Mr. du Maurier as a Draughtsman

It is hardly necessary to say that Mr. du Maurier's work as a novelist
is in no way matched by his work as a draughtsman, as exemplified, for
instance, in the 120 drawings for "Trilby," exhibited in December, 1894,
at the Avery gallery. Until he began to write he was known merely as the
author of innumerable caricatures, which had a certain vogue because
they were at the same time pictures of fashionable society; but even of
these the legend was often the best part. He had mastered many types,
but they were nothing more than that; and one had seen his millionaires
and swells and singing people and artists until one had grown rather
tired of them. Then, suddenly, it was found, with the first chapters of
his first novel, that in writing he could give to all these well-known
figures individuality, could make flesh and blood of them. The drawings
themselves, at least those done as illustrations for his two romances,
seem to have gained by that discovery. These do not appear to be the
same French blouses and English guardsmen. Something has got into them,
a touch of life, which they did not have before. Yet no one will say
that the Little Billee of the drawings now exhibited at Avery's gallery
is even a shadow of the Little Billee of the text. Of Trilby there is
not so much as the famous foot. Any schoolboy, almost, might have made
as clever a travesty of the Venus de Milo. The best presentment of the
gigantic Taffy is that in which he poses as the Ilyssus. The Laird o'
Cockpen is much better, being frequently very like Mr. George W. Cable,
particularly where he listens to Trilby's confession--an accidental
likeness, no doubt, but one that increases our respect for the Laird.
The intentional likeness of Frederick Walker, who is said to be the real
original of Little Billee, is vastly superior to the ideal one; and the
many unnamed figures in the more crowded compositions that appear to
have been sketched from the life or from a particularly vivid memory are
among the most amusing and enjoyable things in the drawings.

But it must not be denied that there is here and there a bit of _chic_
that approaches the ideal--something not easily to be discovered in the
artist's former work. Svengali is throughout a creation of this sort. He
is as grotesquely romantic, as Mephistophelian a figure in the
illustration as in the printed page. The only failure is the head (on
page 59 of the book) which is