onal; that is, he keeps strictly to the surface of things. And
every true sentiment of the book is spoilt by the quickly following
laugh in which the author betrays his dread of being thought to take
anything seriously.

[Illustration: Berkeley Square, 5 P.M.

_Punch_, August 24, 1867.]

The machinery of the plot is crude; perhaps this reason as well as the
delicate one assigned made Mr. Henry James refuse it. But du Maurier had
a curious skill in revealing states of mind of real psychological and
pathological interest. The sudden cessation of the power to feel
affection, and of the ability to respond emotionally to nature, the
curious loss of bloom in mental faculty in the case of Little Billee, in
this we have an inquiry into a by no means unusual state of mind carried
out with scientific exactness to an artistic end. Mr. Henry James would
no doubt have preferred this phenomenon as the basis of a plot to the
preposterous mesmerism which forms the plot of _Trilby_, he being one of
the few who understand that a dramatic situation is a mental experience.
In _Peter Ibbetson_ the "dreaming truly"--the illusion that becomes as
great as reality--is the phenomenon the author examines. "Dreaming
truly" is like the ecstasy of the saints: it is the "will to believe" in
the very act of willing.

Du Maurier was spoilt for romance by his long connection with a comic
paper. It had become a habit with him to be on his guard against
everything that could be travestied. This was the conventional side of
du Maurier in evidence, as it is also in that other flaw in the simple
story of _Trilby_--the adulation of worldly success. We find him
constantly writing in this strain in the description of character: "He
is now one of the greatest artists in the world, and Europeans cross the
Atlantic to consult him"; or of another character: "And now that his
name is a household word in two hemispheres"; and of another: "Whose
pinnacle (of pure unadulterated fame) is now the highest of all," &c.

[Illustration]

Section 3

In all his books the author shows some of that response to old-time
associations which gives to authors like Dumas and Scott their freedom
from things that only belong to the present moment--precisely the
things, by the way, which do not last beyond the present. The
consciousness that the experiences of life to be valued are the ones
which unite us to those who preceded us in life, and which will in turn
give us a share