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In the end of the year 1620 he promises his brother to send him his observations on Seneca's Tragedies: These he had written at Vossius's desire . He acknowledges his conjectures are sometimes very bold; but is not so attached to them, but he will submit them to Vossius, and leaves them entirely to him. We have seen that Du Maurier employed his best offices for Barnevelt and Grotius.
See Du Maurier, Le Vassor, La Neuville, Le Clerc. Hist. de la mere & du fils, t. 2. p. 380. XIII. Grotius's trial did not come on till five days after Barnevelt's execution.
His line is altogether less intense in the next book we have to consider Philips's As in a Looking Glass . 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 us. We have, we feel, said good-bye to the du Maurier who added so much lustre to the illustrative work of the period just preceding its publication.
The story is chiefly a record of people and places, vivid, and written in a breathless, chatty style. It somewhat resembles the conversation of a boy on returning from his holidays. It reveals a perfectly amazing resource in imparting life to mere description. As a writer, du Maurier seemed immediately to acquire a style unlike that of anyone else.
Both, too, were fantastics; both loved what was beautiful and graceful rather than what was grand; but du Maurier was more of the pure artist, while to Ainger the moral side of beauty most appealed.... Both men were gifted with an exquisite kindness.... Du Maurier was the keener and clearer thinker of the two; he had the wider outlook and the fewer prejudices."
What made Grotius uneasy was, that on the promises made him he had hired a house. His wife came to Paris in October, 1621 , and their expences so much exceeded the small revenue which he had still left, that he wrote to Du Maurier, December 3, 1621, that if something were not done for him soon, he must seek a settlement in Germany, or hide himself in some corner of France.
Du Maurier, who had not stayed in Paris for some years, pointed out house after house as being his birthplace. He started with the selection of a small but attractive suburban residence, afterwards correcting himself and pointing to a house much more attractive-looking than the first.
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 skill. Take, for instance, his drawing of an artist sitting gloomily before his fire, caressed by his wife, who bends over him, saying, "You seem depressed, darling. Have you had a pleasant dinner?"
And who shall say how much Jewish blood dilutes the nations of the Occident, for all their chauvinistic talk! Mr. Du Maurier, in his unmentionable novel, suspects, like Lowell, that a drop of it has lurked in every artistic temperament. And, in sober truth, the drain from Israel throughout the centuries has been immense.
"No, you don't, Kiki; you've been born in three or four places already, and we've drunk your health in every one of 'em; so we won't do it again till you've quite made up your mind where you were born." In vain du Maurier protested. "You bring us out for a holiday, you take us about everywhere, and you won't let a chap be born where he likes." But Mr.
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