if it were mine6 7,november #bb1 #ahib74 ,the ,things one would rather have expressed otherwise is a good series too3 ,the ,professor 7to ,hostess74 ,thank you so much for a most delightful evening6 ,i shall indeed go to bed with pleasant recollections--and you will be the very last person ,i shall think of6 ,and again1 of the same series3 ,fair ,hostess4 ,good-night1 ,major ,jones4 ,we're supposed to breakfast at nine1 but we're not very punctual people4 ,indeed the later you appear to-morrow morning1 the better pleased we shall all be 7,may #ac1 #ahic74 ,things one would rather have left unsaid3 ,he4 ,yes1 ,i know ,bootle slightly1 and confess ,i don't think much of him6 ,she4 ,i know him a little too4 ,he took me in to dinner a little while ago6 ,he4 ,ah1 that's just about all he's fit for6 ,the ,hostess4 ,dear ,miss ,linnet6 would you--would you sing one of those charming ballads1 while ,i go and see if supper's ready8 ,the ,companion4 ,o1 don't ask me--,i feel nervous4 ,there are so many people4 ,the ,hostess4 ,o1 they won't listen1 bless you6 not one of them6 ,now ,,do666 ,and here is a conversation that betrays the presence of one of the currents of public feeling below the smooth surface of well-bred twaddle3 ,in the ,metropolitan ,railway4 ,i beg your pardon1 but ,i think ,i had the pleasure of meeting you in ,rome last year8 ,no1 ,i've never been nearer to ,rome than ,st4 ,alban's4 ,st4 ,alban's8 ,where is that8 ,holborn4 ,some rather amusing speeches of a different character in which du ,maurier assails the more obvious forms of snobbery of a class below those with whom his art was generally concerned may be given3 ,among the ,philistines4 ,grigsby4 ,do you know the ,joneses1 ,mrs4 ,brown8 ,no1 we--er--don't care to know ,business people as a rule1 although my husband's in business2 but then he's in the ,coffee ,business and they're all gentlemen in the ,coffee ,business1 you know6 ,grigsby 7who always suits himself to his company74 ,really now6 ,why1 that's more than can be said of the ,army1 the ,navy1 the ,church1 the ,bar1 or even the ,house of ,lords6 ,i don't wonder at your being rather exclusive6 7,punch's ,almanac1 #ahhb74 ,i see your servants wear cockades now1 ,miss ,shoddson6 ,yes1 ,pa's just become a member of the ,army and ,navy ,stores4 ,when du ,maurier confined himself to observing and to recording he never failed for subjects4 ,but we suppose as a concession to a section of the public he felt a leaven of mere jokes was demanded from him every year4 ,the scene of his struggle to invent those jokes is one to be veiled4 ,it is safe to say that it is his distinction to have contributed at once the best satire and the worst jokes that ,punch has ever published4 ,a black and white artist has told the writer that the ,art-,editors of papers look first at the joke4 ,the drawing is accepted or rejected on the joke4 ,we can only be glad that this was not entirely the editorial practice on ,punch in du ,maurier's time4 ,perhaps the subjoined joke of du ,maurier's from ,punch is the worst in the world3 ,i say1 cousin ,constance1 ,i've found out why you always call your ,mamma ',mater4' ,why1 ,guy8 ,because she's always trying to find a mate for you girls4 ,illustration3 ,sketch for illustration for ,wives and ,daughters #ahfe4 ,and yet if the drawing accompanying this joke be looked at first1 it delights with its charm and distinction4 ,here then is a psychological fact2 the drawing itself seems to the eye a poorer affair once the poor joke has been read4 ,having suffered in this way several times in following with admiration the pencil of du ,maurier through the old volumes of ,punch1 we at last hit upon the plan of always covering the joke and enjoying first the picture for its own sake1 only uncovering the legend when this has been thoroughly appreciated lest it should turn out to be merely a feeble joke instead of a happily-invented conversation4 ,there are some of the drawings for jokes which we should very much like to have included with our illustrations1 but the human mind being so constituted that it goes direct to the legend of an illustration1 feeling sold if it isn't there1 and the jokes in some of these instances being so fatal to the understanding of the atmosphere and charm of the drawing1 we have had to abandon the idea of doing so4 ,what the reader has to understand is that circumstances harnessed du ,maurier to a certain business2 he imported all manner of extraneous graces into it1 and thus gave a determination to the character of the art of satire which it will never lose4 ,the pages of ,punch were enriched1 beautified1 and made more delicately human4 ,punch gained everything through the connection and du ,maurier a stimulus in the demand for regular work4 ,but it is not impossible to imagine circumstances which1 but for this early connection with ,punch1 would have awakened and developed a different and perhaps profounder side of du ,maurier1 of which we seem to get a glimpse in the illustrations to ,meredith in ,the ,cornhill ,magazine4 #h ,the famous reply of an early ,editor to the usual complaint that ,punch was not as good as it used to be--,no1 sir1 it never was--cannot be considered to hold good in any comparison between the present period and that in which the arts of du ,maurier and ,keene held sway4 ,there have been periods1 there is such a one now1 when the literary side of ,punch has touched a high-water mark4 ,but on the illustrative side ,punch seems to be always hoping that another ,keene or du ,maurier will turn up4 ,it does not seem prepared to accept work in quite another style4 ,but there is no more chance of there ever being another ,keene than of there being another ,rembrandt1 or of there ever being another du ,maurier than another ,watteau4 ,the next genius to whom it is given to illuminate the pages of the classic journal in a style that will rival the past is not likely to arise from among those who think that there is no other view of life than that which was discovered by their immediate predecessors4 ,by force of his genius--or1 if you prefer it1 of sympathy--which means the same thing--for some particular phase of life1 some artist may at any moment uncover in its pages an altogether fresh kind of humour and of beauty4 #i ,du ,maurier's art covers the period when ,england was flushed with success4 ,artists in such times grow wealthy1 and by their work refine their time4 ,but in spite of the number of wealthy ,academicians living upon ,society in the mid-,victorian time1 the influence of ,art upon ,society was less than at any time in history in which circumstances have been favourable to the artist4 ,the great wave of trade that carried the shop-keeper into the ,west-end drawing-room strewed also the curtains and carpets with that outrageous weed of trade design which gave to the mid-,victorian world its complexion of singular hideousness4 ,the sthetic movement indicated the restlessness of some of the brighter spirits with this condition1 but many of its remedies were worse than the disease4 ,the nouveau artist-craftsman stood less chance than anybody of getting back to the secret of noble things1 having forsaken the path of pure utility which1 wherever it may go for a time1 always leads back again to beauty4 ,the disappearance of beauty for a time need not have been a cause of despair4 ,beauty will always come back if it is left alone4 ,people had been swept off their feet with delight at what machinery could do1 and they expected beauty to come out of it as a product at the same pace as everything else4 ,it was not a mistake to expect it from any source1 but from this particular source it could only come with time4 ,there is evidence that it is on the way4 ,and yet though the results of crude mechanical industrialism spoilt the outward appearance of the whole of the ,victorian age1 the earlier part at least of that time was one of marked personal refinement4 ,we have but to look at portraits by ,george ,richmond and others to receive a great impression of distinction4 ,and this fact enables us to throw into clearer light the exact nature of du ,maurier's work4 ,if we seek for evidence in the old volumes of ,punch for the distinction of the early ,victorians we shall not find it4 ,we shall merely conceive instead a dislike for the type of gentleman of the time4 ,leech and his contemporaries did nothing more for their age than to make it look ridiculous for ever4 ,but du ,maurier gives us a real impression of the ,society in which he moved4 ,his ability to satirise society while still leaving it its dignity is unique4 ,it may be said to be his distinctive contribution to the art of graphic satire4 ,it gave to the ,anglo-,saxon school its present-day characteristic1 putting upon one of the very lightest forms of art the stamp of a noble time4 ,the point is that whilst du ,maurier thus deferred to the dignity of human nature he remained a satirist1 not a humorist merely1 as was ,keene4 ,illustration ,,ii ,,the ,,art ,,of ,,du ,,maurier #a ,if we wish to estimate the art of du ,maurier at its full worth we must try and imagine ,punch from #ahfc without this art1 and try for a moment to conceive the difference this absence would make to our own present knowledge of the ,victorians2 also to the picture always entertained of ,england abroad4 ,if we are to believe du ,maurier's art ,england is a petticoat-governed country4 ,the men in his pictures are often made to recede into the background of ,victorian ornament merely as ornaments themselves4 ,as for the women1 the mask of manner1 the pleasantness concealing every shade of uncharitableness1 all the arts of the contention for social precedence--in the interpretation of this sort of thing du ,maurier is often quite uncanny1 but he is never ruthless4 ,we have noticed that when du ,maurier tried to draw ugly people he often only succeeded in turning out a figure of fun4 ,not to be beautiful and charming is to fail of being human1 seems the judgment of his pencil4 ,this was his limitation4 ,and another was that1 whilst professing to be concerned with humanity as a whole1 he nearly always broke down with types that outraged the polite standard4 ,he was a master in the description of ,bishops and ,curates1 ,generals and ,men-about-town1 but he broke down when he came to the out-sider4 ,and1 as we have already pointed out1 he seldom got away from types to individuals4 ,in the last respect1 however1 we gain more perhaps than we lose4 ,we gain a very vivid impression of the whole tone of the society in his time4 ,and the fact of his art passing over the individual1 for ever prevented it from cruelty1 for to be cruel the individual must be hit4 ,he did not satirise humanity1 but ,society4 ,and his criticism was not of its members1 but of its ways4 ,except in the case of children1 he left unrevealed the individual heart that ,keene so sympathetically exposed4 ,he made an original--and who will deny it8--a unique contribution to the history of satire1 when he went to work through literalness and care for beauty in a field where nearly all previous success had rested with a sort of ruffianism4 ,but chiefly one praises ,heaven for the nurseryful of delightful children he let loose in his pages against the army of little monsters who reign as children in the ,comic ,press1 bearing witness as they do to the unpleasant kind of mind even an artist can possess4 ,though he ridiculed ,camelot1 his own tradition1 as we have shown1 was received from the ,arthurian source4 ,his chivalry gave his satire a very delicate edge4 ,it was infinitely more cutting in showing the misfit of vulgarity with beauty than in showing vulgarity alone4 ,but du ,maurier's gentlemanliness narrowed his range4 ,it forced him into putting down something preposterous instead of a true type as soon as he wished to create a bounder4 ,he found it impossible to get inside of a bounder--to be for the time a bounder himself4 ,it is necessary for an artist to be able to be every character that he would create4 ,and perhaps a satirist never wounds others so much as when he most wounds himself4 ,thackeray succeeded with snobbery because he had enough of it to go on with himself4 ,we have shown the success of du ,maurier with the sthetes to go upon similar lines4 ,the soul of satire is very often the bitterness of confession4 ,in his very style the satirist of the sthetes stood confessed almost as one of their number1 whether he wished this to be seen or not--at least as one of the romantic school from whom they immediately descended4 ,but he was genuine2 where ,postlethwaite and ,maudle posed1 his irritation was with the pose1 the pretended preoccupation with beauty4 ,he genuinely admired the ,florentine revival1 and to admire is to be jealous of those who take in vain4 ,he wished to show up the sthetes as the parasites they were1 trading socially upon an inspiration too fragrant to be traded with at all4 ,du ,maurier1 who assuredly knew what elegance was as well as any man of his time1 took a great delight in pointing out to all whom it might concern1 by illustration1 that if there was any beauty of representation possible to him1 as an artist1 in depicting modern society1 it was not in anything put forward in the shape of costume by the ladies of the sthetic movement1 but in the unacknowledged genius of ordinary dressmakers4 ,it was in his time that ,philistinism met its match in ,oscar ,wilde1 and for the first time in its history felt its self-complacency shaken4 ,up to that time it had been very proud of itself4 ,with the loss of that pride it blundered1 and it remained for du ,maurier to show that the height of ,philistinism in a ,philistine is to pretend not to be a ,philistine4 ,he had always seen what it would do present-day ,londoners a world of good to see as clearly1 that it is just those who affect1 and who1 by their lack of artistic constitution1 are incapable of doing more than merely affecting1 the understanding of art1 who are the worst enemies it has in the world4 ,he preferred the open ,philistine4 ,and so do we4 ,the affectation described lends to art an artificial support which betrays those who attempt to rest any scheme for the promotion of art upon it4 ,but though du ,maurier was not a ,philistine he had the genius of respectability4 ,his pencil could get on well with ,bishops4 ,it is easy enough to put a model into a ,bishop's apron and gaiters1 but that does not secure the drawing of a ,bishop4 ,it is necessary to observe that du ,maurier found definite lines with his pencil for something so abstract as ,broad-,churchmanship4 ,the ,high-,churchman1 with his perilous inclination to fervour1 he was afraid of as a disturbing element1 and kept him out of his drawings4 ,illustration #b ,we have noted that it was du ,maurier's peculiar genius to respond to attainment in life1 even as the ,greeks did1 rather than to life's pathetic and romantic struggle4 ,du ,maurier1 we believe1 was of opinion that if circumstances--he probably meant ,editorial ones--had determined that he should apply his art to the lower classes he would have succeeded as well there as he did with ,society4 ,we prefer to believe that the ,editorial instinct in the direction it gave to his work knew better4 ,many opportunities were afforded him for being as democratic in spirit as he liked1 but he left such opportunities alone4 ,his cab-runners run about in rain-shrunken suits that were obviously made in ,savile ,row2 everyone of them1 they are broken-down gentlemen4 ,coachmen1 gardeners1 footmen1 pages1 housekeepers1 cooks1 ladies' maids1 and all those who move in the domestic circle of the upper classes he could draw1 but his taste in life is a marked one1 and that means it is a limited one4 ,it is as marked as ,meredith's1 and it is much of the same kind2 like that writer's great lady1 ,mrs4 ,mountstuart ,jenkinson1 he preferred persons that shone in the sun4 ,this had nothing whatever to do with qualities of the heart2 it was all an sthetic predilection4 ,the moment his pencil touched the theme of life lived upon as gentle a plane as possible1 then something was kindled at its point which betrayed the presence of genuine inspiration4 ,the inspiration was of the same nature as ,watteau's1 the grace of a certain aspect of life making an sthetic appeal4 ,let this attraction to what is gracious in appearance1 however1 be kept distinct from the effect made by the spectacle of wealth upon the snob4 ,those who show us the beauty in the world1 enrich the world with that much of beauty4 ,illustration3 ,pencil ,studies from the ,artist's ,sketch ,book ,in his ,life and ,letters of ,charles ,keene1 ,mr4 ,g4,s4 ,layard#a says this3-- ,that ,keene could have drawn the lovely be-,worthed young ladies and the splendidly proportioned and frock-coated young men with which ,mr4 du ,maurier delights us week by week1 not to speak of the god-like hero of his charming novel1 ,i do not think anyone can doubt1 had he set himself to do it1 but it was part of the ineradicable ,bohemianism of his character and the realistic bent of his genius that made him shun the representation of what he considered artificial and an outrage upon nature4 ,this1 it will perhaps be admitted1 is not very good art-criticism4 ,though in justice to its author it must be said that he did not wish to be regarded as ,keene's critic as well as biographer4 ,an artist does not argue with himself that he will shun the representation of one particular side of life4 ,he simply leaves it alone because he cannot help it2 it does not attract him4 ,he draws just that which interests him most and in the way in which it interests him2 and exactly to the measure of his interest does his drawing possess vitality4 ,keene might have expressed with pungency his sense of certain things as being artificial and outrageous1 but as long as his feelings towards them remained like that he could not express himself about them in any other way1 certainly not in du ,maurier's way--that is1 with du ,maurier's skill4 ,to the extent to which there is a glamour and a beauty in fashion du ,maurier is a realist4 ,people who only now and then become sensible of the charm in things are provoked by its strangeness in art1 and call it romance1 their definition for an untrue thing4 #c ,during the period of thirty-six years over which du ,maurier contributed to ,punch the paper took upon itself a character unlike anything that had preceded it in comic journalism2 it created a tradition for itself which placed it beside ,the ,times--the ,thunderer1 as one of the institutions of this country1 recognised abroad as essentially expressive of national character4 ,english humour1 like ,american and ,french1 has its own flavour2 it lacks the high and extravagant fantasy that is so exhilarating in ,america2 it avoids the subtlety of ,france2 it is essentially a laughing humour4 ,the ,englishman1 who cannot stand chaff himself1 always laughs at others4 ,it is curious that while an ,englishman's conventions rest upon dislike of what is odd and fantastic--precisely the two most well-known sources of humour--he yet has a sense of humour4 ,the first aim of every ,englishman is to acquire a manner of some dignity4 ,it is the breaking down of that dignity in other people that to his eyes places them in a light that is funny4 ,english humour seems to find its object in physical rather than mental aspects4 ,the very notable feature of du ,maurier's work was that it refined upon the characteristics of ,english humour2 it dealt always with people placed by an absurd speech1 or an unlucky gesture1 in a foolish position--a position the shy distress of which was a physical experience4 ,du ,maurier's humour was also ,english in its kindness2 the points that are scored against the unfortunate object of it are the points that may be scored against the laugher himself to-morrow4 ,his pictures were a running commentary upon the refinements of our manners and upon the quick changes of moral costume that fresh situations in the social comedy demand4 ,one thing peculiarly fitted the artist to be the satirist of ,english ,society--his love of the comedy of people by nature honest finding themselves only able to get through the day with decent politeness by the aid of the lie to follow4 ,english people1 ,puritan by ancestry and by inclination1 are nevertheless driven into frequent subterfuge by their good nature1 and having pared their language and gesture of that extravagance in expression which they despise in the foreigner1 they are thrown back upon a naturalness that betrays them in delicate situations4 ,the consequence is that it is in ,anglo-,saxon ,society at its best that the art of delicate fence in conversation has been brought to its highest pitch4 ,there the clairvoyance is so great that words can be used economically in relation to the realities of life1 and are consequently often adopted merely as a screen before the feelings4 ,we have to realise how much more than any one preceding him in graphic satire du ,maurier was able to dispense with exaggeration4 ,nevertheless1 the studied avoidance of exaggeration has not had the happiest effect as a precedent in the art of ,punch4 ,without du ,maurier's sensitive response to the whole comedy of drawing-room life the tendency has been to lapse into the merely photographic4 ,the similitude we have already described between du ,maurier's art with the pencil and the art of the modern novel is not complete until we have extended it further in the direction of a comparison with novels of ,george ,meredith and ,henry ,james in particular4 ,like these two writers du ,maurier loved comedy1 and your appreciator of comedy cannot stand the presence of a funny man4 ,in the pages of ,punch it was ,leech and not du ,maurier who first replaced the art of the merely funny man4 ,he began with the pencil the kind of art that would answer to ,meredith's description of the comic muse4 ,throughout ,the ,egoist1 by ,george ,meredith1 a comedy in which ,clara ,middleton's life comes near to being tragic1 the air would clear at any moment if ,sir ,willoughby and ,clara had not both lost through over-civilisation the power of saying precisely what they mean4 ,the book is the story of how ,clara tries to find words1 and of how1 when she finds them1 the conversational genius of ,willoughby seemingly deflects them from the meaning she intends them to bear4 ,it was in the mid-region between two people in conversation where false constructions are put by either party upon what is said that du ,maurier1 like ,meredith himself1 perceived the source of comedy was to be found4 #d ,we have already defined the drawing-room as a ,victorian institution4 ,it belonged to an age that was willing to sacrifice too much to appearances--one in which everyone seemed to live for appearances4 ,it was a sort of stage1 occupied by people in afternoon or evening costume1 with even the chairs arranged1 not where they were wanted1 but where they made a good appearance4 ,oscar ,wilde suggested to the ,victorians that they shouldn't arrange chairs2 they should let them occur4 ,against the false setting manners were bound to become false--good manners becoming almost synonymous with perfect insincerity4 ,perhaps the only thing that ever really came to life in a drawing-room was the sthetic movement6 ,at its worst it was what we have described it2 at its best it was a sort of blind protest against the patterns of chair-covers that the eye was bound to absorb while listening to the inanities of drawing-room conversation4 ,it is significant that the sthetic movement was a man's movement4 ,until the leader of the movement appeared on the scene1 the decoration of the ,victorian1 as distinct from the ,georgian parlour1 or that of every other period1 was woman's business4 ,most of the ,victorian patterns embodied naturalistic and sentimental representations of flowers4 ,it was with the disappearance of the eighteenth-century tradition1 when drawing-room decoration passed out of the hands of men1 that beauty disappeared4 ,women took to heaping masses of drapery on to the mantelpieces which had once displayed classic proportion2 on to this drapery they pinned all sorts of horrible fans4 ,du ,maurier exposed it all1 and he exposed1 too1 the sthetes to whom the salvation of the appearance of a suburban drawing-room could come to mean more than anything else in life4 ,their fault was not confined to this4 ,he always brought their intensity as a charge against them1 for it is of the very genius of good manners to merely froth about things which1 if taken seriously1 would tend to destroy amenity4 ,illustration3 ,illustration for ,a ,legend of ,camelot--,part ,,iii4 ,punch1 ,march #ag1 #ahff4 ,a little castle she drew nigh1 ,with seven towers twelve inches high4444 ,o ,miserie6 ,a baby castle1 all a-flame ,with many a flower that hath no name1 ,o ,miserie6 ,it had a little moat all round3 ,a little drawbridge too she found2 ,o ,miserie6 ,on which there stood a stately maid1 ,like her in radiant locks arrayed4444 ,o ,miserie6 ,save that her locks grew rank and wild1 ,by weaver's shuttle undefiled6444 ,o ,miserie6 ,who held her brush and comb1 as if ,her faltering hands had waxed stiff1 ,o ,miserie6 ,with baulkt endeavour6 whence she sung ,a chant1 the burden whereof rung3 ,o ,miserie6 ,these hands have striven in vain ,to part ,these locks that won ,,gauwaine ,his heart6 ,it is interesting1 as an addition to the comparison we have drawn between ,meredith and du ,maurier1 to note that of the illustrators to ,meredith's own novels it was the latter who seemed to experience life in a mood similar to the author's4 ,in illustrating ,harry ,richmond he secured the ,meredithian sense of romance and of pedigree in scenes as well as people4 ,however modern ,meredith's characters were1 they were all the children of old-fashioned people2 within them all was the pride of the family tree1 and1 in the scenes in which they move1 the memory of an older world4 ,du ,maurier1 too1 in his art was a patrician1 and when he gave up romance and took to satire pure and simple he put both beauty and dignity into the world that he described4 ,all the time he was drawing his ,society world others were working the same vein4 ,but to him alone it seemed to be given to glimpse the splendour of it1 and to suggest the link of romance that holds the present and the past together4 ,let us praise that very wise ,editor who1 appreciating the artist's character1 confined him to the art most natural to him4 ,what has become of ,editors of this kind to-day8 ,is not this the very genius of the art of editing--this and not the wholly fictitious what the public wants8 ,who knows what the public want but the public themselves8 ,it is the artist who is allowed by his ,editor to go his own way1 who takes the public with him4 ,if he has not the same sympathies as the public no ,editorial direction will save the situation1 while it will drive perhaps a fine artist away to another trade4 #e ,after the appearance of his first drawing in ,punch1 for more than a year du ,maurier's connection with the paper seems to have been maintained by the execution of initial letters for it4 ,mr4 ,w4,l4 ,bradbury1 zealous in the preservation of all records that redound to the glory of ,punch1 has in one or two instances had pulls taken from the wood blocks upon special paper4 ,these special proofs show all the charm of wood engraving4 ,in the case of the initial large ,c1 reproduced on page #ia1 ,mr4 ,bradbury's specimen shows the beautiful quality which in our own time ,mr4 ,sturge ,moore and ,mr4 ,pissarro are at such pains to secure in engravings made for love of the art4 ,one only wishes that the exigencies of book-production would allow us to attempt rivalry with ,mr4 ,bradbury's specimen in our reproduction4 ,but we see no reason why specimens of the wood-printing of du ,maurier's work should not be on view in the ,british ,museum4 ,the impressions in old volumes of ,punch1 after the wear and tear1 the opening and the shutting1 and the effect of time are not an adequate record of du ,maurier's skill in accommodating his art to the methods of reproduction of the period4 ,moreover1 du ,maurier was better in securing an effect of painting than of pure line work with his pen4 ,it is just this effect which suited the methods of engraving better than those of process work4 ,and because it demanded drawing to a smaller scale1 with lines closer together1 the demands of engraving suited the nature of du ,maurier's art better than those of process work4 ,when the modern process came in artists enlarged their drawings so as to secure delicacy of effect from the result of the reduction in printing4 ,in such a case they really work for the sake of a result upon the printed page1 and there is consequently less value to be attached to the original drawing4 ,it generally errs on the side of coarseness4 ,and now that a trade is driven in original drawings1 artists are tempted to give the purchaser as much in the matter of size for his money as he may want4 ,and1 alas1 it is true that many picture buyers do buy according to measurement1 or anything else on earth rather than merit4 ,du ,maurier could add a reason of his own for availing himself of the opportunity to enlarge his drawings when he could1 namely1 that of his weak sight4 ,but it is certainly not among the large drawings that we should look for the work that places him in the place we wish to claim for him4 ,it will well repay the student of du ,maurier's art to look into the illustration for the novel ,wives and ,daughters reproduced on page #bf4 ,in this very highly finished picture the drawing of all the detail seems done with the greatest pleasure to the artist4 ,it has not the breadth of style which du ,maurier himself could admire in ,keene1 but the line work is intensely sympathetic throughout2 there is that enjoyment in the actual touch of pen to paper which was always characteristic of ,keene1 which is always special to great art2 which1 alas1 was not always characteristic of du ,maurier4 ,it is like the touch of a sympathetic musician4 ,du ,maurier1 always generous to his contemporaries1 in his lecture upon art1 instances the natural skill of ,walker by his success with the difficulties of drawing a tall hat4 ,but ,walker himself has nothing of this kind better to show than the hat in the picture we are describing4 #f ,in the early eighties the change was made from drawing on wood to drawing on paper for ,punch1 the drawing being afterwards photographed on to the wood4 ,later1 metal was made possible as a substitute for wood1 and this enabled illustrations and letterpress to be printed together4 ,the modern process of reproduction has introduced its own pleasant qualities into journalism1 and because they are different in effect they do not rival the effect of wood engraving4 ,the modern methods reproduce the black lines of a drawing direct4 ,but the most practised engravers cut out the whites of a drawing with their graver from between the black lines4 ,this undoubtedly allowed the artist a closer and less restricted use of line than modern illustration shows us4 ,if the reader examines du ,maurier's illustration for ,the ,adventures of ,harry ,richmond on page #ajf1 he will be able to see at a glance how1 by cutting out the whites in the multiplicity of ivy leaves1 detailed drawing has been re-interpreted in the engraving with great economy4 ,some of the pleasantness of the effect of lines printed from a woodcut is due to the fact that they print a more clearly cut line4 ,the line eaten in by process when examined under a very strong magnifying glass proves to be a slightly jagged one4 ,but we should rejoice that the art of reproduction for journalistic purposes is free of the laborious method of engraving1 and from the sort of work that was put up by over-tired engravers when they fought their last round to lose1 against the modern invention of picture reproduction4 ,there is no rivalry in art4 ,all the rivalry is in the business connected with it4 ,a wood-engraving possesses a charm of its own for those whose sense of quality is delicate enough for its appreciation4 ,the life of this art1 apart from the purpose of weekly journalism1 is safe4 ,the life of any art is safe while it commands1 as wood engraving does1 the production of any particular effect in a way that cannot be rivalled4 ,according to ,mr4 ,joseph ,pennell1 the first really important modern illustrated book in which wood was substituted for metal engraving appeared in ,france in #ahcj1 and this authority asserts that in ,england1 just before the invention of photographing on wood1 some of the most marvellous engravings appeared that have ever been done in the country4 ,it is1 he writes1 with the appearance of ,frederick ,sandys1 ,rossetti1 ,walker1 ,pinwell1 ,a4 ,boyd1 ,houghton1 ,small1 du ,maurier1 ,keene1 ,crane1 ,leighton1 ,millais1 and ,tenniel1 with the publication of the ,cornhill1 ,once a ,week1 ,good ,words1 ,the ,shilling ,magazine1 and such books as ,moxon's ,tennyson that the best period of ,english illustration begins4 ,the incessant output of illustration1 he continues1 killed not only the artists themselves1 but the process4 ,in its stead arose a better1 truer method1 a more artistic method1 which we are even now only developing4 ,but there is another side to this question4 ,illustration has lost something by the uniformity of style which the modern method encourages4 ,keene1 whose style was supposed to suffer most at the hands of the engraver1 found it more difficult than anyone to accommodate his free methods to the rules that govern the results of the modern process4 ,it may be noted that it was about the time of the transition from working on wood to work on paper that that slavery to the model began1 which1 as we have pointed out1 has not in the end been without an unhappy effect in the loss of spontaneity to ,english ,illustration4 ,illustration3 ,initial ,letter from ,the ,cornhill ,as for the art of wood engraving itself1 we hope it will now have a future like that which the arts of lithography and etching are enjoying4 ,reproduction by process serves commercial and journalistic purposes far better4 ,the demands of commerce formed for this art1 as it once formed for lithography1 a chrysalis in which it perfected itself4 ,reproduction by process serves commercial purposes much better than ever wood-engraving could1 but while the commercial demand for it lasted1 as in the case of the arts of lithography and etching1 it continued to improve2 like them1 let us hope1 destined to find beautiful wings upon its release from the cramping demands of modern printing machines1 in its practice by artists for sheer love of the peculiar qualities which are its own4 ,it has been said that wood-engravers killed their own art so far as journalism was concerned by their surrender to commerciality with its frequent demand for the ready-to-hand rather than the superior thing4 ,but his surrender was not the fault of the engravers1 but was rendered inevitable by the advent of the middleman1 to whom application was made by the ,press for blocks1 and whose employees all engravers were practically forced into becoming1 instead of being able to retain their independence and make their own terms with the ,press4 #g ,in the ,british ,museum some of the originals of du ,maurier's ,punch pictures may be seen4 ,on the margins of these are the pencilled instructions of the ,editor as to the scale of the reproduction1 and very often pencil notes from ,artist to ,editor4 ,this sort of thing--,if they have used my page for this week's number1 telegraph to me as soon as you get this and ,i will have ,social ready by #ab to-morrow 7that is1 if it be not too late for me47 ,or what is evidently an invitation to lunch--,monday at #a for light usual4 ,the drawing where this particular note appears is of three little girls with their dolls4 ,the legend in the artist's handwriting read as follows3--,my papa's house has got a conservatory6 ,my papa's house has got a billiard-room6 ,my papa's house has got a mortgage66 ,this was printed with the much inferior legend3 ,dolly taking her degrees 7of comparison73 ',my doll's wood6' ,my doll's composition6' ',my doll's wax6' ,some of these ,british ,museum original drawings still retain in pencil the price du ,maurier put upon them for sale4 ,of the period when the artist was drawing on a large scale with a view to reduction there is one of the ,things one would rather have expressed differently series priced at twelve guineas4 ,it gives an indication of the profits du ,maurier sometimes was able to make from the original drawing4 ,for the sake of comment on the low evening gown the half-dozen figures in this picture are all in back view4 ,it is rather a dull twelve-guineas-worth4 ,and this was evidently felt1 as it remained unsold4 ,the original of the very exquisite ,res angusta domi1 the beautiful drawing of the nurse by the child's bed in the children's hospital1 which appeared in ,punch1 vol4 cviii4 p4 #ajb 7#ahid71 is only priced at ,ten guineas4 ,turning over the ,museum drawings one often sees the liberties with the penknife by which the artist would secure difficult effects of snow1 or of light on foliage4 ,and sometimes in the margin there are pencil studies from which figures in the illustration have been re-drawn4 ,and nearly always not altogether rubbed out is a first wording of the legend1 repeated in ink in du ,maurier's pretty hand beneath4 ,in turning over these drawings one finds him doing much more than merely suggesting pattern work in such things as wall-papers4 ,there is one floral wall-paper in particular that we find him working out which will no doubt prove an invaluable reference another day as to the sort of decoration in which the subjects of ,queen ,victoria preferred to live1 or were forced to by their tradesmen4 ,photographs of du ,maurier's studio which appeared in a ,magazine illustrating an interview with him at the time of the ,trilby boom1 reveal the squat china jars1 the leaf fans1 the upholstered cosy corner with its row of blue plates1 with which all who know their ,punch are familiar1 and apparently the very wall-paper to which we have just referred4 ,it certainly is the mark of a great artist to take practically whatever is before him for treatment4 ,the artist with the genius for interior subjects seems to be able to re-interpret ugliness itself very often4 ,du ,maurier's weak eyes prevented him from bearing the strain of outdoor work4 ,he was practically driven indoors for his subjects2 and in taking what was to hand--the very environment of the kind of people his drawings describe--he showed considerable genius4 ,he succeeded in making whole volumes of ,punch into a work of criticism on the domestic art of the nineteenth century4 ,illustration3 ,illustration for ,the ,story of a ,feather #ahfg4 ,among the useful skits of du ,maurier was that upon the conceited young man concealing appalling ignorance with the display of a still more appalling indifference to everything4 ,the drawing among the ,print-room series--,it is always well to be well informed--is a good instance4 ,it reveals a ballroom with couples dancing a quadrille4 ,a lady asks her partner3 ,who's my sister's partner1 vis--vis1 with the star and riband8 ,he3 ,oh1 he--aw--he's ,sir ,somebody ,something1 who went somewhere or othaw to look after some scientific fellaw who was murdered1 or something1 by someone--6 ,the word othaw in this legend is itself pictorial4 ,du ,maurier was like our own ,max ,beerbohm in this--his legends and drawings were inseparable4 ,we find he has actually penned in the side margin of the drawing the words othaw fellaw1 we suppose as a possible variant to scientific fellow1 and in the legend the word other has been written over with a thickened termination--aw4 ,the usual first trial of the speech in pencil remains but partly obliterated by india-rubber at the top of the drawing4 ,in his series of ,happy ,thoughts du ,maurier followed the course of the sort of rapid thought that precedes a tactful reply with real psychological skill4 ,take1 for instance1 his drawing of an artist sitting gloomily before his fire1 caressed by his wife1 who bends over him1 saying1 ,you seem depressed1 darling4 ,have you had a pleasant dinner8 ,edwin3 ,oh1 pretty well2 ,bosse was in the chair1 of course4 ,he praised everybody's work this year except mine4 ,angelina3 ,oh6 ,i'm so glad4 ,at last he is beginning to look upon you as his rival and his only one4 ,the wings of tact are sympathy4 ,this drawing appeared in ,punch1 vol4 xcvi4 p4 #bbb 7#ahhi72 it is signed with other drawings from #hi ,porchester ,terrace1 ,april '#hi4 ,drawings in the ,museum collection are signed from ,stanhope ,terrace1 ,hampstead1 ,drumnadrochit1 or apparently from wherever the artist happened to be when executing the work4 ,illustration #h ,among our illustrations there is a portrait of ,canon ,ainger1 representing the artist as a painter4 ,du ,maurier's colour was never such that an injustice is done to it by reproducing it only by half-tone process4 ,the interest of this portrait is in the psychological grasp of character it seems to show4 ,the painter was in the habit of contributing interior genre scenes in water-colour to the ,old ,water-colour ,society1 of which he was made an ,associate in #ahha4 ,that may be said against his painting1 which may be said against the painting of so many eminent black-and-white men who have changed to the art of painting too late in the day4 ,it shows failure to think in paint4 ,an artist is only a great black-and-white artist because he thinks in that medium4 ,possibly1 if there were no such thing as a black-and-white art1 as we have it in journalism to-day1 some of the greatest men in it would instead have been great painters4 ,but successful transference to the one art after unusual mastery has been acquired in the other is rarely witnessed4 ,to think in line1 to see the world as resolving itself into the play of alternating lines1 so to habituate thought and vision to that one aspect of everything is not the best preparation in the world for seeing it over again in another art where the element of line is not the chief incident of the impression to be created4 ,failure in the one art does not mean failure as an artist4 ,those artists who have worked in a variety of mediums with apparently equal success in each have always attained the ability to make each medium in turn express the same personal feeling4 ,but nearly always there is in such cases that sacrifice of the inherent qualities of one or other of the mediums employed which a great virtuoso never makes4 ,black-and-white men put themselves into an attitude of receptivity towards that aspect of things which suggests representation in line4 ,their acquired sensitiveness in this respect is expressed in the learned character of their touch in drawing4 ,painters cultivate a similarly receptive attitude towards nature1 but lay themselves open to receive a different impression of it4 ,we might say of du ,maurier that by the time he tried to apply himself to painting he had become constitutionally a black-and-white artist4 ,moreover1 his impaired vision compromised the more complex range of effect represented in painting in a way that it never could the simplicity of good black-and-white work4 ,how seriously threatened du ,maurier's sight was at times we may know by the reliance he put upon being read to by others4 ,thus only did he manage to keep his small stock of visual energy in reserve for his artistic work4 #i ,during the sixties and seventies the artist illustrated many works of fiction4 ,the most notable instance was ,thackeray's ,esmond in #ahfh--;a work which he had long wished to be chosen to illustrate4 ,du ,maurier had all his life an intense admiration for ,thackeray4 ,he inherited none of ,thackeray's bitterness1 but upon every other ground as an author1 at least1 he descends from ,thackeray1 notably in the studied colloquialism of his style when writing1 and in a general friendliness to the ,philistine4 ,and in his drawings in ,punch his satire is aimed in the same direction as ,thackeray's always was4 ,like ,thackeray1 he was most at home on the plane where a social art1 a delicate art of life is able to flourish4 ,of the concealed romanticist in du ,maurier we have more than once already spoken4 ,a ,romanticist always turns to the past4 ,thackeray1 in his lectures1 also in the house he built for himself1 and in a proposed but never finished history1 went back into the past at least as far as ,queen ,anne's reign4 ,esmond1 also of ,queen ,anne's reign1 was the expression of a feature of ,thackeray's temperament which never makes its full appearance in any other of his fictions4 ,we believe that it was his own favourite among his works4 ,but ,thackeray did not succeed in expressing the whole of himself in the romantic vein2 perhaps because he did not cultivate it from the start like ,scott and ,dumas4 ,he was able to put more of himself into ,vanity ,fair4 ,to think of ,thackeray is to think first of ,vanity ,fair4 ,from the unerring--because instinctive--judgment of the world this book received recognition as his masterpiece4 ,du ,maurier had not so much of the genuine flair for the eighteenth century as ,thackeray4 ,at heart he was much more in sympathy with the pre-,raphaelites and the love of early romance1 whatever his pretence to the contrary in his satire1 ,a ,legend of ,camelot4 ,but there was no illustrator of his time with a greater gift for the romantic novel of any period2 and inevitably1 he became1 in due course1 the illustrator of ,esmond4 ,it is impossible to return to the past except by the path of poetry4 ,it was possible to du ,maurier in his illustrations to ,esmond1 because he was a poet4 ,he used the effect of fading light in the sky seen through old leaded windows1 and all the resources of poetic effect with a poet's and not an actor-manager's inspiration1 wrapping the tale in the glamour in which ,thackeray conceived it4 ,in #ahfe du ,maurier contributed a full page illustration and two vignettes to ,foxe's ,book of ,martyrs1 published in parts by ,cassell4 ,other signed illustrations are by ,g4,h4 ,thomas1 ,john ,gilbert1 ,j4,d4 ,watson1 ,a4,b4 ,houghton1 ,w4 ,small1 ,a4 ,parquier1 ,r4 ,barnes1 ,m4,e4 ,edwards1 and ,t4 ,morten4 ,no book can be imagined which would afford the essential nature of his art less opportunity of showing itself than this one4 ,he was no good at horrors1 though his resourcefulness in the manifestation of