DU MATKIKK. (JKnlJCK L<>US PALMKLLA BUSSON. 



249 



IK MAl'RIER. (JKORCJK I.Ot IS I'AI.MKL- 

 LA Bl'SSON. an F.nglish artist ami author, bora 



in Paris Maivli 0. I*:i4 : died in London. <.' 



GEORGE DU MAURIER. 



1896. His father was a French rentier, and his 

 mother an Englishwoman. Thev first lived in the 



and wrote a tale entitled " .Ia"k Sprat ts." He il- 

 lustrated Fox's Iii ink of Martyr^." Thack* 

 "Ballads." "Henry Ksnmnd." "The Story of a 

 Feather." and many otlier book>. A collection of 

 his pictures in "Punch" was published in 1880 

 under the title "English Society at Home." and in 

 1885 the Fine Arts Society made an exhibition of 

 his drawing. 



Mr. Iu Manner's first novel, " Peter Ibbetson " 

 (1891) is by many critics considered his best. This 

 was followed by "Trilby" (1894) and "The Mar- 

 tian" (1S<7). "Trilby" was written as the result 

 of a talk between the author and Mr. Henry James, 

 when the latter had complained of the dearth of 

 good plots, and Mr. Du Maurier. having told the 

 outline of " Trilby." was prevailed upon to write 

 the story. It had an immediate and phenomenal 

 success. Du Maurier's artistic work has justly won 

 him a wide reputation. Ruskin and Millais have 

 praised him as one of the most truly artistic men 

 of his time. He was an associate of the Royal So- 

 ciety of Painters in Water Colors. The personages 

 in his illustrations are always of much the same 

 type, especially the women, which were often pic- 

 tures of his wife and his daughter. There is some- 

 times a slight suggestion of the grotesque in his 

 work, and generally an indescribable little touch of 

 humorousness pervading the whole scene. 



Many pleasant anecdotes are told of Du Maurier, 

 all of which show him as an amiable man, with 

 keen sensibilities and genuine modesty. He saw 

 Thackeray but once, at the House of Mrs. Sartoris. 

 His hostess wanted to introduce him, but he re- 

 fused. " I was too diffident," he told a friend. " I 

 was so little, and he was so great. But all that 

 evening I remained as close to him as possible, 

 greedily listening to his words. I remember that 



Champs Elysees. then removed to Belgium, later during the evening an American came up to him 

 to England, next back to France, 

 and when George was seventeen 

 years old went again to London. 

 There he studied chemistry at 

 University College and in the 

 laboratory of King's College, and 

 in 1 S 54 had a laboratory of his 

 own. His father intended to 

 have him become an analytical 

 chemist, but one journey to De- 

 vonshire, where he was sent to 

 investigate a gold mine, was his 

 only effort in that profession. 

 ;ve himself instead to the 

 study of art. and worked under 

 M. (ileyre in Paris, with Whis- 

 tler and Paynter among his fel- 

 low-student-. Later he studied 

 in Antwerp and in Dusseldorf. 

 Hi- eyes troubled him so much 

 that he feared blindness, and 

 was obliged to wear peculiar 

 - and draw objects on a 

 large scale. Mr. Du Maurier 

 was very poor at this time, and 

 when he had finished his educa- 

 tion his mother, now a widow, 

 gave him 10. with which he 

 went to London to establish 

 himself as an artist, taking with 

 him a letter of introduction to 

 Charles Reade. His earliest 

 drawings were published in the 

 " Leisure Hour," "London Society." and "Once a 

 '<." Then his work appeared in " Punch '' and 

 the " Cornhill Magazine.'' In 1864 he became a 

 member of the staff of " Punch," and for thirty vears 



DC MAURIER'S HOCSE. HAMPSTEAD HEATH. LONDON. 



rather a common sort of man and claimed ac- 

 quaintance. Thackeray received him most cordially, 

 and invited him to dinner. I envied that American. 

 And mv admiration for Thackeray increased when. 



nearly every issue contained something from his as it was getting late, he turned to his two daugh- 

 pencil. He composed the legends for these pictures, ters, Minnie and Annie, and said to them, ' Allons, 



