[Illustration: Pencil Studies from the Artist's Sketch Book]

In his _Life and Letters of Charles Keene_, Mr. G.S. Layard[1] says
this:--

"That Keene could have drawn the lovely be-Worthed young ladies and the
splendidly proportioned and frock-coated young men with which Mr. du
Maurier delights us week by week, not to speak of the god-like hero of
his charming novel, I do not think anyone can doubt, had he set himself
to do it, but it was part of the ineradicable Bohemianism of his
character and the realistic bent of his genius that made him shun the
representation of what he considered artificial and an outrage upon
nature."

This, it will perhaps be admitted, is not very good art-criticism.
Though in justice to its author it must be said that he did not wish to
be regarded as Keene's critic as well as biographer.

An artist does not argue with himself that he will shun the
representation of one particular side of life. He simply leaves it alone
because he cannot help it; it does not attract him. He draws just that
which interests him most and in the way in which it interests him; and
exactly to the measure of his interest does his drawing possess
vitality. Keene might have expressed with pungency his sense of certain
things as being artificial and outrageous, but as long as his feelings
towards them remained like that he could not express himself about them
in any other way, certainly not in du Maurier's way--that is, with du
Maurier's skill.

To the extent to which there _is_ a glamour and a beauty in fashion du