emotional light and shadow was encouraged by the character of the full-page illustration which he had to supply4 ,a signed full page appears in ,part ,,xvi41 page #eda4 ,it is a scene in which the four martyrs1 ,bland1 ,frankesh1 ,sheterden1 and ,middleton1 condemned by the ,bishop of ,dover1 #beth ,june #aeee1 are shown being burned at the stakes4 ,one of the martyrs certainly looks intensely smug with his hands folded as if he were at grace before a favourite dinner4 ,yes1 du ,maurier certainly failed to attain quite to the heights of the horror of this book4 ,the following year we have from the artist's pencil illustrations to a book of the heroine of which he was so fond that he named his own daughter after her4 ,that book was ,mrs4 ,gaskell's ,wives and ,daughters1 an everyday story1 as it is called in its sub-title4 ,for this story du ,maurier's art was much more fitted than for any other4 ,in it1 certainly1 and not in ,foxe's book1 we should expect his temperament to reveal itself--and we are not disappointed4 ,it is here that du ,maurier is at his best4 ,his illustrations have a daintiness in this tale which they have nowhere else4 ,a sign of the presence of fine art is the accommodation of style to theme4 ,the illustrations had been made for this book when it appeared serially in the ,cornhill1 and were afterwards published in the issue in two volumes4 ,there is a picture at the beginning of the second volume called ,the ,burning ,gorse1 in which du ,maurier makes an imaginative appeal through landscape almost worthy of ,keene4 ,illustration3 ,illustration for ,the ,story of a ,feather #ahfg4 ,the artist is again at his best in the work of illustrating fiction in the following year in ,douglas ,jerrold's ,story of a ,feather4 ,it is the same refinement of technique that is evident as in ,mrs4 ,gaskell's tale4 ,one of du ,maurier's greatest characteristics was charm4 ,one is forced into ringing changes upon the word in the description of his work4 ,but charm it is1 more than ever1 that characterises his illustrations to ,the ,story of a ,feather4 ,the initial letters in this book afford him a succession of opportunities for displaying that inventive genius which is evident wherever he turns to the province of pure fancy4 ,it was not for nothing apparently that he was the son of an inventor4 ,we have already spoken of his power in these days in the emotional use of light and shade4 ,it is perhaps even in this light book--in the illustration reproduced opposite--that we have one of the best examples of this power4 ,but this book is all through a gold-mine of the work of the real du ,maurier4 ,another work in which his art is to be found at this time is ,shirley ,brooks's ,sooner or ,later 7#ahfh74 ,the novel does not seem treated with quite the same reverence and enthusiasm which has characterised his work in the books we have just described1 but it is among the representative examples of his illustration in the sixties4 ,this story also passed as a serial through ,cornhill4 ,in the same year1 with ,e4,h4 ,corbould1 he provides illustrations to ,the ,book of ,drawing-room ,plays1 c41 a manual of indoor recreation by ,h4 ,dalton4 ,it is not impossible that these were prepared long in advance of publication1 for they are in a very much earlier manner than the illustrations we have been speaking of4 ,in them du ,maurier has not yet emerged from the influence of ,leech--the first influence we encountered when a few years previously he joined himself to the band of those who solicit the publishers for illustrative work4 ,from the point of view of our subject the book does not repay much study4 ,in #ahgf1 in illustrations to ,hurlock ,chase1 or ,among the ,sussex ,ironworks1 by ,george ,e4 ,sargent1 published by ,the ,religious ,tract ,society1 we have some pictures of extraordinary power1 in which it is to be seen how much his contact with ,millais and other great illustrators in the sixties inspired him1 and developed his resources4 ,his work has a weight in this book which was common to the best illustration of the period1 a deliberation which shows the influence of ,durer over the illustrators of the sixties1 and also the influence of pre-,raphaelitism in precise elaboration of form4 ,it is in lighter vein we find him again in the same year in ,jemmett ,browne's ,songs of ,many ,seasons1 published by ,simpkin1 ,marshall ,co41 and illustrated also by ,walter ,crane and others4 ,every now and then at this period du ,maurier shows us a genius for still-life in interior genre which he did not seem to develop afterwards to the extent of the promise shown in these pictures4 ,he gained at this time a very great deal in his art by the pre-,raphaelite influence4 ,never is he more exquisite than when he embraces detail4 ,the need to produce with rapidity1 and the effect of later fashions which did not suit his own nature so well1 induced him to give up a very deliberate style suited to his quick perception of beauty in everyday incident1 for one that sometimes only achieved emptiness in its attempt at breadth4 ,but to have kept his pre-,raphaelite individuality with two such native impressionists as ,keene and ,whistler for his most intimate friends would have perhaps been more than could be expected of human nature4 ,but it is true that he seemed to lose where those two artists proved they had everything to gain from a style that passed detail swiftly1 treating it suggestively4 ,they were by nature impressionable to a different aspect of life1 and in self expression they required a different method4 ,du ,maurier's artistic creed that everything should be drawn from nature--and tables and chairs are nature for the artist--forced him to return again and again to accessible properties which could be fitted into his scenes4 ,notable among those were the big vases and the constantly reappearing ornamental gilt clock4 ,though drawn in black and white we are sure of its gilt1 for it belongs to the ,victorian period4 ,it is to be met with in all the surviving drawing-rooms of the period--that is1 it is to be met with in ,apartments4 ,du ,maurier next furnishes a frontispiece and vignettes1 which we do not admire1 to ,clement ,scott's ,round about the ,islands 7#ahgd74 ,in #ahhb he is at work in the field he had made his own1 illustrating the story of a fad that had always amused him1 illustrating the craze he had helped to create1 in ,prudence3 ,a ,story of ,aesthetic ,london1 by ,lucy ,c4 ,lillie4 ,we hope the reader of this page does not think we should have read this book4 ,we looked at the illustrations of a muscular curate--whom we took to be the hero--making an impressive entrance into a gathering of sthetes1 and farther on leaving the church door with ,prudence2 we read the legend to the final illustration--,it was odd to see how completely ,prudence forsook her brief period of sthetic light--and we came to our own conclusions4 ,the illustrations are made very small in process of printing1 but du ,maurier's art never lost by reduction4 ,a picture of a ,private ,view day in a ,gallery--which at first makes one think of the ,royal ,academy1 but in which the pictures are too well hung for that1 and which is probably intended for the ,grosvenor ,gallery--is one of those admirable drawings of a fashionable crush with which du ,maurier always excelled4 ,in reviewing this book1 however1 we are already away from the most characteristic period of du ,maurier's work as an illustrator of fiction4 ,that was between #ahfj and #ahhj4 ,his line is altogether less intense in the next book we have to consider--,philips's ,as in a ,looking ,glass 7#ahhi74 ,the falling off between this and the book we were reviewing here but a moment ago is the most evident feature of the work before us4 ,we have1 we feel1 said good-bye to the du ,maurier who added so much lustre to the illustrative work of the period just preceding its publication4 ,but in ,punch the vivacity of his art is still sustained2 and long afterwards in ,trilby he scores successes again4 ,in later years du ,maurier allowed in his originals for reduction1 and the original cannot be rightly judged until the reduction is made4 ,in the book under notice no reduction appears to have been made1 and the drawings are consequently lacking in precision of detail4 ,the book is a large drawing-room table book--in our opinion the most hateful kind of book that was ever made--occupying more space than any but the rarest works in the world are worth1 giving more trouble to hold than it is possible for any but a great masterpiece to compensate for--and generally putting author and publisher in the debt of the reader1 which is quite the wrong way round4 ,the curious may see in this book what du ,maurier's art was at its worst1 and it may help them to estimate his achievement to note how even on this occasion it surpasses easily all later modern work in the same vein4 ,there is one other book1 published in #ahgd1 which du ,maurier illustrated at that time which should be mentioned4 ,it had1 we believe1 a great success of a popular kind4 ,we refer to ,misunderstood1 by ,florence ,montgomery4 ,in the light of the illustrations1 which are in the artist's finest vein1 one wonders how much of this success could with justice have been attributed to the illustrations4 ,we are inclined to think not a little4 ,these pictures show many of the most interesting qualities of his work4 ,in the portrait of ,sir ,everard ,duncombe1 ,misunderstood's father1 we have a skill in portraying a type that cannot have failed in impressing readers with the reality of the character4 ,the delicacy of du ,maurier's psychology in this portrait of a middle-aged man of the period is in marked contrast with the improbability of so many of his renderings of elderly people wherever he went outside of his stock types4 ,it justifies his realism and mistrust of memory drawing4 ,through his failure to sustain his interest in life always at this pitch his art at the end of his career showed just the lack of this close observation of character4 ,it often then seems too content to rest its claims on accurate drawing1 even when what was drawn was not worth accuracy4 ,and this is the fault of all the modern school4 ,good drawing does not so much interest us in things as in the drama centred in them4 ,thus we have actually such things as horror1 passion1 gentleness1 and other invisible things conveyed to us in the lines of a drawing4 ,we may indeed know genius from talent by the much more of the invisible which it transfers to visible line4 ,du ,maurier1 in drawing children1 for instance1 secures their prepossessing qualities4 ,drawing is great when it conveys something which in itself has not an outline--like the atmosphere of a ,victorian drawing-room4 #aj ,intensely artistic natures make everything very self-expressive without conscious intention4 ,for this reason an artist's handwriting tends to be more worth looking at than other people's4 ,the draughtsman lavishes some of his skill upon his handwriting4 ,this more particularly applies to the signature1 which is written with fuller consciousness than other words4 ,artists1 owing to their intense interest in appearances1 generally start by being a little self-conscious about their signature4 ,but that period passes1 and the autograph becomes set1 to grow fragile with old age and shrink1 but not to alter in its real characteristics4 ,the signature at the foot of a picture presents a rather different problem from the signature at the foot of a letter4 ,it must necessarily be a more deliberate and self-conscious affair1 but it is no less expressive4 ,german deliberation was never so well expressed as in ,albert ,durer's signature4 ,illustration3 ,caution ,don't keep your ,beer-,barrel in the same cellar as your ,dust-,bin6 ,punch1 ,february #bc1 #ahfg4 ,self-advertisers always give themselves away with their signature4 ,as a rule1 the finer the artist the more natural his signature in style4 ,and fine artists like to subscribe to the great tradition of their craft1 that the work is everything1 the workman only someone in the fair light of its effect2 the name is added out of pride but not vain-glory1 with that modest air with which a hero turns the conversation from himself4 ,naturalness and mastery arrive at the same moment2 students cannot sign their works naturally4 ,du ,maurier's signature passed through many transformations1 and there were times1 too1 when the artist was quite undecided between the plentiful choice of his ,christian names--,george ,louis ,palmella ,busson4 ,an artist beginning his career at the present day with such a choice of names would most certainly have made use of the ,palmella in full--an advertisement asset4 ,but advertisement is vulgar4 ,du ,maurier belonged to the ,victorians1 who were never vulgar4 ,illustration ,,footnotes3 #a ,the ,life and ,letters of ,charles ,samuel ,keene1 by ,charles ,somes ,layard4 ,london3 ,sampson ,low1 ,marston ,co41 ,ltd41 #ahib4 ,,iii ,,du ,,maurier ,,as ,,author #a ,queen ,victoria was the ,queen of ,hearts2 her reign was the reign of sentiment4 ,the redundancy of tender reference to ,prince ,albert at ,windsor has been known to bore visitors to the town4 ,life must have been tiring in those days1 tossed1 as everyone was1 if we believe the art of the time1 from one wave of sentiment to another4 ,men went into the city to get a little rest1 and there framed this code3 that there should be no sentiment in business4 ,so the ,victorians put their sentiment into art1 into stories and illustrations4 ,they put some of the best of their black-and-white art into a ,magazine called ,good ,words4 ,only the ,victorians could have invented such a title for a ,magazine1 or lived up to it4 ,the literary tradition of that time1 so far as the novel was concerned1 expired with du ,maurier4 ,he came near to having a style as natural as ,thackeray's1 and he was quite as sentimental4 ,before he began to write novels1 he prided himself upon the fact that a store of plots for novels lay undeveloped in his mind4 ,it was the offer of a plot to ,mr4 ,henry ,james one evening when they were walking up and down the ,high ,street1 ,bayswater1 that resulted in du ,maurier becoming a novelist4 ,du ,maurier told him the plot of ,trilby4 ,but you ought to write that story1 cried ,james4 ,i can't write1 he replied2 ,i have never written4 ,if you like the plot so much you may take it4 ,mr4 ,james said that it was too valuable a present to take1 and that du ,maurier must write the story himself4 ,on reaching home that night he set to work4 ,by the next morning he had written the first two numbers not of ,trilby but of ,peter ,ibbetson4 ,it seemed all to flow from my pen1 without effort in a full stream1 he said1 but ,i thought it must be poor stuff1 and ,i determined to look for an omen to learn whether any success would attend this new departure4 ,so ,i walked out into the garden1 and the very first thing that ,i saw was a large wheelbarrow1 and that comforted me and reassured me1 for1 as you will remember1 there is a wheelbarrow in the first chapter of ,peter ,ibbetson4#b ,peter ,ibbetson--,the young man1 lonely1 chivalrous and disquieted by a touch of genius1 as the hero has been well described--was written for money1 and brought its author a thousand pounds4 ,peter ,ibbetson was not put above ,trilby in the author's lifetime2 but we believe it to have much more vitality than the latter work4 ,the actual writing of it was not perhaps taken quite so seriously as that of ,trilby1 and it gains nothing on that account2 but it is a book in which there is intensity1 in which everything is not spread out thinly as in ,trilby4 ,du ,maurier himself believed that ,peter ,ibbetson was the better book4 ,it certainly witnesses to the nobility of the author's mind2 it expresses the quick sympathy of the artist temperament--the instinct for finding extenuating circumstances which artists share with women1 and which both rightly regard as the same thing as the sense of justice4 ,the tale of ,peter ,ibbetson breathes a great human sympathy4 ,the simplicity with which it is written adds to its effect4 ,we cross a track of horror in it by the ray of a generous light4 ,it is by this book ,i like to think that du ,maurier will be remembered as a writer4 ,it was characteristic of him that he could touch a theme that in all superficial aspects was sordid without the loss of the bloom of true romance4 ,the real plot of this story1 however1 does not lie with incident1 but with the maintenance of an elevated frame of mind in defiance of circumstances4 ,the author realises that mind triumphs always more easily over matter than over circumstances4 ,to the damage of the plot he brings his hero the utmost psychic assistance from an inadmissible source1 but the picture of the prisoner's soul prevailing in the face of complete temporal disaster is still a true one4 ,du ,maurier's publishers believed in ,trilby from the very first4 ,they began by offering double the ,peter ,ibbetson terms1 while generously urging him to retain his rights in the book by accepting a little less in a lump sum and receiving a royalty4 ,but so little faith did he pin to ,trilby that he said ,no6 ,within a few weeks the boom began4 ,and when ,harpers' saw what proportions it was likely to assume1 they voluntarily destroyed the agreement1 and arranged to allow him a handsome royalty on every copy sold4 ,an admirer of ,byron1 du ,maurier repudiated as cruelly unfair the poet's line1 ,now ,barabbas was a publisher4 ,the publisher also handed over to him the dramatic rights with which he had parted for a small sum like fifty pounds1 and thus he became a partner in the dramatic property called ,trilby as a play4 ,illustration #b ,trilby was a name that had long lain perdu somewhere at the back of du ,maurier's head4 ,he traced it to a story by ,charles ,nodier1 in which ,trilby was a man4 ,the name ,trilby also appears in a poem by ,alfred de ,musset4 ,and to this name1 and to the story of a woman which was once told to him1 du ,maurier's ,trilby owed her birth4 ,from the moment the name occurred to me1 he said1 ,i was struck with its value4 ,i at once realised that it was a name of great importance4 ,i think ,i must have felt as happy as ,thackeray did when the title of ,vanity ,fair suggested itself to him4 ,trilby is written with a daintiness that corresponds with the neatness of its illustrations4 ,it has the attractiveness which du ,maurier had such skill in giving4 ,but though dealing with ,bohemia1 the author is conventional2 that is1 he keeps strictly to the surface of things4 ,and every true sentiment of the book is spoilt by the quickly following laugh in which the author betrays his dread of being thought to take anything seriously4 ,illustration3 ,berkeley ,square1 #e ,p4,m4 ,punch1 ,august #bd1 #ahfg4 ,the machinery of the plot is crude2 perhaps this reason as well as the delicate one assigned made ,mr4 ,henry ,james refuse it4 ,but du ,maurier had a curious skill in revealing states of mind of real psychological and pathological interest4 ,the sudden cessation of the power to feel affection1 and of the ability to respond emotionally to nature1 the curious loss of bloom in mental faculty in the case of ,little ,billee1 in this we have an inquiry into a by no means unusual state of mind carried out with scientific exactness to an artistic end4 ,mr4 ,henry ,james would no doubt have preferred this phenomenon as the basis of a plot to the preposterous mesmerism which forms the plot of ,trilby1 he being one of the few who understand that a dramatic situation is a mental experience4 ,in ,peter ,ibbetson the dreaming truly--the illusion that becomes as great as reality--is the phenomenon the author examines4 ,dreaming truly is like the ecstasy of the saints3 it is the will to believe in the very act of willing4 ,du ,maurier was spoilt for romance by his long connection with a comic paper4 ,it had become a habit with him to be on his guard against everything that could be travestied4 ,this was the conventional side of du ,maurier in evidence1 as it is also in that other flaw in the simple story of ,trilby--the adulation of worldly success4 ,we find him constantly writing in this strain in the description of character3 ,he is now one of the greatest artists in the world1 and ,europeans cross the ,atlantic to consult him2 or of another character3 ,and now that his name is a household word in two hemispheres2 and of another3 ,whose pinnacle 7of pure unadulterated fame7 is now the highest of all1 c4 ,illustration #c ,in all his books the author shows some of that response to old-time associations which gives to authors like ,dumas and ,scott their freedom from things that only belong to the present moment--precisely the things1 by the way1 which do not last beyond the present4 ,the consciousness that the experiences of life to be valued are the ones which unite us to those who preceded us in life1 and which will in turn give us a share in the future1 is in the possession of the ,romantic school4 ,but du ,maurier seems to have felt himself paid to be funny1 and to conceal his sense of romance as ,jack ,point concealed his love-sickness4 ,his master1 ,thackeray1 less than anyone apologised to his readers for the parade of his own feelings4 ,there is a note of smugness that spoils ,trilby2 in fact ,little ,billee1 frock-coated1 shirt-collared within an inch of his life1 duly scarfed and scarf-pinned1 chimney-pot-hatted1 most beautifully trousered1 and balmorally booted1 is the most insufferable picture of a hero of a romance4 ,this person compromises the effect of the charmingly haunting presence of ,trilby herself1 and of the great-hearted gentleman in ,taffy4 ,there is1 moreover1 the failure to convince us of ,little ,billee's genius4 ,we are not assisted to belief in the immortality of his works1 by the illustrations of the mid-,victorian upholstery in the midst of which they were manufactured4 ,on the other hand1 we merely have a vision of the type of art which won popular success a generation ago1 encouraged by the ,royal ,academy at the expense of something better1 and keeping a large group of well-dressed painters so much in ,society1 that1 like ,little ,billee himself1 they actually grew tired of the great before the great had time to tire of them--incredible as it may seem1 and against nature4 ,du ,maurier put portraits of his friends into ,trilby1 softening the outlines1 and giving the touches1 legitimate in a work of art1 which promote variation4 ,he wrote impulsively1 and a spirit of generous recognition of the achievements of all his friends almost ruined his book4 ,the lived happy ever afterwards sentiment follows up every reference to them4 ,in the famous character of ,joe ,sibley 7,whistler7--afterwards altered to ,antony1 a ,swiss1 and ruined--a witty1 a debonair and careless genius was created4 ,just such an impression was made upon us by this character as ,whistler's own studied butterfly-pose in life seemed intended to make4 ,it was with the greatest regret we missed the fascinating figure from the novel when published in book form1 a regret even confessed to by ,whistler himself1 though he had not been able to refrain from dashing into print over its publication4 ,there was none other of the ,bohemians described