reater part of his life du Maurier's
literary gift remained unknown to the general public, though more than
one editor under whom he served on _Punch_ urged him to take a writer's
salary and be on the literary as well as on the artistic staff. It was
said that he relied with comfort upon this second talent to support him
in the event of his sight failing him altogether. There was a space of
thirty years between the above contribution to _Once a Week_ and the
writing of his first novel, _Peter Ibbetson_. But it is in that novel
that he again returns to the story of his career, through boyhood and
youth, leading up to the period in which his father started him in the
laboratory.

Du Maurier had in 1856, when his father died, practically the choice of
two arts, painting and singing, in both of which he seemed to have a
chance of distinguishing himself. And as the essay of 1861 was so soon
afterwards to prove, there was really another alternative, that of
authorship, for the gifted analytical chemist. He decided then to
forsake the chemistry to which he had been trained, but remained
undecided about everything else.

In 1856, at the age of twenty-two, he returned to Paris with his mother,
to live in the Rue Paradis-Poissoniere, very poor, very dull, and very
miserable, as he himself has said; but almost at the entrance of what he
describes as the best time of his life--that period in which, deciding
to follow art as a profession, he entered the studio of Gleyre. Those
were the joyous Quartier Latin days. He has described Gleyre's studio
in _Trilby_. The happy life there lasted a year: Whistler and Poynter,
as is well known, were his fellow-students.

[Illustration: Honour Where Honour is Due

_Sir Gorgius Midas (who has not been made a Peer_). "Why, it's enough to
make a man turn _Radical_, 'anged if it ain't, to think of sich services
as mine bein' rewarded with no 'igher title than what's bestowed on a
heminent Sawbones, or a Hingerneer, or a Littery Man, or even a
successful Hartist!"

_Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns (sympathetically_). "It does seem hard! But
you've only to bide your time, Sir Gorgius. No man of _your_ stamp need
ever despair of a Peerage!" (And Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns is, as usual,
quite right.)

_Punch_, May 15, 1880.]

The studio of Gleyre was inherited from Delaroche, and afterwards handed
down to Gerome. Whistler, Poynter, du Maurier, Lamont, and Thomas
Armstrong were the group of _Trilby_, Lam