Among the Sussex Ironworks_, by George E. Sargent, published by The
Religious Tract Society, we have some pictures of extraordinary power,
in which it is to be seen how much his contact with Millais and other
great illustrators in the sixties inspired him, and developed his
resources. His work has a "weight" in this book which was common to the
best illustration of the period, a deliberation which shows the
influence of Durer over the illustrators of the sixties, and also the
influence of pre-Raphaelitism in precise elaboration of form. It is in
lighter vein we find him again in the same year in Jemmett Browne's
_Songs of Many Seasons_, published by Simpkin, Marshall & Co., and
illustrated also by Walter Crane and others. Every now and then at this
period du Maurier shows us a genius for "still-life" in interior _genre_
which he did not seem to develop afterwards to the extent of the promise
shown in these pictures. He gained at this time a very great deal in his
art by the pre-Raphaelite influence. Never is he more exquisite than
when he embraces detail. The need to produce with rapidity, and the
effect of later fashions which did not suit his own nature so well,
induced him to give up a very deliberate style suited to his quick
perception of beauty in everyday incident, for one that sometimes only
achieved emptiness in its attempt at breadth. But to have kept his
pre-Raphaelite individuality with two such native impressionists as
Keene and Whistler for his most intimate friends would have perhaps
been more than could be expected of human nature. But it is true that he
seemed to lose where those two artists proved they had everything to
gain from a style that passed detail swiftly, treating it suggestively.
They were by nature impressionable to a different aspect of life, and in
self expression they required a different method.

Du Maurier's artistic creed that everything should be drawn from
nature--and tables and chairs are "nature" for the artist--forced him to