that so endeared himself to us1 or that was so alive--witnessing to the degree to which ,whistler's personality affected those with whom he was thrown in contact4 ,du ,maurier represented a character in ,sibley with the defects of his qualities1 to the greater emphasis of the qualities4 ,to attribute to a man the genius to be king of ,bohemia1 and to receive from everyone forgiveness for everything1 cause de ses gentillesses to make him witty also1 and a most exquisite and original artist--this would have been enough for most men1 though it was not enough for ,whistler4 ,joe ,sibley1 not ,little ,billee1 is the real creation of an artist that is in the book4 #d ,when ,trilby was put on the ,english stage a girl to play the heroine's part had to be found4 ,that was the first problem4 ,and speaking of the fact that a ,trilby did appear almost immediately1 du ,maurier said1 ,there is a school which believes that wherever ,art leads ,nature is bound to follow4 ,i ought to belong to it1 if there is4 ,a ,trilby was heard of2 more1 du ,maurier had often commented upon the beauty of the lady when she was a child living near him at ,hampstead ,heath4 ,he inquired her name4 ,she was already on the stage1 and showing promise as an actress4 ,he still felt sceptical1 we are told1 and so a photograph was sent4 ,he said1 ,no acting will be wanted2 for here is ,trilby4 ,miss ,baird was interviewed4 ,in face and manner1 said du ,maurier1 telling the story of the interview1 she seemed still more ,trilby-like than ever2 but ,mr4 ,tree1 who was present1 was on thoughts of acting-power intent4 ,and when he gravely announced that to be an actress a woman should not be well-born and well-bred1 and that if possible she should have had her home in the wings or the gutter1 ,i considered the matter settled4 ,we drove away in silence1 and ,i1 at any rate1 in gloom4 ,for ,miss ,baird1 refined and gentle1 and well-born and well-bred1 was still ,trilby for me1 and ,i flatly refused to see either of the ladies whom ,mr4 ,tree had in mind4 ,finally1 he thought he would see ,miss ,baird again1 and with her read over a scene or two4 ,he got another cab--returned there and then--in forty-eight hours the engagement was made4 ,illustration3 ,illustration for ,esmond ,it may be found interesting if we revive here a criticism which throws light on the first reception of the adaption of ,trilby for the stage4 ,the play was put on before the ,trilby boom had spent itself1 but critics would1 from the nature of their species1 be rather prejudiced against1 than carried away in favour of1 anything which came in with a boom that was not of their own making4 ,there was a criticism written of the play at the time by ,mr4 ,justin ,huntly ,macarthy which1 quoted1 will give us the history of the boom4 ,it was his good fortune to be in the ,united ,states when1 he says1 the taste for ,trilby became a passion1 when the passion grew into a mania and the mania deepened into a madness1 and he noted that in ,england the play and not the novel kindled the passion2 though in the criticism of the novel1 classed as it had been even in this country with the work of ,thackeray1 he could only recall one note of dispraise1 so earnest and scornful that1 in its loneliness1 it seemed to fall like the clatter of a steel glove in a house of prayer4 ,he recalled a friend of his goaded to ferocity by another's exuberance of rapture for some latter-day singers1 crying out ,hang your ,decadents6 ,humpty-,dumpty is worth all they ever wrote4 ,this1 he continued1 is a variety of the mood which accepts ,trilby4 ,in ,trilby we get back1 as it were1 to ,humpty-,dumpty--to its simplicity at least1 if not to its pitch of art4 ,the strong man and the odd man and the boy man1 brothers in ,bohemianism1 brothers in art1 brothers in love for youth and beauty2 the girl1 the fair1 the kind1 the for-ever-desirable1 pure in impurity1 and sacred even in shame2 the dingy evil genius who gibbers in ,yiddish to the ,god he denies2 the hopeless1 devoted musician1 whose spirit in a previous existence answered to the name of ,bowes2 the mother who makes the appeal that so many parents have made on behalf of their sons to fair sinners since the days when ,duval the elder interviewed ,marguerite ,gauthier2 all this company of puppets please in their familiarity1 their straightforwardness1 their undefeated obviousness1 very much as a game of bowls on a village green with decent rustics1 or a game of romps in a rose-garden with laughing children1 might please after a supper with ,nana or an evening with the ,theosophists4 ,this seems to us to diagnose the case as far as the success of the play was concerned4 ,but as regards the book at which it was partly aimed1 it is wide of the mark4 ,there is something in a work of fiction when it is of sufficient power to make a success simply as fiction which cannot be carried over the footlights4 ,if we only knew ,shakespeare through seeing him acted we should rate him much lower than we do4 ,the success of ,shakespeare upon the stage rests with certain qualities that can only properly tell upon the stage4 ,but great as these qualities are1 in ,shakespeare's case they far from represent his whole art2 there remains unexpressed the fragrance of field and flower1 the secrets of mood1 which do not lie with facts that acting can express1 and which float like a perfume between us and the pages4 ,all this the dust of stage carpentry destroys1 and the unnaturalness of lime-light dispels4 ,the charm in ,trilby is overlaid by the obvious1 but the charm is there for the reader1 just as the obviousness is there for the stage when the charm is gone in the adaptation4 ,the stage is the throne of the obvious4 ,it is possible for art to be obvious and great1 as the art of ,turner was in painting4 ,his art was theatrical4 ,it is the obvious that is theatrical4 ,for that which is theatrical1 as the word implies1 must be spectacular4 ,theatricality before everything else in this world1 in any art1 achieves wide and popular success1 the kind of success that ,turner achieves in the pictures for which the ,english public admire him4 ,mr4 ,w4,d4 ,howells1 in an article written just after the novelist's death1 said3#c--;,it was my good fortune to have the courage to write to du ,maurier when ,trilby was only half printed1 and to tell him how much ,i liked the gay sad story4 ,in every way it was well that ,i did not wait for the end1 for the last third of it seemed to me so altogether forced in its conclusions that ,i could not have offered my praises with a whole heart1 nor he accept them with any pleasure1 if the disgust with its preposterous popularity1 which he so frankly1 so humorously expressed1 had then begun in him4 ,the ,american critic describes the fact of du ,maurier commencing novelist at sixty and succeeding1 as one of the most extraordinary things in the history of literature1 and without parallel4 ,perhaps the parallel has been shown in the case of ,mr4 de ,morgan4 ,mr4 ,howells also speaks of du ,maurier perfecting an attitude recognisable in ,fielding1 ,sterne1 ,heine1 and ,thackeray--the confidential one4 ,du ,maurier's ,trilby was a confidence4 ,but he adds1 ,it wants the last respect for the reader's intelligence--it wants whatever is the very greatest thing in the very greatest novelists--the thing that convinces in ,hawthorne1 ,george ,eliot1 ,tourgnief1 ,tolstoy4 ,but short of this supreme truth1 it has every grace1 every beauty1 every charm4 ,the word ,every here seems to us an ,american exaggeration4 ,we should ask ourselves whether in spite of all its confidentialness ,trilby makes an intimate revelation4 ,the rare quality of intimacy1 that is the greatest thing in the very greatest novels4 ,the boom of ,trilby1 we are told1 surprised du ,maurier immensely1 for he had not taken himself au srieux as a novelist4 ,indeed it rather distressed him when he reflected that ,thackeray never had a boom4 ,illustration3 ,unpublished drawing from sketch-book #e ,although du ,maurier had said that his head was full of plots the supply seemed to have run thin by the time he set to work on ,the ,martian4 ,the value of this book rests with its autobiographical character4 ,the knot is not tied in the first half and unravelled in the second1 after the approved manner in which plots should be woven4 ,the story is chiefly a record of people and places1 vivid1 and written in a breathless1 chatty style4 ,it somewhat resembles the conversation of a boy on returning from his holidays4 ,it reveals a perfectly amazing resource in imparting life to mere description4 ,as a writer1 du ,maurier seemed immediately to acquire a style unlike that of anyone else4 ,everything is described with a zest that carries the reader along1 and this manner is even extended to things that are not worth describing4 ,but he was always slightly apologetic with pen in hand1 never permitting himself the professional air1 or giving a full challenge to criticism by disclaiming the privileges of a distinguished amateur4 ,in ,peter ,ibbetson the artist told the story of his childhood2 in ,trilby he recounted the brightest period of his ,bohemian youth2 in ,the ,martian he records the nature of the shock he received from threatened blindness1 and the depression of days before his genius had discovered itself and revealed the prospect of a great career to him4 ,the effect of ,pentonville1 the grey suburb1 and of the absence of worthy companions upon a romantic1 highly-strung young man in ,peter ,ibbetson is quite autobiographical1 as is the description of student life in ,paris by which afterwards the uninspiring environment is replaced4 ,the continuation of the studentship at ,antwerp1 the consultation with the specialist at ,dusseldorf1 completes the story of du ,maurier's life until he came to ,london4 ,there is literally nothing that a biographer could add to it4 ,and du ,maurier wrote his autobiography thus1 in tales1 which are histories too1 in their graphic description of the aspect of places and people at a given time4 ,up to the day when the artist came to ,london to seek employment from the publishers he seems to have had disheartening times4 ,in the last years of his life1 when he went over the ground of these early experiences in his books1 it was1 as is evident from the style1 in the mood of one who had survived danger by flood and field to recount his tales in an atmosphere of peace he had hardly hoped to realise4 ,illustration3 ,illustration for ,the ,adventures of ,harry ,richmond ,the ,cornhill1 #ahgj4 ,it is evident from his books that he had many inward experiences of a dramatic kind2 that his life was only uneventful upon the surface1 and in appearance4 ,in each of his novels1 as we have seen1 the rather crude machinery of his plot secures the revelation of a curious1 but a not at all uncommon state of mind4 ,he experimented empirically in psychology1 interesting himself in the processes of his own mind4 ,no one can doubt that in more than in outward incident his novels were autobiographical2 that also he drew upon the resources of his personal history for some of the less usual and partly religious frames of mind in which his ,heroes1 each in his own way1 outwit the apparently ugly intentions of destiny towards themselves4 #f ,du ,maurier's literary contributions to ,punch were bound up in the volume ,a ,legend of ,camelot1 c41 issued from the ,punch office in #ahih4 ,besides the title-piece1 a satire of some length upon the medivalism of the pre-,raphaelites1 the book contains shorter pieces--,flirts in ,hades1 ,poor ,pussy's ,nightmare1 ,the ,fool's ,paradise1 or ,love and ,life1 ,a ,lost ,illusion1 ,vers ,nonsensiques1 ,l',onglay ,parry1 ,two ,thrones1 ,a ,love-,agony1 ,a ,simple ,story1 ,a ,ballad of ,blunders 7after ,swinburne's ,ballad of ,burdens71 and then a story in prose1 ,the ,rise and ,fall of the ,jack ,spratts3 ,a tale of ,modern ,art and ,fashion4 ,all the poetry is in the ballad strain1 and by its monotony the reader is put into the right condition to receive a shock from some felicitous twist at the end of a line4 ,thus it is almost impossible to quote from them4 ,the humour rests in each case with the whole of the skit2 and in the case of one of the best of the whole series1 ,a ,love-,agony1 a poem for a picture by ,maudle1 given1 there must be understanding on the reader's part1 of the art cult against which it is directed4 ,the ,rise and ,fall of the ,jack ,spratts is du ,maurier's first attempt at a work of fiction4 ,it is significant that in style it has the lightness of touch that would be expected from the disciple of ,thackeray1 and that afterwards won by its taking character the hearts of the readers of ,trilby4 ,it is the story of a painter1 his wife and their twin children4 ,it opens with a picture of them at home1 ,jack ,spratt dreaming1 even in those days1 of ,post-,impressionism1 showing that du ,maurier was a prophet1 dreaming of the ante-pre-,raphaelite school4 ,in the depths of his bliss a feeling of discouragement would steal over him as he thought of those immortal works1 showing thereby that he was a true artist1 ever striving after the light4 ,he little dreamt in his modesty that1 young and inexperienced though he might be1 his pictures were even quainter than theirs2 for not only could he already draw1 colour1 compose1 and put into perspective quite as badly as they did1 but he had over them the advantage of a real lay figure to copy1 whereas they had to content themselves with the living model4 ,the amusements of this happy pair were the simplest1 healthiest1 and most delightful kind2 they never went to the play1 nor to balls or dances1 which they thought immodest--7indeed they were not even asked7--nor read such things as novels1 magazines1 or the newspaper2 nor visited exhibitions of modern art1 which they held in contempt1 as they did all things modern2 444 and they were devoted to music1 not that of the present day1 which they despised1 nor that of the future1 of which they had never heard2 nor ,english music1 which was not old enough4 ,of their friends1 ,they were few1 but true and trusty1 with remarkably fine heads for a painter 444 their deportment grave1 sad and very strange2 for the death of the early ,italian masters still weighed on their soul with all the force of some recent domestic bereavement4 ,they looked on themselves and each other and the ,jack ,spratts1 and were looked upon by the ,jack ,spratts in return as the sole incarnation on this degenerate earth of all such as had still managed to survive there2 and so they were always telling each other and everyone else they met4 ,and no wonder1 for they were marvellously accomplished2 being each of them painter1 sculptor1 architect1 poet1 critic and engraver1 all in one2 and all this without ever having learnt4444 ,in their hours of sickness alone the ,spratts were as other people1 and sent immediately for the nearest medical practitioner 7or leech1 as they preferred to call him72 their only sickness to speak of had arisen from once feasting mediaevally on an old roast peacock1 in company with the trusty friends1 who had also been taken very bad on that occasion2 and they ever afterwards avoided that dish1 but at their banquets would have the peacock's head and what was left of its tail tacked on to some more digestible bird4444 ,as staunch ,radicals1 they hated the aristocracy1 whose very existence they ignored2 shunned the professional class1 which they scorned1 on account of its scientific and utilitarian tendency2 and loathed the middle class1 from which they had sprung1 because it was ,philistine2 and although they professed to deeply honour the working man1 they very wisely managed to see as little of him as they possibly could4 ,owing to the sudden success of a picture--which scandalised his trusty friends--and the beauty of his wife1 the model for the picture1 ,jack woke up one morning and found himself famous4 ,they were lionised4 ,mrs4 ,spratt's deep-rooted dislike to the female dress of the present day did not last much longer than her life-long prejudice against the aristocracy2 she discarded the medival garments she had hitherto worn with such disdain for the eccentricities of modern fashion1 and put herself into the hands of the best dressmaker in town4 ,and thus snubbing1 and being snubbed1 dressing and dancing and feasting and flirting1 did she soar higher and higher in her butterfly career4 ,the denouement comes when they are cut out by ,ye rising ,minnows--an ,american sculptor--one ,pygmalion ,f4 ,minnow--whose wife was twice as beautiful as ,mrs4 ,spratt4 ,another shorter prose skit of du ,maurier's which is included in the same book satirises the splendid sort of hero1 who conceals beneath a mask of indifference the power to do anything on earth better than anybody else4 ,these prose skits show the neat irony that ,punch was willing to encourage by attaching du ,maurier to the literary1 as well as to the artistic1 staff4 ,but we think it may be said that du ,maurier hadn't the heart to go on with a class of writing in which his great tendency to sentimentalise would have been out of place4 #g ,in #ahij du ,maurier contributed two papers to the ,art ,journal entitled ,the ,illustrating of ,books from the ,serious ,artist's ,point of ,view4 ,it was an attempt to write down the ideas that had controlled him in book illustration4 ,the artist begins the article by protesting that of all subjects in the world it is the one upon which he has the least and fewest ideas1 and that such ideas as he has consist principally of his admiration for illustrations by others4 ,he separates readers into two classes--those who visualise what they read with the mind's eye so satisfactorily that they want the help of no pictures1 and those--the greater number1 he thinks--who do not possess this gift1 to whom to have the author's conceptions embodied for them in a concrete form is a boon4 ,the little figures in the picture are a mild substitute for the actors at the footlights4 ,the arrested gesture1 the expression of face1 the character and costume1 may be as true to nature and life as the best actor can make them4 ,his test of a good illustrator is that the illustrations continue to haunt the memory when the letterpress is forgotten4 ,he cites ,menzel as the highest example of such performance4 ,he next refers to the illustrated volume of ,poems by ,tennyson in #ahfj1 for which ,millais and ,rossetti and others designed small woodcuts1 the publishing of which1 he says1 made an epoch in ,english book illustration1 importing a new element to which he finds it difficult to give a name4 ,i still adore1 he says1 the lovely1 wild1 irresponsible moon-face of ,oriana1 with a gigantic mailed archer kneeling at her feet in the yew-wood1 and stringing his fatal bow2 the strange beautiful figure of the ,lady of ,shalott1 when the curse comes over her1 and her splendid hair is floating wide1 like the magic web2 the warm embrace of ,amy and her cousin 7when their spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips71 and the dear little symmetrical wavelets beyond2 the queen sucking the poison out of her husband's arm2 the exquisite bride at the end of the ,talking ,oak2 the sweet little picture of ,emma ,morland and ,edward ,grey1 so natural and so modern1 with the trousers treated in quite the proper spirit2 the chaste ,sir ,galahad1 slaking his thirst with holy water1 amid all the mystic surroundings2 and the delightfully incomprehensible pictures to the ,palace of ,art1 that gave one a weird sense of comfort1 like the word ',mesopotamia1' without one's knowing why4 ,illustration3 ,illustration for ,the ,adventures of ,harry ,richmond ,the ,cornhill1 #ahga4 ,in the second paper he makes interesting reflections on ,thackeray and ,dickens4 ,when the honour devolved upon me of illustrating ,esmond1 he writes1 what would ,i not have given to possess sketches1 however slight1 of ,thackeray's own from which to inspire myself--since he was no longer alive to consult4 ,for although he does not1 any more than ,dickens1 very minutely describe the outer aspect of his people1 he visualised them very accurately1 as these sketches prove4 ,i doubt if ,dickens did1 especially his women--his pretty women--,mrs4 ,dombey1 ,florence1 ,dora1 ,agnes1 ,ruth ,pinch1 ,kate ,nickleby1 little ,emily--we know them all through ,hablot ,browne alone--and none of them present any very marked physical characteristics4 ,they are sweet and graceful1 neither tall nor short2 they have a pretty droop in their shoulders1 and are very ladylike2 sometimes they wear ringlets1 sometimes not1 and each would do very easily for the other4 ,in #ahfh ,messrs4 ,harper published in book form under the title ,social ,pictorial ,satire a series of articles which du ,maurier had written in ,harper's ,magazine1 and which had originally formed the substance of lectures which he had delivered in the prominent towns of ,england4 ,he speaks first of his great admiration of ,leech in his youth4 ,to be an apparently hopeless invalid at ,christmas-time in some dreary1 deserted1 dismal little ,flemish town1 and to receive ,punch's ,almanac 7for #aheh1 let us say7 from some good-natured friend in ,england--that is a thing not to be forgotten6 ,i little dreamed that ,i should come to ,london again1 and meet ,john ,leech and become his friend2 that ,i should be1 alas6 the last man to shake hands with him before his death 7as ,i believe ,i was71 and find myself among the officially invited mourners by his grave2 and1 finally1 that ,i should inherit1 and fill for so many years 7however indifferently71 that half-page in ,punch opposite the political cartoon1 and which ,i had loved so well when he was the artist6 ,du ,maurier draws a pleasant portrait of his friend1 sympathetically1 and very picturesquely analyses his art1 which has1 he says1 the quality of inevitableness4 ,of ,words set to ,pictures his long description of ,leech's pretty woman is as good as anything that can be read of the kind4 ,then he sketches the characteristics of ,charles ,keene's personality and passes on to his art3--,from the pencil of this most lovable man1 with his unrivalled power of expressing all he saw and thought1 ,i cannot recall many lovable characters of either sex or of any age4 ,but the tribute to the craftsmanship1 the skill1 the ease and beauty of ,keene's line1 to his knowledge of effect1 to the very great artist is unmeasured4 ,in fulfilment of his contract du ,maurier speaks of himself and his little bit of paper1 a steel pen1 and a bottle of ink--and1 alas6 fingers and an eye less skilled than they would have been if ,i had gone straight to a school of art instead of a laboratory for chemistry6 ,he says very little about himself4 ,he concludes with a review of social pictorial satire considered as a fine art4 ,it is evident from the lecture that du ,maurier was an illustrator by instinct as well as training4 ,now conceive1 says he1 speaking of ,thackeray1 that the marvellous gift of expression that he was to possess in words had been changed by some fairy at his birth into an equal gift of expression by means of the pencil1 and that he had cultivated the gift as assiduously as he cultivated the other1 and1 finally1 that he had exercised it as seriously through life1 bestowing on innumerable