_The Cornhill_, April 1863.]

Both du Maurier and Keene knew the _genus_ artist in all its varieties;
and it is very interesting to contrast, and note the difference between,
the "Artist" whom du Maurier brings into his society scenes and the one
of Keene's drawings. In Keene's case the "artist" is generally a
slouching Bohemian creature who belongs to a world of his own, and bears
the stamp of "stranger" upon him in any other. But the "artist" of du
Maurier, putting aside the æsthete coterie, with whom we shall deal
presently, wears upon him every outward symbol of peace with the
world--_The_ world, Mayfair. He is always an "R.A."--symbol of
respectability--whether du Maurier mentions it or not. With this type
Art is one of the great recognised professions like The Army or The Bar.
We have no curiosity as to what sort of pictures they paint. We know
that their art was suitable for the Academy, therefore for the Victorian
Drawing-room. We are merely amused at the solemnity of manner with which
they assumed that their large-sized Christmas cards had anything to do
with art at all--cards which lost the purchasers of them such enormous
sums when sold again at Christie's that the shaken confidence of the
public as to the worth of modern pictures has not recovered to this day.

All through this state of things, too, the really vital work of the time
was left to the encouragement of those whom "Society" would then have
called "outsiders," and it was just this failure on the part of the
aristocracy to enlist the genius of the period on its own side that
betrayed its decrepitude.


§5