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George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians by T. Martin Wood
page 21 of 142 (14%)
essay upon du Maurier written by Mr. Henry James in the eighties to
which we have referred. It describes the type of woman revealed in Mrs.
de Tomkyns when we have followed her adventures up a little way in the
back numbers of _Punch_. But, if we may be permitted the slang, the type
itself is anything but "a back number." Du Maurier's work bids fair to
live in the enjoyment of many generations, from the fact that its chaff,
for the most part, is directed against vanities that recur in human
nature. Mr. James tells us that the lady of whom we write "hesitates at
nothing; she is very modern. If she doesn't take the æsthetic line more
than is necessary, she finds it necessary to take it a little; for if we
are to believe du Maurier, the passion for strange raiment and blue
china has during the last few years made ravages in the London world."
Mr. Henry James himself is one of the experts of the London world. There
is almost a hint in the last sentence that he thought du Maurier's
genius helped to nurse the crazes it made fun of.

Since writing this I have been told by one to whom du Maurier related
the incident, that the hero of the æsthetic movement himself, Oscar
Wilde, offered to sit to du Maurier for the chief character in his skit.
Wilde was very young, but already master of that art of
self-advertisement which he received from Byron and Disraeli, perfected,
and, I think, handed on to Mr. Bernard Shaw. But such anxiety for every
kind of celebrity at any cost seems to have lost the youthful genius the
esteem of the great _Punch_ artist once and for all. The representative
of humorous journalism seems the one upon whom the delicate humour of
the proposal was lost.

As far as du Maurier was capable of vindictiveness it was reserved for
Maudle and Postlethwaite. He went out of his way to give a contemptible
appearance to those who took the name of Art in vain. His only spiteful
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