little pictures in black and white all the art and wisdom1 the wide culture1 the deep knowledge of the world and of the human heart1 all the satire1 the tenderness1 the drollery1 and last1 but not least1 that incomparable perfection of style that we find in all or most that he has written--what a pictorial record that would be6 ,the career of the future social pictorial satirist is1 he continues1 full of splendid possibilities undreamed of yet4444 ,the number of youths who can draw beautifully is quite appalling4 ,all we want for my little dream to be realised is that1 among these precocious wielders of the pencil1 there should arise here a ,dickens1 there a ,thackeray1 there a ,george ,eliot or an ,anthony ,trollope4444 ,does not this precisely sum the situation up8 ,du ,maurier could not live to foresee that1 for all the expert skill of modern illustration1 the youths who can draw beautifully lack a point of view4 ,it was the possession of this that distinguished ,thackeray1 ,george ,eliot1 ,trollope1 ,leech1 and du ,maurier4 ,illustration ,,footnotes3 #b ,the circumstances in which du ,maurier took up novel-writing1 and the history of the staging of ,trilby in ,england were related by him to ,mr4 ,r4,h4 ,sherard for an ,interview which appeared in ,mc,clure's ,magazine #ahie4 ,and ,i have referred to this source for the genealogy of the artist1 as given by himself1 and particulars of his early life4--,,author4 #c ,english ,society1 ,du ,maurier4 ,london3 ,osgood1 ,mc,ilvaine and ,co4 ,introduction3 ,w4,d4 ,howells4 ,,iv ,,life ,,of ,,the ,,artist #a ,to write of the work of an artist who is not a contemporary without reference to the circumstances of his life would be an incomplete performance1 and yet criticism and biography are hardly ever happily fused4 ,the gifts of a biographer are of a kind very dissimilar to those employed in criticism4 ,the true biographer loves uncritically every detail that has to do with his subject1 as a portrait-painter loves every detail that has to do with the appearance of his sitter4 ,the best portraits1 whether in biography--which is nothing if it is not portraiture--or in painting1 are those in which the interpreter has been in a wholly receptive mood4 ,this is not the critical attitude1 which involuntarily takes arms against first one thing and then another in the subject before it2 and this sensitiveness is in proportion to the critic's interest in his subject4 ,du ,maurier told us the story of himself completely in his novels4 ,it was said of de ,quincey that in his writings he could tell the story of his own life and no other4 ,this might be said of du ,maurier too4 ,the story of his childhood1 as we read it through his books1 gives us the picture of an extremely sensitive and romantic child possessed of a great power of responding affectionately to the scenes in which he grew up1 as well as to the people who surrounded him4 ,it is this sentiment for place as well as for people that sometimes gives us in his books a remarkable poetic strain--a strain like music in its caressing revival of old associations4 ,and we really get a very accurate idea of the inward story of the artist when we contrast this temperamental sensitiveness with the kind of work upon which he employed his skill during the chief part of his career4 ,everywhere in du ,maurier's life we find the testimony to his sweetness of disposition4 ,he had the great loyalty to friends which is really loyalty to the world at large1 made up of possible friends4 ,friends are not an accident1 but they are made by a process of natural selection1 which1 if we are wise and generous1 we do not attempt to superintend4 ,illustration3 ,proxy ,as you're going to say your ,prayers1 ,maud1 please mention ,i'm so dreadfully tired ,i can't say mine to-night1 but ,i'll be sure to remember to-morrow6 ,punch's ,almanack1 #ahgd4 ,du ,maurier was optimistic1 he had the genius for keeping tragedy at bay2 for enduring1 for instance1 such a dark cloud constantly threatening as blindness without claiming pity4 ,it is easy for such people to impart charm in whatever art they practise4 ,and it is not true1 as modern novelists and playwrights seem to imagine1 that depth always implies what is sinister1 and that only the surface of life is charming4 ,let us once again believe in fragrance in art4 ,summer is as great as winter4 ,within a sweet-smelling blossom is the whole profound history of a tree struggling to survive the vengeance of frost and gales4 ,it is the fragrant things of life that contain all that has been conserved through unkind weather4 ,one of the chief influences in du ,maurier's life was his admiration of ,thackeray4 ,this revealed sympathy with greatness4 ,thackeray was one who was greater in life than in his art1 as are all the greatest artists4 ,he was great as a man of the world4 ,in a short life his presence made itself prevail everywhere in ,london4 ,it requires1 too1 considerable genius to live only in precisely the street and the house in ,london you want to4 ,this ,thackeray managed to do2 and to know only the people you want to1 as ,thackeray did4 ,this is real sovereignty4 ,there was a reserve about du ,maurier in manner when he encountered complete strangers4 ,he retained the detached and distant manner with slight acquaintances which his role of an observer in ,society had taught him4 ,like all those who have an exceptionally loyal friendship to give1 he could not pretend to give it to every person introduced to him4 ,in this he was1 of course1 no true ,bohemian4 ,in ,bohemian circles it is the fashion to make extravagant use of terms of endearment and to fall upon the neck at first meetings1 and men like du ,maurier reserve the display of affection for the home4 ,art-critics and secretaries of ,art ,galleries1 frame-makers and all those whose business throws them into constant contact with living artists and their art1 know how exactly like their pictures artists always are1 their work being immediately expressive of their own fibre1 coarse or refined4 ,du ,maurier's art reveals a marked preference for certain kinds of people4 ,in life too he was selective2 knowing well whom he liked1 and in whom he wished to inspire regard4 ,the artist's family was of the small nobility of ,france4 ,the name ,palmella was given him in remembrance of the great friendship between his father's sister and the ,duchess de ,palmella1 who was the wife of the ,portuguese ,ambassador to ,france4 ,the real family name was ,busson2 the du ,maurier came from the ,chteau le ,maurier1 built in the fifteenth century1 and still standing in ,anjou or ,maine4 ,it belonged to du ,maurier's cousins1 the ,auberys1 and in the seventeenth century it was the ,auberys who wore the title of du ,maurier2 and an ,aubery du ,maurier1 who distinguished himself in that century1 was ,louis of that name1 ,french ,ambassador to ,holland4 ,the ,auberys and the ,bussons married and intermarried1 the ,bussons assuming the territorial name of du ,maurier4 ,george du ,maurier's grandfather's name was ,robert ,mathurin ,busson du ,maurier1 ,gentilhomme verrier--gentleman glass-blower4 ,until the ,revolution glass-blowing was a monopoly of the gentilshommes1 no commoner might engage in the industry1 at that time considered an art4 ,the ,busson genealogy dates from the twelfth century4 ,the novelist made use of many of the names which occur in papers relating to his family history1 in ,peter ,ibbetson4 ,du ,maurier's father was a small rentier1 deriving his income from the family glass-works in ,anjou4 ,he was born in ,england1 whither the artist's grandfather had fled to escape the ,revolution and the guillotine1 returning to ,france in #ahaf4 ,his grandmother was a bourgeoise1 by name ,bruaire1 a descendant of ,jean ,bart1 the admiral4 ,his grandfather was not rich1 and while in ,england mainly depended on the liberality of the ,british ,government1 which allowed him a pension of twenty pounds a year for each member of his family4 ,he died a schoolmaster at ,tours4 ,the mother of the artist was an ,englishwoman married to his father at the ,british ,embassy in ,paris1 and the artist was born in ,paris on ,march #f1 #ahcd1 in a little house in the ,champs ,elyses4 ,his parents removed to ,belgium in #ahfc1 where they stayed three years4 ,when the child was five they came to ,london1 taking #a ,devonshire ,terrace1 ,marylebone ,road--the house which had been formerly occupied by ,charles ,dickens4 ,du ,maurier remembered riding in the park1 on a little pony1 escorted by a groom1 who led his pony by a strap4 ,one day there cantered past a young woman surrounded by horsemen2 at the bidding of his groom he waved his hat1 and the lady smiled and kissed her hand to him4 ,it was ,queen ,victoria with her equerries4 ,the father grew very poor4 ,he was a man of scientific tastes1 and lost his money in inventions which never came to anything4 ,after a year in ,devonshire ,terrace the family had to wander again1 going to ,boulogne1 where they lived at the top of the ,grand ,rue4 ,here the artist said they lived in a beautiful house1 and had sunny hours and were happy4 ,apropos of du ,maurier's early homes1 ,sir ,francis ,burnand1 in his ,records and ,reminiscences1 tells an amusing story1 which1 whilst of necessity abbreviating1 we shall try to give as nearly as possible in his own words4 ,some members of the ,punch staff who1 with the proprietors1 were visiting ,paris during the ,exhibition year of #ahhi1 took a drive in the neighbourhood of ,passy4 ,du ,maurier1 who had not stayed in ,paris for some years1 pointed out house after house as being his birthplace4 ,he started with the selection of a small but attractive suburban residence1 afterwards correcting himself and pointing to a house much more attractive-looking than the first4 ,soon1 however1 the puzzled expression which his companions had noticed in him before1 returned to his face1 and he called a halt for the third time1 pointing to a large house in an extensive garden with a fountain4 ,no1 he exclaimed with conviction1 ,i was wrong4 ,this is where ,i was born4 ,there's the fountain1 there are the green shutters6 and in that room6 ,the party descended again and poured out libations4 ,after the sleepy stage of a long drive had been reached1 du ,maurier awoke1 and1 as if soliloquising1 muttered1 ,no1 no1 ,i was wrong1 absurdly wrong4 ,but ,i see my mistake4 ,and he aroused his companions to view a fine mansion approached by a drive4 ,yes1 he exclaimed1 the other places were mistakes4 ,it is so difficult to remember the exact spot where one was born4 ,but there can be no doubt about this4 ,cocher6 ,arrtez6 s'il vous plat1 he cried1 and he was about to open the door and descend1 when ,william ,bradbury1 of the party1 stopped him4 ,no1 you don't1 ,kiki2 you've been born in three or four places already1 and we've drunk your health in every one of 'em2 so we won't do it again till you've quite made up your mind where you were born4 ,in vain du ,maurier protested4 ,you bring us out for a holiday1 you take us about everywhere1 and you won't let a chap be born where he likes4 ,but ,mr4 ,bradbury was inexorable2 the door was closed1 the coachman grinned1 cracked his whip1 and away they went1 the party siding with ,mr4 ,bradbury in objecting to pulling up at every inn to toast the occasion4 ,sir ,francis speaks of what fun du ,maurier was at such times1 and of never remembering having seen him so boyish1 so ,trilbyish as on the occasion of the memorable visit4 ,from ,boulogne du ,maurier was brought by his family to ,paris1 to live in an apartment on the first floor of the house ,no4 #hj in the ,champs ,elyses4 ,in the artist's manhood the ground and first floor were a caf1 and he said he felt sorry to look up at the windows from which his mother used to watch his return from school1 and see waiters bustling about and his home invaded4 #b ,he went to school at the age of thirteen1 in the ,pension ,froussard1 in the ,avenue du ,bois de ,boulogne4 ,he remembered with affection his master ,froussard1 who became a deputy after the ,revolution of #ahdh4 ,he owned to being lazy1 with no particular bent2 but he worked really hard1 he confessed1 for one year4 ,he made a number of friends1 but of his comrades at that school only one distinguished himself in after life1 ,louis ,becque de ,fouquire1 the writer1 whose life has been written by ,m4 ,anatole ,france4 ,the artist went up for his bachot1 his baccalaureate degree1 at the ,sorbonne1 and was plucked for his written ,latin version4 ,it vexed him and his mother1 for they were poor at the time1 and it was important that he should do well4 ,his father was then in ,england4 ,du ,maurier crossed to him before informing him of his failure1 miserable with the communication he had to make4 ,they met at the landing at ,london ,bridge1 and at the sight of his utterly woebegone face1 guessing the truth1 his father burst into a roar of laughter1 which1 said the son afterwards1 gave him the greatest pleasure he ever experienced4 ,his father was scientific1 and hated everything that was not science4 ,du ,maurier1 with his enthusiasm for ,byron1 had to meet this attitude as best he could4 ,his father never reproached him for the failure in the bachot examination4 ,he had made up his mind that his son was intended for a scientist1 and determined to make him one1 putting him as a pupil at the ,birkbeck ,chemical ,laboratory of ,university ,college1 where he studied chemistry under ,dr4 ,williamson4 ,the son's own ambition at that time was to go in for music and singing4 ,my father1 he said1 possessed the sweetest1 most beautiful voice that ,i have ever heard2 and if he had taken up singing as a profession1 would most certainly have been the greatest singer of his time4 ,in his youth he had studied music at the ,paris ,conservatoire1 but his family objected to his following the profession1 for they were ,legitimists and strong ,catholics1 and held the stage in that contempt that was usual at the beginning of the last century4 ,the artist himself as a youth was crazy about music1 and used to practise his voice wherever and whenever he could4 ,but his father discouraged him4 ,the father died in his arms1 singing one of ,count de ,sgur's songs4 ,he remained at the ,birkbeck ,laboratory for two years1 leaving there in #ahed1 when his parent1 still convinced of the future before his son in the pursuit of science1 set him up on his own account in a chemical laboratory in ,barge ,yard1 ,bucklersbury1 in the ,city4 ,the house is still standing4 ,it was1 says du ,maurier1 a fine laboratory1 for my father1 being a poor man1 naturally fitted it up in the most expensive style4 ,the only occasion1 he continues1 on which the sage of ,barge ,yard was able to render any real service to humanity was when he was engaged by the directors of a ,company for working certain gold mines in ,devonshire which were being greatly boomed1 and to which the public was subscribing heavily1 to go down to ,devonshire to assay the ore4 ,i fancy they expected me to send them a report likely to further tempt the public4 ,if this was their expectation1 they were mistaken1 for after a few experiments ,i went back to town and told them that there was not a vestige of gold in the ore4 ,the directors were of course very dissatisfied with this statement1 and insisted on my returning to ,devonshire to make further investigation4 ,i went and had a good time of it down in the country1 for the miners were very jolly fellows2 but ,i was unable to satisfy my employers1 and sent up a report which showed the public that the whole thing was a swindle1 and so saved a good many people from loss4 ,illustration3 ,queen ,prima-,donna at ,home ,chorus4 ,o1 ,mamma6--,dear ,mamma6--,darling ,mamma66 ,do leave off666 7,showing that no one is a prophet in his own country47 ,punch1 ,november #g1 #ahgd4 ,du ,maurier told the story of this business in ,once a ,week in #ahfa2 it is written in a highly amusing strain4 ,we have taken relevant extracts1 as follows1 from the amusing story1 partly because it exhibits the artist for the first time as an ,author1 and partly because it continues the narrative of his life3-- #c ,somebody who took a great interest in me 7my father7 had just established me in the ,city as an analytical chemist and mining engineer4 ,now1 if there was one thing in the world for which ,i was peculiarly1 and ,i may even say extraordinarily1 unfit1 it was that very useful profession2 but it is a well-known fact that the fondest parents are not always the most discriminating in the choice of professions for their sons4 ,so ,i had spent two years in a school of chemistry1 attending lectures and performing analyses1 qualitative and quantitative1 and various other chemical experiments1 which ,i used to think very droll and amusing1 in order to fit myself for my future career1 and at length1 thanks to my father's kindness1 ,i found myself master of a laboratory which had been arranged in a manner regardless of expense1 with water and gas laid on in every possible corner1 and bottles1 chemical stoves1 and scales1 c41 of a most ornamental brightness and perfection4 ,here ,i waited for employment daily1 and entertained my friends with sumptuous hospitality at lunch and supper2 here also ,i occasionally astonished my mother and sister by dexterously turning yellow liquids into blue ones1 and performing other marvels of science--accomplishments which ,i have almost entirely forgotten 7in my prospectus it was stated that assays of ore and analyses of minerals1 c41 would be most carefully conducted1 and all business of the kind attended to1 with great steadiness and despatch72 and pending the advent of work1 the scene of my future operations was enlivened by athletic sport and every kind of jollification1 which helped me to endure the anxiety of my parents at seeing me start on the serious business of life so young4 ,he goes on to say that1 thanks to kindness of friends of his family1 employment came3 he was given an order for analysing various specimens of soil from a friend's estate4 ,i conducted these experiments with proper earnestness1 and he paid me for them with becoming gravity4 ,i now thank him kindly for the same 7it would have been undignified to do so then7 and sincerely hope that he has found my scientific research beneficial to his land4 ,then the gold contagion suddenly broke out and committed great ravages4 ,i caught it one rainy afternoon near the ,exchange2 my mother and sister instantly became affected1 but my father1 who was of a stout habit and robust temperament1 and gifted with a very practical turn of mind1 fortunately escaped1 and devoted himself to our cure4 ,thanks to his judicious nursing1 ,i was the first to recover4 ,the gold fever raged worse and worse1 and ,i waited impatiently for it to give me employment2 at length it did so1 in a few months from the period of its birth3 somebody introduced me to somebody else1 who introduced me to the chairman of the ,victoria ,gold and ,copper ,mine1 situated near ,moleville1 in ,blankshire4 ,then follows an interview with the directors4 ,it was necessary that in my interview with the directors next day1 ,i should cram them with every possible technical term that had ever been invented for the purpose4 ,he manages to squeeze lodes1 gossans1 costeanings1 and other impressive words into almost every sentence4 ,it produces a great effect on the directors4 ,the offer of a guinea and a half a day to go down the mine inspires a wild impulse to embrace the whole board in the person of the venerable fat old fellow who makes the offer4 ,this is restrained4 ,i told him ,i would think of the matter1 and return him an answer the following day2 and1 after bouncing myself first into the office-clerk and then into the fire-place1 ,i eventually succeeded in making an unconcerned exit4 ,i pass over my triumphant sensations and the family bliss1 only chequered by anxiety lest the ,victoria ,gold and ,copper ,mine should come to grief before ,i got there4 ,he then travels through enchanting scenery1 and is conducted to the mine4 ,some five and twenty or thirty shaggy rough-looking men were about4 ,these were the miners4 ,their appearance was not reassuring1 and when the engineer left me alone with them1 with a parting injunction that ,i was to make them feel ,i had an iron will at once1 ,i confess ,i felt myself uncomfortably young1 and a little bit at a loss4 ,we proceeded to business at once1 however2 and as ,i met their first little symptoms of insubordination with one or two acts of summary justice 7which ,i will spare the reader1 but which1 emanating from me1 caused me unlimited astonishment71 ,i soon established a proper authority over them1 and we thenceforward got on together capitally4 ,we are then given extracts from a mining diary--significantly left off at a particular stage of the proceedings--used as a sketch-book4 ,an unfavourable report as to the finding of gold is sent in to the board4 ,the miners did not believe in the mine1 and as they perceived that ,i did not either1 they believed in me to a most flattering extent4 ,he soon got very much attached to the miners1 and used to tell stories about foreign lands while they were distilling the pure mercury1 or performing other innocent operations suggested by the board1 enlightening them on various subjects where he felt their ignorance to be equal to his own4 ,my letters home contained descriptions and sketches of them1 and my mamma became interested in their spiritual welfare4 ,surrounded by the halo of memory1 they afterwards seemed to him primitive gentlemen worthy of ,king ,arthur's ,round ,table4 ,he describes existence between the hours of work as full of charm owing to the friendship of surrounding farmers and small gentry4 ,in a ,trilby way he describes how he rode1 and wrestled1 and boxed with them6 and fell in love with their sisters1 and sketched them1 and sang ,tyrolese melodies to them1 444 blessing the lucky stroke of fortune which had made him mining engineer to a gold mine without any gold1 and managed by gentlemen who obstinately persisted in ignoring the latter important fact1 in spite of his honest endeavours to persuade them of it4 ,i have1 he says1 only to hum a certain 'jodel' chorus1 and the whole scene returns to me1 surrounded by that peculiar fascination which belongs to past pleasures--a phenomenon far more interesting to me than the most marvellous phenomenon of science4 ,every artist is an experimental psychologist1 the material for his art is really always some mental experience4 ,he wishes to communicate with his public in the spirit of this experience4 ,with ,scott it was the old associations of places1 with du ,maurier the associations of old times1 of personal memory4 ,this was the frame of mind the interpretation of which absorbed him in his literary art1 distinguishing it1 except in his early ,cornhill work1 from his art with the pencil4 ,there is not much in the remaining part of the gold-mine narrative which can be shown to bear upon the artist's career4 ,the conclusion of the story shows his forfeiture of the regard of the directors by openness of speech to the shareholders as to the proceedings at the mine4 ,such was his experience of a mine in ,devonshire and of relationship with the miners1 who1 with the