I

THE WORLD OF DU MAURIER

§1


We have in the portfolio of du Maurier the epic of the drawing-room.
Many of the Victorians, including the Queen, and Alfred Lord Tennyson,
seem to have viewed life from the drawing-room window. They gazed
straight across the room from the English hearthrug as from undoubtedly
the greatest place on earth. They were probably right. But some of this
confidence has gone. Actually in these days there are people who won't
own up to having a drawing-room at all. If they have a room that could
possibly answer to such a description, they go out of their way to call
it the library, though its only available printed matter is a Bradshaw;
or the music-room, though the only music ever heard in it is when the
piano is dusted.

In turning over the old volumes of _Punch_ it is surprising how many of
the points made by du Maurier in his drawings and in the legends beneath
them still hold good. As a mere "joker" he was perhaps the least able of
the _Punch_ staff. His influence began when he started inventing
imaginary conversations. In many cases these do not represent the
discussion of topical subjects at all, but deal with social aberrations,
dated only in the illustration by the costume of the time.

In these imaginary conversations he is already a novelist. They record
the strokes of finesse and the subterfuges necessary to the attainment
of the vain ambitions which are the preoccupation of human genius in