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There is the psychology of individuals and the psychology of a whole society the latter was du Maurier's theme. It is generally an obsession, a "fad," a "craze," or "fashion" that his pencil exploits. He does not with Keene laugh with an individual at another individual. His art is well-bred in its style partly through the fact of its limitations.
The illustrations are made very small in process of printing, but du Maurier's art never lost by reduction.
Like other sots, the more the literary bacchanal drinks the more he thirsts appetite increased by what it feeds upon. We can forgive Byron and Boccaccio the lax morals of their productions because of their literary excellence, just as we wink at the little social lapses of Sarah Bernhardt because of her unapproachable genius; but Du Maurier's book is wholly bad.
This particular kind of sensitiveness was not characteristic of du Maurier's vision, nor was a style so dependent upon subtlety of the kind suited to express his mind. And here it is interesting to emphasise the connection which is so often overlooked between temperament and style.
Alas, that even by Sir Frederick Wedmore the type should be regarded as salient of du Maurier's pictures. It is further evidence that the artist is only remembered by his later pictures. It is in these the type monotonously appears.
They were by nature impressionable to a different aspect of life, and in self expression they required a different method. 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 scenes.
I must skip a few years and speak of a drawing that appeared in Punch in 1875, and which has a special interest for me; it brings back to my mind a happy thought of du Maurier's, which is closely connected with a particularly happy thought of my own, that took root then and has flourished ever since.
The curious may see in this book what du Maurier's art was at its worst, 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 vein. There is one other book, published in 1874, which du Maurier illustrated at that time which should be mentioned. It had, we believe, a great success of a popular kind.
After the appearance of his first drawing in Punch, for more than a year du Maurier's connection with the paper seems to have been maintained by the execution of initial letters for it. Mr. W.L. Bradbury, zealous in the preservation of all records that redound to the glory of Punch, has in one or two instances had pulls taken from the wood blocks upon special paper.
Well, he was one of du Maurier's earliest friends, and when Taffy the Laird, and Little Billie, "a-smokin' their pipes and cigyars," told the cabby to drive to Mechelen Lodge, I found my way to what I called Moray Lodge, and met them there.
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