limited experience of the mining classes in those days1 had some difficulty in placing du ,maurier with his1 to them1 unusual physical delicacy and yet more unusual personal charm4 #d ,the literary gift in the above narration will1 we think1 be evident even in our quotations4 ,but during the greater part of his life du ,maurier's literary gift remained unknown to the general public1 though more than one editor under whom he served on ,punch urged him to take a writer's salary and be on the literary as well as on the artistic staff4 ,it was said that he relied with comfort upon this second talent to support him in the event of his sight failing him altogether4 ,there was a space of thirty years between the above contribution to ,once a ,week and the writing of his first novel1 ,peter ,ibbetson4 ,but it is in that novel that he again returns to the story of his career1 through boyhood and youth1 leading up to the period in which his father started him in the laboratory4 ,du ,maurier had in #ahef1 when his father died1 practically the choice of two arts1 painting and singing1 in both of which he seemed to have a chance of distinguishing himself4 ,and as the essay of #ahfa was so soon afterwards to prove1 there was really another alternative1 that of authorship1 for the gifted analytical chemist4 ,he decided then to forsake the chemistry to which he had been trained1 but remained undecided about everything else4 ,in #ahef1 at the age of twenty-two1 he returned to ,paris with his mother1 to live in the ,rue ,paradis-,poissonire1 very poor1 very dull1 and very miserable1 as he himself has said2 but almost at the entrance of what he describes as the best time of his life--that period in which1 deciding to follow art as a profession1 he entered the studio of ,gleyre4 ,those were the joyous ,quartier ,latin days4 ,he has described ,gleyre's studio in ,trilby4 ,the happy life there lasted a year3 ,whistler and ,poynter1 as is well known1 were his fellow-students4 ,illustration3 ,honour ,where ,honour is ,due ,sir ,gorgius ,midas 7who has not been made a ,peer74 ,why1 it's enough to make a man turn ,radical1 'anged if it ain't1 to think of sich services as mine bein' rewarded with no 'igher title than what's bestowed on a heminent ,sawbones1 or a ,hingerneer1 or a ,littery ,man1 or even a successful ,hartist6 ,mrs4 ,ponsonby de ,tomkyns 7sympathetically74 ,it does seem hard6 ,but you've only to bide your time1 ,sir ,gorgius4 ,no man of your stamp need ever despair of a ,peerage6 7,and ,mrs4 ,ponsonby de ,tomkyns is1 as usual1 quite right47 ,punch1 ,may #ae1 #ahhj4 ,the studio of ,gleyre was inherited from ,delaroche1 and afterwards handed down to ,gerome4 ,whistler1 ,poynter1 du ,maurier1 ,lamont1 and ,thomas ,armstrong were the group of ,trilby1 ,lamont was the ,laird1 ,aleco ,ionides the ,greek1 and ,rowley is supposed to have been ,taffy4#d ,in #aheg du ,maurier went on to the ,antwerp ,academy1 where the masters were ,de ,keyser and ,van ,lerins4 ,it was in the latter's studio that the disaster of his life occurred4 ,he was drawing from a model1 when suddenly the girl's head seemed to him to dwindle to the size of a walnut4 ,he clapped his hand over his left eye1 and wondered if he had been mistaken4 ,he could see as well as ever4 ,but when in its turn he covered his right eye he learned what had happened4 ,his left eye had failed him4 ,it might be altogether lost4 ,it grew worse1 until the fear of blindness overtook him4 ,in the spring of #ahei he went to a specialist in ,dusseldorf1 who1 while deciding that the left eye was lost1 said that with care there was no reason to fear losing the other4 ,du ,maurier was never able to shake off the terror of apprehension4 ,he was apparently a hopeless invalid at ,christmas-time in #ahei1 in some dreary1 deserted1 dismal ,flemish town1 in hospital4 ,turning over ,punch's ,almanack1 the delight the paper afforded him in such unhappy circumstances was a thing not to be forgotten4 ,it fired him with a new ambitious dream4 ,the astonishing thing was that before another year was over the dream was beginning to come true3 he was in ,england1 making friends with ,keene1 who introduced him to ,john ,leech1 whom he was destined to succeed at ,punch's table4 ,the artist left ,antwerp in #ahfj1 and for several months he and ,whistler lived together in ,newman ,street4 ,their studio has been described4 ,stretched across it was a rope like a clothes-line1 from which floated a bit of brocade1 their curtain to shut off the corner used as a bedroom4 ,there was hardly even a chair to sit on1 and often with the brocade a towel hung from the line4 #e ,in the autumn of #ahfj the artist began to contribute to ,once a ,week4 ,then followed a contribution to ,punch for which he continued to draw as an occasional contributor chiefly of initial letters and the like1 until he reached the stage of contributing regular ,pictures with legends beneath in #ahfd4 ,it was not until #ahfe1 however1 that his full pages in ,punch became frequent4 ,in that year he succeeded ,leech at the ,punch table4 ,his career practically began with his marriage to ,miss ,emma ,wightwick4 ,following the example of his master1 ,thackeray1 he courageously married upon prospects1 as soon as ever the promise of regular employment for his pencil seemed to be secure4 ,this was the year in which he illustrated ,mrs4 ,gaskell's ,sylvia's ,lovers4 ,my life1 he once said1 was a very prosperous one from the outset in ,london2 ,i was married in #ahfc1 and my wife and ,i never once knew financial troubles4 ,my only trouble has been my fear about my eyes4 ,apart from that ,i have been very happy4 ,upon marrying1 du ,maurier moved to ,great ,russell ,street1 and1 later1 to rooms in ,earl's ,terrace1 ,kensington1 the house where ,walter ,pater died4 ,in the days when he was living in ,great ,russell ,street the journalistic world of ,london was very ,bohemian4 ,it is true that ,leech had not made a good ,bohemian1 but it was not until some time after du ,maurier's accession to the ,punch table that the weekly dinner lost an uproarious gaiety that is recognised as the true ,bohemian note4 ,mr4 ,punch and his staff all improved their tone1 ,bohemia is now only a memory4 ,it is the very genius of ,mr4 ,punch that makes him respond to the moment and become the most decorous figure in the world in decorous times4 ,one cannot help being struck by a resemblance between the coming to town and the almost immediate success there of du ,maurier and ,thackeray4 ,the comparison has its interest in the fact that as every man has his master1 beyond all dispute ,thackeray was du ,maurier's master4 ,both quitted ,bohemia1 but in ,society always retained the detachment of artists4 ,it was near to ,thackeray's initials that du ,maurier was destined to cut his own on the great ,punch table4 ,he himself described the glamour ,thackeray's name possessed for him1 inspiring him as he climbed out of the despair that followed the sudden partial deprivation of his sight4 ,the only time he met his master he was too diffident to accept an invitation to be introduced4 ,thackeray seemed so great4 ,but all that evening he remained as close to him as possible1 greedily listening to his words4 ,like ,thackeray1 du ,maurier thought that the finest thing in the world was to live without fear and without reproach4 ,it is probable that ,thackeray would not at all have minded not being taken for a genius1 but he would violently have resented not being accounted a gentleman4 ,for him that implied the great heart and the scrupulous honour which ,bohemia does not insist upon if you have great spirits4 #f ,of du ,maurier's great friendship with ,canon ,ainger1 which commenced in the seventies1 light is to be obtained from ,edith ,sichel's ,life and ,letters of ,alfred ,ainger4#e ,for fifteen years1 says ,miss ,sichel1 they always met once1 and generally twice a day4 ,hampstead knew their figures as every afternoon they walked round the pond on the ,heath1 deep in conversation4 ,edward ,fitzgerald himself never had a closer friendship than had these two men for one another4 ,their mental climates suited2 they were akin1 yet had strong differences4 ,perhaps in the quickness of their mutual attraction ,frenchman recognised ,frenchman4 ,but ,ainger was the ,french ,huguenot and du ,maurier the ,french sceptic4 ,both had mercurial perceptions1 and exercised them on much the same objects4 ,both were wits and humorists1 but ,ainger was more of a wit than a humorist1 and du ,maurier was more of a humorist than a wit4 ,both were men of fancy rather than of imagination1 men of sentiment rather than of passion4 ,both1 too1 were fantastics2 both loved what was beautiful and graceful rather than what was grand2 but du ,maurier was more of the pure artist1 while to ,ainger the moral side of beauty most appealed4444 ,both men were gifted with an exquisite kindness4444 ,du ,maurier was the keener and clearer thinker of the two2 he had the wider outlook and the fewer prejudices4 ,their closest bond was ,punch1 which was to ,ainger a delight from cover to cover4 ,illustration3 ,canon ,ainger ,portrait in water-colour by du ,maurier4 ,in the possession of the artist's widow4 ,the artist's love of ,whitby is well known2 he expressed it himself in his ,punch drawings over and over again4 ,he wrote to ,ainger in #ahia3 ,it is delightful to get a letter from you at ,whitby--the place we all like best in the world4 ,he gives a list of places and things to be especially seen there1 among them the cottage of ,sylvia ,robson of ,sylvia's ,lovers1 and ,no #a ,st4 ,hilda's ,terrace1 the humble but singularly charming little house where your friends have dwelt1 and would fain dwell again 7and two of them end their days there1 somewhere towards the middle of the twentieth century74 ,it was at ,whitby when ,ainger and his nieces were there with the du ,mauriers that they were once delighted by seeing ,trilby ,drops advertised in a little village sweet-shop4 ,such is fame1 said du ,maurier1 but when his daughter went in to ask about the drops1 the girl behind the counter had no idea what ,trilby meant4 ,in the summer numbers of past volumes of ,punch ,whitby has figured in the background of seaside scenes perhaps more than any other watering-place4 ,du ,maurier nearly always drew upon it for seaside pictures and the humour of the summer holidays4 ,he formed his first acquaintance with it in illustrating ,sylvia's ,lovers4 ,the scene of that tale is ,whitby under another name4 ,thus he started his connection with the town in circumstances that seemed to him to give it a glamour4 ,not only did he confess an immense liking for ,mrs4 ,gaskell's novel1 but1 as we have seen1 he scored in the illustration of it the first of his great successes with the general public4 ,the gift of illustration1 after all1 is a very rare one4 ,nothing is to be understood more easily than the value the public began to put upon du ,maurier's gift4 ,in a response of that sort the public display true discrimination4 ,the ascendency of du ,maurier as a ,punch artist was more than anything due to the fact that for his work in that paper he drew upon the sentiment of family life from the resources of his own experience4 ,and nothing that we could write here would so entirely reveal the happy character of his own family life as the reigning atmosphere of the seaside and nursery pictures which he contributed to ,punch4 ,illustration #g ,many people remembering du ,maurier's satires entertained a little fear of him in ,society1 and of what he might be thinking about them4 ,an instance of this was shown on one occasion when he was dining alone with ,sir ,john ,millais at the latter's splendid residence4 ,i suppose1 said ,millais1 waving his hand in the direction of the disappearing flunkeys after dinner1 you think all this very ,sir ,gorgius ,midas-y8 ,to me it is merely respectable4 ,as a matter of fact there is everything to show that du ,maurier entertained the same sort of notions of respectability as his host1 though he did things on a less magnificent scale4 ,by temperament he was not quite a ,bohemian1 although he was convivial4 ,it was the convivial side of the weekly ,punch dinner that appealed to him4 ,he abstained from these meetings1 or came in late1 when a tendency prevailed to make them too much1 as he thought1 the pretext of business4 ,he was regarded as singular in ordering an immense cup of tea to be put before him immediately after dinner4 ,he sat over his cup of tea with a bent back1 always with a cigarette1 fuming whilst the business part of the proceedings went forward4 ,when that was over he entered into his own1 regaling his comrades with droll stories1 creating a witty atmosphere at his own corner by his taste for repartee4 ,illustration3 ,the ,mutual ,admirationists 7,fragments overheard by ,grigsby and the ,colonel at one of ,prigsby's ,afternoon ,teas47 ,young ,maudle 7to ,mrs4 ,lyon ,hunter and her ,daughters74 ,in the supremest ,poetry1 ,shakespeare's for instance1 or ,postlethwaite's1 or ,shelley's one always feels that1 c41 c41 c4 ,young ,postlethwaite 7to the three ,miss ,bilderbogies74 ,the greatest ,painters of ,,all1 such as ,velasquez1 or ,maudle1 or even ,titian1 invariably suggest to one1 c41 c41 c4 ,punch1 ,may #bb1 #ahhj4 ,the difficulties with his sight might well have been expected to poison the artist's well of happiness4 ,but it was noticed of ,charles ,lamb that the very fact of possessing the little pleasures of everyday life only under a lease1 as it were1 which ,fate at any moment might refuse to renew1 caused him to be the very poet of such pleasures1 experiencing them with an acuteness that became to him an inspiration4 ,with du ,maurier the enjoyment of social life1 so manifestly evident in his art at one time1 may well have been entered into with something of the fierce delight with which we take our sunshine in a rainy summer4 ,in later years he became home-staying in his habits4 ,one imagines he felt that he had taken from ,society all that it had to give him--the knowledge of life necessary to him in his work1 and friends in sufficient number4 ,it is from about this time that his art shows evidence that an intimate contact with the social movement was no longer sustained4 ,the tendency to repeat himself1 to produce his weekly picture by a sort of formula1 becomes noticeable2 and the absence of variety in his work becomes oppressive4 ,du ,maurier was a man of great natural versatility4 ,for some reason or other he was not fond of the theatre1 but he was in possession of a considerable genius for monodrama1 and often delighted his friends by his impersonations4 ,we have seen that it was once within the bounds of possibility that he would have become a professional singer4 ,his conversational gifts were great4 ,he was a writer of singular picturesqueness4 ,a considerable interest in the progress of science was noted in him to the last4 ,if we look back at the record of the lives of artists to find what manner of men as a rule they were1 we shall find that1 in contradistinction to poets and musicians1 they were pre-eminent as men of the world4 ,skill in plastic art seems a final gift imparted to men very highly constituted4 ,it steals them entirely away from other aims1 but exists side by side with1 while yet it transcends the ability to achieve remarkable performances in dissimilar directions4 ,perhaps it is because1 of all men1 the true artist regards the material world with the clearest vision1 living in no world of dreams1 finding reality itself so delightful4 ,the artist never at any stage of his life lost the rollicking spirit of a boy4 ,it broke out in conversation and in his letters4 ,in narration he reserved the right of every raconteur to make a point by some exaggeration4 ,in letters of his that ,i have seen the note of high spirits may be said to be the prevailing one4 ,for instance1 to the head of the ,punch ,firm1 after a ,punch dinner3 ,jan4 #ad4 ,would you allow one of your retainers to look under the table and see if ,i left a golosh there--and if so1 tell him to leave it at ,swain's1 to be returned by his messenger on ,monday8 ,i must have been tight1 and the golosh not tight enough1 and ,i appeared at the ,duchess's with one golosh and my trousers tucked up4 ,h4,r4,h4 was much concerned about it1 and said1 ',it's all that ---- ,punch dinner6' ,to the same3 ,i'm on for the #beth at the ,albion and much delighted4 ,is it evening dress8 ,if not1 tip us a card4 ,if you do not ,i shall conclude it is1 and appear in full togs1 which ,i will get out for the evening4 ,illustration3 ,o _/ _/ ,o ,o ,o 7,attenborough7 ,i had really hoped to have got down to ,bouverie ,street yesterday1 but the conviction forced itself on me as the day wore on that ,i should never get a cab to bring me back4 ,i know ,i am a back-slider in the matter of the ,punch dinner 7and all other dinners when ,i can help it74 ,i can get thro' my work so much better after the frugal home repast1 and in bed before #aa ,p4,m4 ,not that ,i have been able to indulge in the early couch these holidays1 for ,hampstead1 slow as it is1 is a fearful place for juvenile dissipation1 and parents have to sit up night after night at ,xmas time4 ,i hope you ,wandsworthians have more sense4 ,in an earlier stage of the book we fixed the period at which du ,maurier's work in ,punch was at the height of its vitality at about #ahgi--;and on into the early eighties4 ,and the artist himself seems to have had a strong feeling of increasing power at this time4 ,in ,january #ahhj he approached ,punch for a revision of the prices at which he was then working4 ,by the courtesy of ,mr4 ,w4 ,laurence ,bradbury ,i am able to quote in part from letters bearing out the inference that it was at this time that du ,maurier entered into consciousness of his own worth3 ,jan4 #a1 #ahhj4 ,,dear ,,bradbury1 ,,agnew1 ,co41--,the time has come when ,i think ,i may fairly ask you to make an increase in my salary4 ,the quality of my work has greatly improved of late years and my popularity has grown in proportion1 and these results have been obtained at great expense of thought and labour1 and ,i find as a rule that the more time ,i devote to each production1 the more favour it meets with from the public4 ,it is now a good many years 7seven or eight ,i believe7 since you were kind enough at my request to raise the payment of the quarter page4444 ,since that period ,i have gradually become enabled thro' the improvement in my health to give much more of my time to my ,punch work--all the drawings selected by you for ',english ,society at ,home' have been done since then--and whatever other qualities they may possess1 they are very careful and elaborate in most instances1 and without this care and elaboration they would lose most of their value in the world's eye4444 ,then follows details as to the revision of the prices4 ,and then a day or two later he sends the following letter3 ,jan4 #d1 #ahhj4 ,mr ,,dear ,,bradbury1--,many thanks for your kind note4 ,it is really a painful effort to me to 'ask for more1' and ,i've been putting it off from day to day these six months4 ,the pleasure and enthusiasm with which ,i have got to do my work for ,punch 7since ,i have got better in health and so forth7 are such that ,i should be content to go on so for ever1 without any rise1 if it weren't for my having such a deuce of a family6 but what's a fellow to do6 ,you've no idea what it is to go trapesing up and down1 hunting for a subject1 while all the time the hand remains idle4 ,punch requires such a lot of thought1 you see--and then when the time comes for the hand to do its work1 you can see what care and time are taken with the execution4444 ,i only wish it would suit the convenience of ,punch to take all the work ,i could send on a scale of prices literally fixed by myself6 7ye modern ,hogarth66 #aj1jjj1jjj a year6 ,r4,a4--,p4,r4,a4--,sir ,george6667 ,at the foot of this letter is a thumb-nail picture of ,chang1 du ,maurier's huge ,newfoundland1 leading a blind man1 initialled ,d4,m4 ,the dog holds a tin and begs from a passing fine lady1 a well-known beauty of ,society and the ,stage1 and the legend ,sic transit ,gloria ,mundi describes the situation4 ,illustration #h ,the above letters were dated from ,new ,grove ,house1 ,hampstead1 where the du ,mauriers lived for twenty-one years4 ,they had moved into this house from ,church ,row1 where they had gone when they first came to ,hampstead1 and where their youngest son was born4 ,during the period of their long residence in ,new ,grove ,house they frequently took a furnished house for the winter season in ,town for the convenience of going into ,society4 ,it was the inaccessibility of ,hampstead before the days of the ,hampstead ,tube that made du ,maurier latterly relinquish many social engagements1 and developed the disinclination for theatre-going which ,i have seen ascribed to an aversion from the drama4 ,sir ,frederick ,wedmore says that it was at ,hampstead evening parties that du ,maurier found his type of the ,adonis up-to-date4 ,alas1 that even by ,sir ,frederick ,wedmore the type should be regarded as salient of du ,maurier's pictures4 ,it is further evidence that the artist is only remembered by his later pictures4 ,it is in these the type monotonously appears4 ,but we feel better disposed towards ,hampstead when the eminent critic adds that ,church ,row itself gave du ,maurier more than one of the models in whom one recognises his ideal of youthful feminine charm4 ,illustration3 ,manuscript of ,nocturne ,sun of the ,sleepless--,melancholy ,star6--,,byron4 ,translated into ,french by ,george du ,maurier4 ,the ,english ,illustrated ,magazine1 ,september #ac1 #ahhf4 ,du ,maurier's tastes were very quiet4 ,his interests were centred in his home1 and he found no companionship more acceptable than that of his own children4 ,he was not at all fond of being alone4 ,he preferred even to work with people round him2 writing his novels in the drawing-room standing with the ,,ms4 upon the top of the piano1 and walking up and down undisturbed by the conversation of his family round him4 ,it caused him no annoyance when members of his family broke into his studio during working hours4 ,his work both as draughtsman and writer was always produced without any of that pathetic travail which for many artists and writers lies between conception and expression4 ,he did not exhibit the most unpleasant of the traits of a talented person--the overstrung condition of nerves which makes a man unpleasant to a household2 he preserved the serenity that pertains to greater genius still4 ,his house was always an open one1 and the life in it must have been highly typical of that ,english family life of which he was the pre-eminent poet in his drawings4 ,du ,maurier was elected a member of the ,athenum ,club under ,rule #b4 ,he showed his appreciation of this ,club by not making use of any other1 though he was such a highly sociable man4 ,he was early a member of the ,arts ,club1 though using it less frequently after its removal to the ,dover ,street house1 of old-world distinction4 ,at the ,athenum he frequented the billiard-room as a sociable place1 though he was not very fond of billiards or card games4 ,he could get on quite well in life upon conversation as a