_FRANK REYNOLDS._ I.

It has been said of Tolstoy, anatomising the grim skeleton of human
nature, that his writings are more like life than life itself. Of
Frank Reynolds, with gently satirical pen and pencil depicting
the superficial humours of modern life, it might be said that his
drawings, too, are more humanly natural than real flesh and blood.
It is the peculiar faculty of the true observer that his eye pierces
straight to the heart of what he sees, and his mind, disregarding
mere detail, thereby receives and retains a clear perception of
the essential, which those of less clear and direct vision fail
to grasp more than momentarily, though they hail it with instant
recognition when in its naked simplicity it is set before them.
The process is unconscious, or at least but semi-conscious; for
your professed observer has never that keen insight which, being
native, is not to be acquired by even the most assiduous practice,
and alone permits of truthful analysis.

[Illustration]

In the making of the genuine humorist the faculty of observation
is the first necessity. Consider the great pictorial humorists,
whether dead or living, whose names are familiar in the mouth as
household words. That they gained acknowledgment by masterly handling
of the medium in which they chose to work is not to be denied.
It is by the peculiar distinction of his technique, indeed, that
the work of each, in a general way, is called to mind. But this
fame was not achieved solely upon purely artistic merits. Charles
Keene, George du Maurier, Phil May, Raven Hill, Bernard Partridge--it