George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians Part 2

Mr. Jones. "No, they couldn't come, Mrs. Smith. The fact is, they're saving themselves for Mrs. Brown's Dance to-morrow, you know!" (January 9, 1886).

Under the heading "Feline Amenities":

Fair Hostess (to Mrs. Masham, who is looking her very best). "How-dy-do, dear? I hope you're not so tired as you look!"

Sympathetic Lady Guest. "Don't be unhappy about the rain, dear Mrs. Bounderson-it will soon be over, and your garden will be lovelier than ever."

Little Mrs. Goldmore Bounderson (who is giving her first Garden Party). "Yes; but I'm afraid it will keep my most desirable guests from coming!"

This last duologue is pure du Maurier. It is subtle.

"Feline Amenities" again:

"How kind of you to call-I'm sorry to have kept you waiting!"

"Oh, don't mention it.-I've not been at all bored! I've been trying to imagine what I should do to make this room look comfortable if it were mine!" (November 22, 1892).

The "Things one would rather have expressed otherwise" is a good series too:

The Professor (to Hostess). "Thank you so much for a most delightful evening! I shall indeed go to bed with pleasant recollections-and you will be the very last person I shall think of!"

And again, of the same series:

Fair Hostess. "Good-night, Major Jones. We're supposed to breakfast at nine, but we're not very punctual people. Indeed the later you appear to-morrow morning, the better pleased we shall all be" (May 13, 1893).

"Things one would rather have left unsaid":

He. "Yes, I know Bootle slightly, and confess I don't think much of him!"

She. "I know him a little too. He took me in to dinner a little while ago!"

He. "Ah, that's just about all he's fit for!"

The Hostess. "Dear Miss Linnet! would you-would you sing one of those charming ballads, while I go and see if supper's ready?"

The Companion. "O, don't ask me-I feel nervous. There are so many people."

The Hostess. "O, they won't listen, bless you! not one of them! Now DO!!!"

And here is a conversation that betrays the presence of one of the currents of public feeling below the smooth surface of well-bred twaddle:

In the Metropolitan Railway. "I beg your pardon, but I think I had the pleasure of meeting you in Rome last year?"

"No, I've never been nearer to Rome than St. Alban's."

"St. Alban's? Where is that?"

"Holborn."

Some rather amusing speeches of a different character in which du Maurier a.s.sails the more obvious forms of sn.o.bbery of a cla.s.s below those with whom his art was generally concerned may be given:

Among the Philistines. Grigsby. "Do you know the Joneses, Mrs. Brown?"

"No, we-er-don't care to know Business people as a rule, although my husband's in business; but then he's in the Coffee Business and they're all gentlemen in the Coffee Business, you know!"

Grigsby (who always suits himself to his company). "Really now! Why, that's more than can be said of the Army, the Navy, the Church, the Bar, or even the House of Lords! I don't wonder at your being rather exclusive!" (Punch's Almanac, 1882).

"I see your servants wear c.o.c.kades now, Miss Shoddson!"

"Yes, Pa's just become a member of the Army and Navy Stores."

Sketch for ill.u.s.tration for "Wives and Daughters" 1865.

When du Maurier confined himself to observing and to recording he never failed for subjects. But we suppose as a concession to a section of the public he felt a leaven of mere jokes was demanded from him every year. The scene of his struggle to invent those "jokes" is one to be veiled. 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 published. A black and white artist has told the writer that the Art-Editors of papers look first at the joke. The drawing is accepted or rejected on the joke. We can only be glad that this was not entirely the editorial practice on Punch in du Maurier's time. Perhaps the subjoined "joke" of du Maurier's from Punch is the worst in the world:

"I say, cousin Constance, I've found out why you always call your Mamma 'Mater.'"

"Why, Guy?"

"Because she's always trying to find a mate for you girls."