recreation1 interspersed with music4 ,after the great ,trilby boom1 and when he was writing ,the ,martian--in fact1 only a year before his death1 the artist moved into town to live in ,oxford ,square4 ,he was partly influenced in this by the expiration of the twenty-one years' lease upon which he held the ,hampstead property4 ,in a paper contributed to the ,hampstead ,annual for #ahig1 the issue following the artist's death1 ,canon ,ainger traced various ,hampstead spots to be identified as the backgrounds of du ,maurier's subjects1 and recalls how on ,hampstead ,heath many subjects for ,punch came to be discussed between them in the course of conversation4 ,he describes the way that one of the artist's most famous jests1 in the days of ,maudle and ,postlethwaite1 took its final shape one day in ,hampstead1 and by a singular chance arose out of a ,university sermon at ,cambridge4 ,a certain well-known humorist of the time had remarked that the objection to ,blue ,china 7it was the special craze at the moment7 was that it was so difficult to live up to it4 ,this utterance had been lately taken somewhat over-seriously by a special preacher before the ,university who1 discoursing on the growing extravagances and frivolities of the age1 wound up an indignant tirade by an eloquent peroration to the effect that things had come to a sad pass when persons were found to talk of living up--to a ,tea-pot4 ,at this juncture the jest seemed ripe for treatment1 and du ,maurier thereupon produced his famous drawing of the sthetic bride and bridegroom comparing notes over the precious piece of crockery in question3 ,oh6 ,algernon6 ,let us live up to it6 ,speaking of fifteen years of constant companionship in walks upon the ,heath1 the ,canon says no one could have had a better opportunity of tasting the unfailing charm of du ,maurier's conversation1 the width of his reading and observation1 and his inexhaustible fund of anecdote4 ,in these conversations ,canon ,ainger heard every detail of his companion's school life1 his studio-life in ,paris1 which afterwards found a place in the pages of his three novels4 ,referring to the long years of uninterrupted achievement of the artist's life at ,hampstead1 only once1 says his friend1 in all the years ,i knew him was he forced to lay his pencil by for a season4 ,his solitary eye had temporarily failed him1 but1 with spirits unsubdued1 he promptly took up the art of lecturer with marked success1 although from the first it was against the grain4 ,when1 however1 after an interval his sight returned to him1 and the literary instinct1 encouraged doubtless by the success of his lectures1 began to quicken1 he gained1 we all know1 though then past fifty years of age1 a new public and a new career in writing fiction4 ,except1 proceeds ,canon ,ainger1 to his intimate friends and to his colleagues on ,punch the display of this gift was an absolute surprise4444 ,he wrote with extraordinary and even dangerous facility4 ,it is fair1 however1 to add that his best passages were often produced as rapidly as all the rest4 ,for instance1 the scene in ,trilby when the mother and uncle of ,little ,billee arrive in ,paris1 hearing of the engagement1 and have their first interview with ,taffy1 was written straight off one evening between dinner and bed-time4 ,this scene1 in the judgment of ,ainger1 represents du ,maurier at his high-water mark as a novelist and as a worthy follower of the great master on whom his style was undoubtedly based4 ,hampstead1 continues the ,canon1 was a real foster-mother to ,george du ,maurier1 not only in what it brought him but in what it saved him from4 ,he was by nature and by practice one of the most generous and hospitable of men4 ,he loved to entertain his friends from town1 and to take them afterwards his favourite walks4 ,but he disliked dinners and evening parties in ,london1 not because he was unsociable1 but because good dinners and long journeys 'took it out of him' and endangered the task of the following morning4 ,the distance from town and the long hills made late hours inevitable4 ,to listen to some new book read aloud in the studio1 which was also the common sitting-room of wife and children1 made the chief happiness of his evening4 ,we owed it1 says his friend1 to ,hampstead air with its many sylvan beauties that du ,maurier was able for so long1 notwithstanding defective sight and health gradually failing1 to prosecute his daily work with scarce an interruption4 ,the link between the place and the work produced in it is in the case of du ,maurier1 apart from the fact that ,hampstead scenes so frequently recur in his pictures1 anything but a superficial one4 ,hampstead1 the artist wrote1 is healthy but dull4 ,it was the very monotony of the place1 the even conditions under which it was possible to work there in his day--when it was farther away than it is in the present age of tubes--that assisted the building up of the remarkable record in ,punch--the indispensable contribution made every week by du ,maurier to the journalism which1 in the days when the fashionable world counted several influential journals devoted to itself1 placed ,punch in its unique position among them4 ,society reserved quite a touching deference for the opinions of ,mr4 ,punch4 ,it gives us some idea of the position into which the paper had worked itself a generation ago when we find ,ruskin1 the greatest social critic of his day1 going straight to it for an authoritative picture of the time4 ,people have not sufficiently remembered how often when they have referred to ,punch they were really referring to du ,maurier1 or what is left now of his tradition--his way of dealing with the foibles of society4 ,the position of the paper in ,society was won by appositeness of political criticism1 and the delicate edge of its satire4 ,it was du ,maurier who put that edge on4 ,society returned fascinated after every wound to inspect the weapon4 ,keene's pen brought immense artistic prestige to ,punch1 but its social prestige it owes to du ,maurier more than to anyone2 we only become aware that ,leech had begun a tradition in its pages by its supreme fulfilment in du ,maurier's art4 #i ,henry ,silver1 a member of the ,punch staff1 who came to the table in #aheh1 kept a diary of the talk of the table until he retired in #ahgj4 ,the present writer was the more touched by the honour of being permitted to look into this interesting document from the fact that the pen of the exquisite ,e4,v4 ,lucas has but lately inspired itself at the same source4 ,this was for a paper of ,thackerayana which concluded1 after reference to the death of ,leech1 ,thackeray's friend3 ,on ,november #gth 7#ahfd7 ,leech's successor1 ,george du ,maurier1 took his seat at the ,table1 and so the world goes on4 ,thackeray bulks more largely in the diary than even du ,maurier1 for du ,maurier's genius in the table conversation was wholly for asides4 ,we have already mentioned his comparative lack of interest in the debates over the large cartoon4 ,and this ,silver himself draws attention to3 ,du ,m4 and ,h4,s4 generally mute when the ',l4,c4' is discussed4 ,the conversation at each meeting is for some time closely confined to the discussion of the cartoon1 then it spreads to every imaginable topic4 ,one feels that one assists at the making of history when the ,great ,cartoon1 or ,cut1 as they called it1 is discussed--as1 for instance1 when the design for the one representing ,disraeli on the side of the ,angels is decided upon1 after his famous speech at ,oxford in #ahfd4 ,the desultory conversation reported in the diary on each occasion after settlement of the cartoon throws a light upon things uppermost in the public mind at the time4 ,it is noted when the ,queen comes out of retirement into the world again4 ,and a vivid reflection is to be found of the horror felt at the news of the assassination of ,lincoln4 ,men as closely united as the ,punch staff have prejudices as clearly defined as those of an individual4 ,there was great hostility to the ,swinburne of the sixties4 ,du ,maurier on one occasion sticks up for ,swinburne as the writer of lovely verses--the weaver of words--the rhymer of rhymes4 ,du ,m4 and ,h4,s4 agree in thinking ,tennyson will live 'chiefly by his songs and minor lays4' ,illustration3 ,george du ,maurier ,from a photograph4 ,du ,m4 thinks ,vanity ,fair a little ,bible1 ,rather an epistle by the ,corinthians1 says ,shirley ,brooks4 ,one night after dinner du ,maurier walked home in the wet4 ,my carriage is waiting for ,silver1 he said4 ,my carriage is waiting for gold1 answered ,shirley ,brooks4 ,sometimes the discourse at the table is of ,religion4 ,du ,m4 believes in ,god1 and that whatever we do ,god will not punish us4 ,a comfortable faith1 adds ,silver4 ,once the discussion turned upon suicide4 ,du ,m4 says before he married he often felt tempted to suicide4 ,in heading his diary shortly after du ,maurier joined the table1 ,silver writes ,du ,m4 and then corrects it 7no3 ,,du ,m474 ,and in another place he writes1 ,du ,maurier says fellows write to him de ,maurier3 'give the devil his du4' ,in #ahfe the proprietors1 getting old1 have put their sons in their stead1 and taken the ,agnews into partnership4 ,the staff talk sentimentally of old times4 ,they drink success to the ,firm4 ,mark ,lemon1 the ,editor1 proposes the health of ,bradbury ,evans1 saying1 men work well together because they are liberally treated4 ,thought our loss last year 7death of ,leech7 would have seriously affected ,punch1 but it did not4 ,and no single loss will4 ,bradbury1 replying1 speaks of the brotherly affection between the editor and the proprietors4 ,says if you want men to serve you well treat them well1 and win their sympathy and esteem4444 ,evans is emphatic on the ,brotherhood of the ,punch table4 ,thackeray's ,mahogany ,tree is sung2 du ,maurier sings a ,french song1 and ,f4,c4,b4 also singeth a song with no words to speak of1 c4 c4 c4 ,so we pass a jolly evening1 and bear in mind--that ,sociality is the secret of the success of ,punch4 ,on another occasion there is the paper's ,silver ,wedding4 ,a watch and chain with eleven links--the mystic number of the ,punch staff--is handed over to ,mark ,lemon4 ,in the morning he has received a letter with a hundred guineas4 ,he claims1 in replying1 that the ,punch ,brotherhood is one of the most extraordinary literary brotherhoods the world has seen4 ,shirley ,brooks hands him letters written by the staff individually1 testifying their gladness at the gift proposed4 ,du ,maurier wrote the longest and ,charles ,keene the shortest4 ,we have extracted the following items from the diary1 quoting exactly1 except for the substitution sometimes of the full name for initials3 ,november #gth--,monday4 ,s4,b41 du ,maurier 7his dbut71 ,h4,s41 ,j4,t41 ,m4,l41 ,p4,l41 ,f4,c4,b41 ,h4,m41 ,t4,t4 7,the initials stand for ,shirley ,brooks1 ,henry ,silver1 ,john ,tenniel1 ,mark ,lemon1 ,professor ,leigh1 ,f4,c4 ,burnand1 ,horace ,mayhew1 ,tom ,taylor47 ,du ,maurier tells of ,whistler and ,rossetti's rage for old china1 and how ,rossetti once left his guests at dinner and rushed off to buy a piece before ,whistler could forestall him4 ,may #ag1 #ahfe4 ,du ,maurier was presented with a son and heir on ,saturday1 so we baptized the infant in a bumper of ,champagne4 ,december #bj1 #ahfe4 ,while the ,great ,cut is being hatched1 ,burnand1 du ,maurier1 and ,silver all make little cuts of their initials on the ,punch table4 ,henry ,silver between ,william ,thackeray and ,john ,leech--,burnand where ,beckett sat and du ,maurier where ,leech4 ,miss ,bateman retired from the stage 7at ,her ,majesty's7 on ,friday--she has rather proved herself a one-part actress1 and so has ,sothern1 whom ,burnand denounces as a practical joker--most unscrupulous in tongue4 ,du ,m4 thinks it harder to write a poem than to paint a picture4 ,but surely there's no comparing them4 ,one mind expresses itself with a pen and another with a brush4 ,jan4 #ag1 #ahff4 ,du ,maurier tells of the gas blow-up at his #ia ,great ,russell ,street on ,boxing-day4 ,girl dressing in the shop for ,hairdressers' ,ball--turned on two burners and lit one and left it burning4 ,du ,maurier and wife dressing on top floor--bang6 like a hundred pounder1 and then rattle--smash--crash4 ',o6 the children6' ',d--n it6 ,they're all right6' first time he ever swore before his wife4 ,sister tried to jump from window1 but ,armstrong held her back4 ,baby crowing in his arms at the fun as he came downstairs4 ,the nursemaids had run away of course4 ,lucky no one on the stairs1 or they'd have been killed4 ,april #d1 #ahff4 ,in reference to a ,ball on the ,haymarket stage--',would you like to go8' said ,s4,b4 to du ,maurier4 ,but du ,maurier's dancing days are over--only cares for dinners now6 ,fancy the old fogydom of thirty6 ,november #g1 #ahfh4 ,du ,maurier cut down to five cigarettes a day1 resolves to ride daily and live frugally3 frightened by his eye this summer66 ,february #bd1 #ahfh4 ,tenniel has almost given up smoking6 ,used to smoke an ounce a day4 ,can eat a better breakfast now4 ,nearly all our ,punch folk smoke less4 ,tom ,taylor has given up cigars and only takes a pipe occasionally4 ,du ,maurier takes cigarettes four a day in lieu of forty4 ,h4,s4 never smokes at all after dinner4 ,only ,keene and ,mark and ,shirley stick to their tobacco4 #aj ,sir ,francis ,burnand1 till recently the distinguished ,editor of ,punch1 was du ,maurier's senior on the paper by a year or two4 ,he has very kindly sent the writer the following impression of the artist3 ,that he was beloved as a cheery1 witty confrre1 goes without saying4 ,rarely did he mix himself up with politics in any shape or form4 ,i doubt if he ever gave us any assistance in devising a political cartoon4 ,what his politics were ,i am unable to say1 and ,i do not think he troubled himself about the matter4 ,in 'the old days' he delighted in chaffing ,horace ,mayhew1 with whom he exchanged 'slang' in ,french4 ,with the jovial proprietor1 ,william ,bradbury1 he was always on the best of terms of friendly nonsense1 being invariably his left-hand neighbour at ',the ,table4' ,he was a genuine ,bohemian of the artistic fraternity 7as given in his ,trilby7 with the true polish of an ,english gentleman1 of the kindest disposition1 and of the warmest heart4 ,all who knew him well loved him1 and none missed him more than his fellow-workers on ,punch4 ,his religion1 ,sir ,francis volunteered in a further note1 as that of the majority of his ,french confrres1 you will find it in the artistic sketches of the men and women in ,la ,bohme ,his guardian angel1 humanly and socially1 was his wife4 ,everyone who knew du ,maurier now speaks of his attractiveness and the simplicity and honesty of his nature4 ,he was not really very fond of ,society because of its code of insincerity4 ,he was its satirist for the same reason that1 much as he liked to be with people1 he was not at-home where manners were affected4 ,the ,victorians who survive to this day hold up their hands in horror at present-day manners2 they object to our natural1 comfortable ways and clothes2 they define our naturalness as laziness4 ,but just because it is so constitutional to be lazy1 the casual modern manners1 so true to the exact shade of our enthusiasm for1 or indifference to any particular person or thing1 express our virtue4 ,we are too honest to pretend4 ,we look back with amusement to the ,victorians1 who put all their goods in the shop window1 whose very movements were so far without freedom as to be subservient to the maintenance of uncreased clothing4 ,a regard for appearances seemed to regulate action4 ,it was an age of poseurs--the age of the professional air4 ,in that age came into use among doctors the bedside manner4 ,shop-walkers then distinguished themselves from the rest of the race by their preposterous antics1 artists endured the misery of velvet jackets2 women tight-laced1 men about town invented the crease in the trouser-leg to keep which in order alone demands the fealty of a lifetime4 ,in summer men consented to be roasted alive on the ,london pavement rather than part with the frock-coat in which their depraved conception of beauty delighted4 ,in those days one imagines people were only comfortable when once safely in bed1 and that was never for long at a time2 for the sake of appearances the ,victorians got up early4 ,illustration3 ,speed the ,parting ,guest 7,things one would rather have left unsaid47 ,we've had such a pleasant evening1 ,mr4 ,jones6 ,may ,i beg of you to ask one of your servants to call a ,hansom8 ,with pleasure1 ,mrs4 ,smith6 ,punch1 ,march #aj1 #ahhc4 ,the ,royal ,academy ,exhibitions of the time proved that it was impossible for a ,victorian to be an artist4 ,the artists of the time did not belong to their own age4 ,we had ,rossetti ever seeking to lose himself in the illusion of another time and country1 and ,whistler trying to find himself in the reality of another place4 ,chelsea was well outside of ,victorian ,london4 ,perhaps ,hampstead1 a place like ,chelsea1 that belongs to no particular time1 was outside of it too4 ,kensington and ,bayswater are ,victorian to this day4 ,rossetti in ,kensington is a vision from which imagination recoils1 ,whistler in ,bayswater one which passes the invention of human fancy4 ,du ,maurier liked to come into ,victorian ,london in a carriage from a distance1 as a visitor1 to be driven away again4 ,he approached its society critically4 ,he acknowledged the distinction of its grave self-consciousness while exposing its ridiculous airs4 99 99 99 99 99 ,just as ,chelsea is a more desirable place to live in because of its ,rossetti associations1 so ,hampstead gains from the memory of the witty and generous satirist who made it his home4 ,new ,grove ,house1 where du ,maurier lived for over twenty years1 might have been designed for him2 it escapes the suburban style that would have been an affliction to one so romantic4 ,nearly all artists who have sustained their powers in a refined field of expression have been glad to count upon monotony in the passage of their days4 ,the adventurous temperament is not the artistic one4 ,the artist values security from interruptions above everything1 and interruption is of the essence of adventure4 ,du ,maurier lived a life that was for an artist characteristic4 ,he was at pains to preserve his days from being broken into4 ,it is above the plane where human life is open to crude forms of calamity and the stress of elemental passion1 upon a plane where freedom from anxiety is secure that art is able to exert itself in attaining to the expression of the more valuable1 because more intimate1 experiences of human nature4 ,du ,maurier died on the #hth ,october #ahif4 ,his grave at ,hampstead is singularly happily placed and constructed4 ,it consists of two carved wood crosses1 respectively at head and foot1 connected by a panel containing1 in addition to the name and dates1 only the concluding lines of ,trilby3-- ,a little trust that when we die ,we reap our sowing6 ,and so--good-bye6 ,the grave is close to the pavement1 and it is impossible to go that way without seeing it4 ,we can imagine that one who was so entirely the opposite of misanthropic would wish to lie like this within sound of passing conversation4 ,,footnotes3 #d ,pennell's ,life of ,whistler4 #e ,archibald ,constable ,co4 ,v ,,the ,,illustrations #a ,it may be well to touch upon some of the characteristics of our illustrations in detail before closing this book4 ,many of them are so obviously involved in what has already been said here of the artist's work that we do not propose to mention them again2 but others suggest remarks which would not have incorporated easily in the attempt we have made to demonstrate the significance of du ,maurier's art in general4 ,taken in the order in which they are printed here1 the first illustrations show the range of effect and variety of line which the artist was afterwards to narrow into the conventions by which he is now chiefly remembered4 ,but if such an effect as that in the picture ,caution1 for instance1 would not have been possible with him in his last period1 it was because the nature of the subjects required on the journal which absorbed most of his energies afforded no stimulus for anything so ,rembrandtesque4 ,he brought such possibilities of style over from his romantic period in ,the ,cornhill ,magazine1 and it must be admitted that the effect in this drawing seems too powerful for the music-hall comedy it has to carry off4 ,illustration3 ,sketch for ,initial ,letter in ,the ,cornhill1 ,october1 #ahhc4 ,a picture bewitching on account of the grace it contains is that called ,berkeley ,square4 ,du ,maurier had quickly perceived that the quality of grace could well survive side by side with any amount of humour4 ,it is interesting to try and imagine what ,phil ,may would have made of the scene4 ,it was intended for a poignant one1 but it becomes chiefly a very attractive one in du ,maurier's hands1 the pathos lying with the wording rather than the picture4 ,the drawing affords us many characteristics of his work4 ,the lady in white reclining in the vehicle is a very embodiment of elegance1 and the discerning drawing that defines the coachman repays observation1 as also the style with which the white horse is swiftly shaded in4 ,it was once the custom for the carriages of people in fashion to draw up under the trees in ,berkeley ,square1 in summer1 for tea brought out from ,gunter's4 ,last summer one of the evening papers asked the question why the custom had lapsed4 ,du ,maurier's drawing of the scene was accompanied by the following lines1 which perhaps provide the answer4 ,,berkeley ,,square1 #e ,p4,m4 ,the weather is warm as ,i walk in the ,square1 ,and observe her barouche standing tranquilly there1 ,it is under the trees1 it is out of the sun1 ,in the corner where ,gunter retails a plain bun4 ,how solemn she looks1 ,i have seen a mute merrier-- ,plumes a sky-blue1 and her pet a sky-terrier-- ,the scene is majestic1 and peaceful1 and shady1 ,miss ,humble sits facing3 ,i pity that lady4 ,her footman goes once1 and her footman goes twice1 ,ay1 and each time returning he brings her an ice4 ,the patient ,miss ,humble receives1 when he comes1 ,a diminutive bun2 let us hope it has plums6 ,now is not this vile4 ,when ,i tickle my chops1 ,which ,i frequently do1 ,i subside into shops3 ,we do not object to this solemn employment1 ,but why afficher such material enjoyment8 ,some beggars stand by--,i extremely regret it-- ,they wish for a taste4 ,don't they wish they may get it8 ,she thus aggravates both the humble and needy1 ,you'll own she is thoughtless1 perhaps she is greedy4 ,the pictures ,queen ,prima ,donna and ,proxy are two early nursery scenes of the many du ,maurier contributed to ,punch4 ,they show the style1 the flowing and painter-like stroke of the pen that revealed such a ,rossetti-like sense of material beauty in his earlier drawings--a style worthy of the refinement of the subject in ,proxy1 the charm in it of sentiment that humour strengthens rather than displaces4 ,the drawing expresses childhood1 in circumstances where it can expand without loss of bloom through contention with unhappy circumstances4 ,it shows the human beauty