(1834-1896)
[Illustration: GEORGE DU MAURIER]
George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier was born in Paris on March
6th, 1834, and his early life was passed there. His father was a
Frenchman, who had married an Englishwoman in Paris. The Du Mauriers
came of an old family in Brittany, Du Maurier's grandfather having
been a small _rentier_, who derived his living from glass-works.
During Du Maurier's childhood his parents removed to Belgium and
thence to London. At seventeen years of age he tried for a degree at
the Sorbonne in Paris, but was not successful; and he was put, much
against his will, to study chemistry under Dr. Williamson at
University College, London. Du Maurier's father, whose characteristics
are described in 'Peter Ibbetson,' was an amateur of science. It has
been hinted by the son that certain unlucky experiments, which were
the result of the elder Du Maurier's fancy for the natural sciences,
considerably impaired the family fortunes. The father had bent his
heart on the son's being a man of science, but the son's tastes were
all for art. He did therefore little good in his chemical studies.
Du Maurier's father died in 1856, and he then devoted himself
definitely to art. He worked at the British Museum, and made
considerable progress there. He next went to Paris, and lived the life
which he has described in 'Trilby.' In 1857 he attended the Academy at
Antwerp, and studied under De Kaiser and Van Lerius. His severe
studies at Antwerp had the result that his sight was seriously
impaired, and he lost the use of his left eye. After two years of
enforced idleness he went to London to seek his fortune. An old
acquaintance of his student life in Paris introduced him to Charles
Reade, who in turn introduced him to Mark Lemon, the editor of Punch.
Through these acquaintances he obtained employment in drawing for Once
a Week, Punch, and the Cornhill Magazine. On the death of Leech in
1864 he was regularly attached to the staff of Punch, and till the
time of his death continued to work for that periodical with
ever-increasing success. It is not too much to say that for many years
Punch was chiefly and mainly Du Maurier. He early marked out for
himself an entirely new path, which was not in the direction of
caricature or broad comedy; grace, sentiment, and wit, rather than
fun, were the characteristics of his work. He confined himself almost
entirely to society, so that his field was a narrower one than that of
some of his coadjutors. He had not, for instance, the masculine
breadth of Leech, who represented with great strength and humor the
chief characters of English life,--the parson, the soldier, the
merchant, the farmer, etc.
Du Maurier was almost entirely a carpet knight. He drew London
society, and a certain phase of London society. The particular society
which he represented is of very recent existence. Thirty years ago
there was but one society in London. This was simply the ancient
aristocratic society of England, which gathered in London in the
season. It is true that there was an artistic society in London at
that time, but it was quite apart and of little general recognition or
influence. But since then there has come up in London a society made
up chiefly of artists, professional people, and successful merchants
(having moreover its points of contact with the old society), which is
very strong and influential. It is this which Du Maurier knew, and
which he represented. Even here, however, the types he has selected
for description were very special. But they were presented with so
much grace and charm that the public never tired of them. To his type
of woman he was especially faithful: the tall woman with long throat
and well-defined chin, much resembling the figures of Burne-Jones and
Rossetti, only somewhat more mundane. We have the same woman in the
heroine of 'Trilby.'
Though Du Maurier, before beginning 'Peter Ibbetson,' had never
written a book, he had had considerable literary experience, for he is
said to have spent as much time upon the construction of the dialogues
which accompanied his pictures as upon the pictures themselves. The
story of 'Peter Ibbetson' he had often related to his friends, who had
urged him to write it down. This he finally did,--at the special
instance, it is said, of Henry James. It appeared in Harper's Magazine
in 1891. 'Trilby' was published in 1894 in Harper's Magazine, and at
once attained a great popular success. The publishers estimate that
about 250,000 copies of the book have been sold. Du Maurier had sold
the book outright for L2,000, but when it became apparent that the
work was to be a success, the publishers admitted the author to a
royalty, paying at one time $40,000. They also shared with him the
large sums paid for the dramatization of the work. For 'The Martian,'
his last novel, he received L10,000 outright. This also was published
in Harper's Magazine.