And yet if the drawing accompanying this joke be looked at first, it delights with its charm and distinction. Here then is a psychological fact; the drawing itself seems to the eye a poorer affair once the poor joke has been read. Having suffered in this way several times in following with admiration the pencil of du Maurier through the old volumes of Punch, we at last hit upon the plan of always covering the joke and enjoying first the picture for its own sake, 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 conversation. There are some of the drawings for jokes which we should very much like to have included with our ill.u.s.trations, but the human mind being so const.i.tuted that it goes direct to the legend of an ill.u.s.tration, feeling "sold" if it isn't there, and the "jokes" in some of these instances being so fatal to the understanding of the atmosphere and charm of the drawing, we have had to abandon the idea of doing so. What the reader has to understand is that circ.u.mstances harnessed du Maurier to a certain business; he imported all manner of extraneous graces into it, and thus gave a determination to the character of the art of satire which it will never lose. The pages of Punch were enriched, beautified, and made more delicately human. Punch gained everything through the connection and du Maurier a stimulus in the demand for regular work. But it is not impossible to imagine circ.u.mstances which, but for this early connection with Punch, would have awakened and developed a different and perhaps profounder side of du Maurier, of which we seem to get a glimpse in the ill.u.s.trations to Meredith in The Cornhill Magazine.

--8

The famous reply of an early Editor to the usual complaint that Punch was not as good as it used to be-"No, sir, 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 sway. There have been periods, there is such a one now, when the literary side of Punch has touched a high-water mark. But on the ill.u.s.trative side Punch seems to be always hoping that another Keene or du Maurier will turn up. It does not seem prepared to accept work in quite another style. But there is no more chance of there ever being another Keene than of there being another Rembrandt, or of there ever being another du Maurier than another Watteau. The next genius to whom it is given to illuminate the pages of the cla.s.sic 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 predecessors. By force of his genius-or, if you prefer it, of sympathy-which means the same thing-for some particular phase of life, some artist may at any moment uncover in its pages an altogether fresh kind of humour and of beauty.

-- 9

Du Maurier's art covers the period when England was flushed with success. Artists in such times grow wealthy, and by their work refine their time. But in spite of the number of wealthy Academicians living upon Society in the mid-Victorian time, the influence of Art upon Society was less than at any time in history in which circ.u.mstances have been favourable to the artist.

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 hideousness.

The aesthetic movement indicated the restlessness of some of the brighter spirits with this condition, but many of its remedies were worse than the disease. The nouveau artist-craftsman stood less chance than anybody of getting back to the secret of n.o.ble things, having forsaken the path of pure utility which, wherever it may go for a time, always leads back again to beauty. The disappearance of beauty for a time need not have been a cause of despair. Beauty will always come back if it is left alone. People had been swept off their feet with delight at what machinery could do, and they expected beauty to come out of it as a product at the same pace as everything else. It was not a mistake to expect it from any source, but from this particular source it could only come with time. There is evidence that it is on the way. And yet though the results of crude mechanical industrialism spoilt the outward appearance of the whole of the Victorian age, the earlier part at least of that time was one of marked personal refinement. We have but to look at portraits by George Richmond and others to receive a great impression of distinction. And this fact enables us to throw into clearer light the exact nature of du Maurier's work. If we seek for evidence in the old volumes of Punch for the distinction of the early Victorians we shall not find it. We shall merely conceive instead a dislike for the type of gentleman of the time. Leech and his contemporaries did nothing more for their age than to make it look ridiculous for ever. But du Maurier gives us a real impression of the Society in which he moved. His ability to satirise society while still leaving it its dignity is unique. It may be said to be his distinctive contribution to the art of graphic satire. It gave to the Anglo-Saxon school its present-day characteristic, putting upon one of the very lightest forms of art the stamp of a n.o.ble time. The point is that whilst du Maurier thus deferred to the dignity of human nature he remained a satirist, not a humorist merely, as was Keene.

II

THE ART OF DU MAURIER

-- 1

If we wish to estimate the art of du Maurier at its full worth we must try and imagine Punch from 1863 without this art, and try for a moment to conceive the difference this absence would make to our own present knowledge of the Victorians; also to the picture always entertained of England abroad.

If we are to believe du Maurier's art England is a petticoat-governed country. The men in his pictures are often made to recede into the background of Victorian ornament merely as ornaments themselves. As for the women, the mask of manner, the pleasantness concealing every shade of uncharitableness, all the arts of the contention for social precedence-in the interpretation of this sort of thing du Maurier is often quite uncanny, but he is never ruthless.