that expands from the conserved force of life when it has not to contend with unfavourable environment4 ,beauty is perhaps the one certain result of favourable environment4 ,the ideal within ,socialism which makes even its opponents ,socialists is the aspiration that some day everyone will be favourably environed4 #b ,it was a long while before the result of always working for a comic paper took effect on du ,maurier4 ,not for some time did the knowledge that everything can be made to appear ridiculous persuade the artist to believe with his editor that everything is ridiculous4 ,the humour of his subjects is still a part and not the whole of those subjects in his art1 and this was all to the glory of the great comic paper in which he drew1 for the humour of nothing in the world is the whole of that thing4 ,farce represents it so to be4 ,du ,maurier had no genius for ,farce4 ,he responded to actual life2 ,farce is artificial2 it is thus that the beauty and charm as well as the humour of life were involved in his representations4 ,humour for humour's sake has brought about the downfall of every comic paper that has tried it4 ,punch has been saved from it by the wilful seriousness of some of its contributors4 ,every now and then1 with something like ,the ,song of the ,shirt or1 in another vein1 a cartoon of ,tenniel's1 ,punch has been brought back to ,reality and thus to the only source of humour4 ,in the drawing ,honour where ,honour is ,due the point is made in the legend1 but the illustration illuminates it rather brutally4 ,it is a picture in which we find du ,maurier expressing the prejudices of the old rgime against the nouveau riche4 ,it illustrates a prejudice rather than a fact4 ,it was not at all true in ,victoria's reign that money would carry a man anywhere4 ,in that time the man with money only but without birth wanted better manners than the man with everything else but money to get him into ,society4 ,it was less the objectionableness of trade--as du ,maurier in such a drawing as this tried to imply--than the advance of it that the old aristocracy really resented4 ,a drawing characteristic of the artist's work in the eighties--in #ahhj to be definite--is that entitled ,mutual ,admirationists4 ,it really dates itself4 ,it is descriptive of one of the moods of passionate ,brompton4 ,the satire of the three admiring ladies is perfect4 ,in our own time ladies have gazed like this at genius4 ,sometimes genius is really there1 sometimes it is not--but the profound and undying belief of women in it1 often expressed beautifully as well as absurdly1 is the rain from heaven enabling it to thrive4 ,in the expressive drawing of the faces and the bearing of the three ladies in this picture we have du ,maurier's real humour--its reality in its closeness to life1 and his genius in expressing through contour the whole tale of strange sthetic enthusiasm4 ,in an earlier part of the book we showed that the artist exposed stheticism from the inside4 ,he hardly draws any figures so happily as those of bored1 poetic youths4 ,in ,sic ,transit ,gloria ,mundi he does not depict ,the ,duke of the scene half so convincingly as the young gossip talking to the ,duchess4 ,no one else in the world could have drawn so well that young man1 with his weak1 but ,oxford voice--it is almost to be heard--and tired but graceful manners4 ,the drawing ,post-,prandial ,pessimists is not so sympathetic--which means that it is not so intimate in touch and full of knowledge4 ,the straight mechanical lines with which the clothes are drawn are rather meaningless4 ,this treatment represents a convention1 and a bad one1 because it covers the paper without really conveying the elasticity of clothing or the animation of muscle determining its folds4 ,at this stage of his career du ,maurier has begun to work rather mechanically and by a recipe2 he is less curious of form as it actually is to be observed1 and more content with just making a drawing in as neat and as businesslike a way as possible1 with the wording of the legend uppermost in his thoughts4 ,the artist is disappearing in the ,punch ,artist4 ,the drawing of detail1 for instance1 inclines to be blotty2 it is no longer affectionately done4 ,at least the pre-,raphaelite in du ,maurier is now dead4 ,the artist's early drawings1 where his native tastes break into expression1 are pre-,raphaelite in feeling4 ,he made a bad impressionist1 a thoroughly bad imitator of ,keene's success with impressionism4 ,he lost what was most his own when he threw over his belief in glamour1 and took to laughing at his own enthusiasms2 when he ceased to confine his mockery to things that he hated1 as he hated the sthetic movement4 ,the gods revenged his satire of the inspiration of the pre-,raphaelites in the ,tale of ,camelot by taking that inspiration away from himself4 ,illustration3 ,sic ,transit ,gloria ,mundi6 ,by the way1 ,duchess1 supposing that we do succeed in getting the ,house of ,lords abolished this ,session1 won't it be a great blow to the ,duke8 ,yes1 if he ever hears of it2 but ,i shan't tell him1 you know6 ,punch1 ,march #bb1 #ahhd4 ,the drawing ,things one would rather have expressed ,differently 7reproduced opposite page #aid7 represents du ,maurier's final phase at its very best4 ,it has the precision of workmanship of a thing executed to a well-tried recipe4 ,it is dainty as well as precise2 and still in the way the dimpling of soft dress fabric is touched in1 sympathetic1 and characteristic of the earlier du ,maurier4 ,it belongs to the ,trilby period1 but is better than the illustrations to ,trilby4 #c ,the unpublished sketches which we have been allowed to reproduce from du ,maurier's private sketch-book1 and which we are using as end pieces1 are very interesting4 ,in the strictest artistic sense there is very little of the art of pen-drawing to-day4 ,in the work done with the pen for modern illustration the inking-in is too much of an after process of ink upon pencil work4 ,the quality of the drawing is really determined by the pencil1 which is the actual medium of work4 ,in going over the pencil work the ink-line follows it in many cases so closely that it cannot assert the characteristics of penmanship4 ,but in making preliminary small studies for a picture with the pen1 an artist1 feeling less necessity for a certain kind of accuracy1 often uses the pen much more freely1 sympathetically1 and happily because he is actually drawing with it and not merely following over forms determined first in another medium4 ,we have printed the reproductions from the sketch-book about their original size4 ,many of them express the freer qualities of real pen-drawing--an autographic character in the line-work akin to that secured in original etching4 ,the pen is an instrument that works best on a small scale1 in which it can be manipulated flexibly in the fingers2 in this it is like the etching-needle itself4 ,the artist working direct with his pen has before him while he draws the actual effect of his ink on paper1 instead of having to imagine it in advance while he works out his subject in pencil4 ,the vignette of the man lying back in his chair near the leaded window 7page #adg7 has qualities in the shadow of the window that we look to find in vain in du ,maurier's professional work4 ,it is a sympathetic pen-drawing2 the lines express much more than a formula--they secure a dramatic play of shadow4 ,this memorandum--for that is what the drawing is--was1 we believe1 never used by du ,maurier1 though some of the sketches appearing here--that1 for instance1 of the lady with a child in her arms 7page #fd71 and that of the girl in a window-seat1 wearing a frilled dress 7facing page #agf7--;can be found serving as initial letters and head-pieces in the early ,cornhill ,magazines1 carried no farther in finish than they are here4 ,so far as one can judge from the study for an illustration to ,wives and ,daughters 7facing page #cf71 which we print with the illustration as it actually appeared in the ,cornhill1 seems to show that the artist could carry the conception of a drawing a long way without reference to a model4 ,the sketch of the girl near the window affords us1 in its ,whistlerian suggestiveness and refinement1 another instance of the purely artistic qualities which some critics have denied du ,maurier the ability to secure1 his professional ready style being too quickly accepted as completely expressing to the full his artistic nature4 ,du ,maurier seems to have purchased his great journalistic and worldly success at the expense of qualities not altogether dissimilar from those shown in the works of ,whistler1 his companion at the beginning of his career4 ,the pen sketch referred to of the girl by the window1 the soft shadow outlining her face and falling upon the chair1 the play of the line that suggests the contour of her figure1 all reveal something of the refined skill1 economy1 and sensitiveness of expression that distinguished everything of ,whistler's4 ,and du ,maurier's handwriting--witness the manuscript for his ,french version of ,byron's ,sun of the sleepless--melancholy star6 which appeared in the ,illustrated ,magazine--is characteristic of an exquisite artist in its pleasant nervous beauty of style4 ,it is the writing of one who could have etched4 ,etching demands only the most autographic features of a man's draughtsmanship2 it prevents him from spreading himself in the irrelevancies of space-covering lines necessary in work done to meet the demand of the ,editor's measure4 ,the demand must have its effect on those who meet it1 in diluting the intimate quality of their work1 so that it is not always easy to estimate the real strength of artistic impulse in it4 ,as art becomes more self-expressive it becomes more subjective2 it demands that the student of it shall enter into the artist's feelings2 it does not go out to meet him and explain itself after the fashion of the humbler forms of illustration with their purely objective ideal4 ,it is only an educated public that will allow an illustrator the spontaneous style of drawing that some of the wittiest ,french illustrators indulge in4 ,in ,england the demand for what is wrongly inferred to be good draughtsmanship has quenched spontaneity in illustration4 ,photographs1 which are driving pen illustrations out of the illustrated papers1 are in themselves many of them highly artistic and beautiful1 but in another sense familiarity with photographs has damaged the public sense of art and lost us the taste for merry1 irresponsible freedom of drawing4 ,there was no poverty in du ,maurier's skill in illustration2 but one is compelled to believe his resources as an artist never fully revealed themselves for the lack of the encouragement which only a small cultivated public is prepared to give4 ,he reconciled himself to the big public with its less refined standard4 ,his companion ,whistler remained loyal to the few who1 by their quick response1 could follow the work of his genius in its last refinements4 ,du ,maurier had more artistic energy than ,whistler1 but he lived in a less exalted artistic mood4 ,comparison of this kind would be irrelevant but for the fact that behind all du ,maurier's work in ,punch there seems to hover an artist of a different kind from the one which it was possible for ,mr4 ,punch to employ4 ,illustration3 ,post-,prandial ,pessimists ,,scene--,the smoking-room at the ,decadents4 ,first ,decadent 7,m4,a41 ,oxon474 ,after all1 ,smythe1 what would ,life be without ,coffee8 ,second ,decadent 7,b4,a41 ,camb474 ,true1 ,jeohnes1 ,true6 ,and yet1 after all1 what is ,life with ,coffee8 ,punch1 ,october #ae1 #ahib4 #d ,sometimes we hear critics discussing whether beauty is or is not the object of ,art4 ,as a matter of fact it does not really matter much whether beauty is the object1 since it is always the result of true art4 ,craft is the language of an artist's sympathies--inspiration flagging at the point where sympathy evaporates4 ,the quality of craft is the barometer of the degree of the artist's response to some aspect of life4 ,absence of beauty in craftsmanship indicates absence of inspiration1 the failure to respond to life4 ,though du ,maurier fell short of ,keene in breadth of inspiration1 there were still aspects of life which he represented better than that master1 phases of life which he approached with greater eagerness4 ,he expressed perfectly once and for all in art the life of the drawing-room in the great days of the drawing-room1 as did ,watteau the life of the ,court in the great days of a ,court4 ,men take their rank in art by expressing completely something which others have expressed incidentally4 ,there is now the glamour of the past upon du ,maurier's work in ,punch4 ,the farther we are away in distance of time from the date of the execution of a work of art the more legendary and fabulous its tale becomes4 ,in good work forgotten costumes seem bizarre but not preposterous4 ,whenever in a picture a thing looks preposterous--except in the art of caricature1 and du ,maurier was not a caricaturist--the representation of it in the picture is a bad one4 ,we never find in the paintings of ,vandyke1 ,velasquez1 ,gainsborough1 or other great artists1 however difficult the period of fashion with which they had to deal1 anything preposterous--always something beautiful1 however unreasonable in ornamentation and clothes4 ,sometimes it is said that beauty and simplicity are the same4 ,but we have to remember that complexity remains simple whilst unconsciousness of complexity remains4 ,there were several periods of dress that retained beauty and complexity side by side4 ,we find beauty to-day in the avoidance of complexity1 because1 being at last really civilised1 we are impatient of irrelevance even in dress4 ,du ,maurier was never for a moment conscious that there was in all the rigmarole of ,victorian costume and decoration anything redundant4 ,he seemed to take1 in decoration for instance1 the draped mantelpiece with its bows of ribbons1 and pinned fans quite as seriously as ,velasquez took the hooped skirt in costume4 ,artifice is fascinating in those with whom it is natural to be artificial4 ,when du ,maurier thought he recognised merely a passing fashion and hit out at it1 he made far less interesting pictures for posterity than when he took the outward aspect of the age he lived in as being in the natural order of things4 #e ,the ,victorian age--which invented ,punch1 the greatest humorous paper the world has ever known--had no sense of humour4 ,it was the age of serious people4 ,the secret of the character of ,punch as an organ of satire is that it represents the times1 scorning only what the ,english people scorn4 ,this representative attitude is1 ,i believe1 quite puzzling to many editors of foreign publications1 who seem to conceive the business of satire to be mockery of everything4 ,at one happy period of its career ,punch set itself a very high artistic standard4 ,the paper intended to avail itself of the services of whatever artistic genius it could attach to itself by attractive emoluments4 ,it then pieced out its satiric business among its distinguished staff1 above everything else artists1 perhaps not one of them animated with that fervour of attack which is the genius of foreign caricature4 ,these men1 by their several temperaments1 founded the characteristics and traditions of ,punch4 ,they were perfectly friendly1 not at all anxious to make themselves unpleasant2 and the traditions of ,punch remain the same to this day4 ,it would always rather laugh with people than against them4 #f ,du ,maurier's novels are a proof of what an illustrator he was by nature2 he seemed to conceive matter and illustration together4 ,it would be strange to read either of his novels without their drawings4 ,probably his tales would have failed of their immediate success but for the wealth of admirable illustration which make them unique among novels4 ,the illustrations increase perceptibly the appeal of the text4 ,the draughtsmanship is so well identified with its purpose1 that we think of it always in connection with a page4 ,in these days1 when art editors think that any picture reduced to size will make an illustration1 it is pleasant to take down our old ,punches4 ,qualities of impressionism which are everything in a picture hanging on a wall to be seen across the breakfast table1 will seldom be made suitable for book-embellishment simply by process of reduction4 ,du ,maurier established a more intimate relationship with the public who admired his drawings than any humorous artist has4 ,in ,america1 where for many years the opinion of ,english ,society seems to have been formed from his drawings1 the unseen author of them was thought of quite affectionately4 ,the immediate success of his novels there took its rise from this fact4 ,the personal letters which he received from ,america with the success of ,trilby ran into many hundreds4 ,there must have been something to account for all this--some curious flavour in everything he did1 just one of those secret influences which so often put the technical rules of criticism out of court in dealing with an artist's work4 ,he succeeded to ,leech in the ,society subjects1 but he himself has not had a successor in these themes4 ,no one has been able to enter the same field as worthily1 for instance1 as ,mr4 ,raven-,hill entered a field once worked by ,keene4 ,there have been better draughtsmen--from the photographic point of view--than du ,maurier attempting to fill his place4 ,but a place on a newspaper can only be filled by a personality4 ,it is artistic personality that has been wanting in recent years in ,punch on the side of the fashionable satire which ,leech and du ,maurier successively had made their own4 ,we have pointed out that his work in ,punch was at its best when he was going most into ,society4 ,that is characteristic of all artists--that their inspiration flames or dies in proportion to the immediacy of their contact with actuality4 ,having chosen the world for his theme1 he could make nothing of it when he ceased to go out4 ,in his earlier and middle period1 living in evening-clothes1 he drew with an inexhaustible impulse4 ,when he thought he had his world by heart and could reconstruct with the aid of some obliging friends who consented to pose1 he gave us pleasant pictures of his friends posing1 but the great record he had put together in the sixties1 seventies1 the early eighties of the ,london of his time was at an end4 ,then it was that he repeated his formul1 his ,things one would have expressed otherwise1 and others of like series without introducing any freshness of situation1 carrying out the brief dialogues with figures in which there was little variation of character--as little variation as there is in the same model employed on two different days4 ,all this has been touched upon in this book1 but we must insist upon it1 for the memory of the real du ,maurier has nothing so much to fear as our memory of du ,maurier when he was1 as an artist1 not quite himself4 ,illustration3 ,things ,one ,would ,rather have ,expressed ,differently ,fair ,hostess4 ,good-night1 ,major ,jones4 ,we're supposed to breakfast at nine2 but we're not very punctual people4 ,indeed1 the later you appear to-morrow morning1 the better pleased we shall all be6 ,may #ac1 #ahic4 ,we hope we have performed the funeral of the less deserving side of his work1 thereby releasing the immortal part of it to the fuller recognition due to it from connoisseurs4 ,all du ,maurier's drawings in his best period are distinguished by the sharpness of contrast between black and white in them4 ,ruskin1 whilst approving in his ,art of ,england of du ,maurier's use of black to indicate colour1 thought he carried the black and white contrast to chess-board pattern excess4 ,in later years1 submitting to the influence of ,keene's method1 in which black is always used to secure effects of tone instead of colour1 du ,maurier's style underwent a transformation which1 from the purely artistic point of view1 was not to its advantage4 ,keene's method was justified in his extreme sensitiveness to what painters define as values--the relation in tone of one surface to another4 ,this particular kind of sensitiveness was not characteristic of du ,maurier's vision1 nor was a style so dependent upon subtlety of the kind suited to express his mind4 ,and here it is interesting to emphasise the connection which is so often overlooked between temperament and style4 ,in the observation of human character itself du ,maurier always perceived the broad and distinctive features2 the broad ones of type rather than the subtle ones of individuals2 things for him were either black or white1 beautiful or ugly4 ,the twilight in which beauty and ugliness merge1 in which the heroic and the villainous mingle1 was unknown to him--a region in which the white figure of a hero is as impossible as the black one of a real villain4 ,he observes subtly enough the airs of those who interest him1 but he is not interested in everybody4 ,he doesn't think much of people who1 through lack either of physical or moral stature1 can enter the drawing-room unperceived4 ,he is not sympathetic to neutral characters4 ,it was because the ,victorians cultivated magnificence that his somewhat rhetorical art described them with such reality4 ,his pictures were a mirror to the age4 ,keene was like ,shakespeare--the types he drew might change in costume with the times1 but would reappear in every generation4 ,but du ,maurier only drew ,victorians4 ,and thus his art has that vivid local colour which is the vital characteristic of effective satire4 ,it is significant that the artist had nursed throughout his youth an enthusiasm for ,byron4 ,until the influence of ,mr4 ,bernard ,shaw had chilled the air1 ,england remained under the spell of that romantic poet4 ,the ,victorians in everything betrayed the love of glamour4 ,they exalted the unknown ,disraeli out of sheer delight at his ,byronic ability to irradiate everything with romance4 ,there has never been a moment like the present in which there is a complete absence of pride in tradition1 which is pleasure in romance4 ,but the reason is simple4 ,our traditions belong to the pre-,industrial time4 ,the romance of the ,victorians was a last glow in the sky4 ,we might even go as far as to read an occult significance into the art of ,turner1 the great painter of the sunset4 ,we nowadays go back to du ,maurier's pictures1 where the after-glow remains1 and they seem separated from us by something thicker than time1 as if a great wall had been built up between the age of the twopenny tube and that of the carriage-and-pair4 ,and lest there should remain a link between them1 over which we might be sentimental1 the face of ,buckingham ,palace is to be despoiled1 the long grey outline1 characteristic of ,english monarchy in its reticence and repose1 is1 we imagine1 to give place to something in the image of a prosperous ,insurance ,office4 ,already du ,maurier's art is very precious2 the environment of the people whom he depicted is everywhere being smashed up4 ,our curiosity is sharpened for everything that remains to reflect those people to us4 ,our debt to the mirror of du ,maurier's art increases every hour4 ,illustration