It is perhaps too early to pass judgment upon the merits of these
works. They have, no doubt, grave faults. The story of 'Peter
Ibbetson' has been completed when it is but two-thirds told. The
remaining portion of the book is a dream. This is of course a
dangerous reversal of the usual method of the story-teller, which is
to make dreams seem like facts. The hypnotic part of 'Trilby' is said
by the professional authorities on the subject to be bad science. The
hypnotism in 'Trilby' was perhaps a journalist's idea, that subject
being much talked of at the time the book was written. Du Maurier, it
need hardly be said, was by training a journalist, although the
training had been of the pencil rather than of the pen. The literary
style of the novels is curious. It makes no pretensions to finish; the
grammar even is sometimes at fault. But on the other hand, it has
decided merits. It is particularly easy, flowing, and simple. These
are not the qualities we should have expected from the nature of Du
Maurier's literary training. The brief dialogues which he has for so
many years appended to his sketches in 'Punch' would have educated, we
should have thought, the qualities of brevity and point rather than
those of ease and fullness. Certain peculiarities of the style cannot
be defended, but the author produces his effects in spite of such
solecisms. This is true of the matter of his stories as well as of the
style. They are at many points inartistically constructed; but the
stuff is good, and the works therefore hold their own in spite of
these drawbacks. They certainly have one virtue, which is most
necessary to the success of any work of the imagination: they have
reality. We believe as we read, and continue to believe after we have
ceased reading, that the Major and Mimsey and Taffy and Trilby are
real persons. They are real to us because they have in the first case
been real to their creator. It is possible, however, that the pictures
which accompany the text may increase the strength of the illusion.
No book, in recent years at any rate, has had so instantaneous and
prodigious a popular success as 'Trilby.' Popularity is always hard to
explain with any certainty. It seems to be a quality in the warp and
woof of the mind of the man that has it. One condition appears to be
that he shall be in sympathy with the minds of the mass of his
fellow-beings. There was such a sympathy in Du Maurier's case; and to
be more particular, his kindly and friendly enthusiasm was a quality
to commend him to men. He had a power of enjoying beauty in his
fellow-beings. Then he had had a long education in the qualities that
make popularity. He had long studied the art of pleasing. It is not
improbable that in these novels, which were intended for the American
public, he may have played upon certain of our national
susceptibilities. We in this country like to have our literature
taken seriously by the European. It may be that Du Maurier may have
had an inkling of this, for it is curious to note how much of our
poetry appears in these novels. Du Maurier had a very nice taste in
poetry, a genuine enthusiasm for it which it is heartily to be wished
were shared by all college professors of English literature. Thus, he
could not have chosen better lines than those which Peter Ibbetson was
in the habit of reciting to Mimsey, 'The Water-fowl' of
Bryant,--perhaps the most perfect poem ever produced in this
country,--a poem so "beautifully carried," as Matthew Arnold once
described it to the present writer. Poe's beautiful and musical lines,
written by him at fourteen,--'Helen, thy beauty is to me,'--are also
made use of. We have a good deal of Longfellow and other American
writers. 'Ben Bolt' is of course an American song. These appeals to
our national predilections may have influenced us. But the interest
and curiosity of our practical and hard-working American public in the
Bohemian art life of the Latin Quarter was also, no doubt, a chief
cause of the popularity of 'Trilby.'
Du Maurier did not live long to enjoy his success. He had always been
known to his friends as a sensitive man, this quality being ascribed
to ill health. Ill health was no doubt a chief cause of the vexation
with which he received certain comments upon his books, in some cases
inspired by envy of his success. Many of his recent contributions to
Punch have been at the expense of the unsuccessful author, and have
supported the thesis that ill success was not an indubitable proof of
genius. When Lord Wolseley asked him what would be the title of his
next novel, he said 'Soured by Success.' He died in London on October
8th, 1896.