se in it.

As art becomes more self-expressive it becomes more subjective; it
demands that the student of it shall enter into the artist's feelings;
it does not go out to meet him and explain itself after the fashion of
the humbler forms of illustration with their purely objective ideal. It
is only an educated public that will allow an illustrator the
spontaneous style of drawing that some of the wittiest French
illustrators indulge in. In England the demand for what is wrongly
inferred to be good draughtsmanship has quenched spontaneity in
illustration.

Photographs, which are driving pen illustrations out of the illustrated
papers, are in themselves many of them highly artistic and beautiful,
but in another sense familiarity with photographs has damaged the
public sense of art and lost us the taste for merry, irresponsible
freedom of drawing. There was no poverty in du Maurier's skill in
illustration; but one is compelled to believe his resources as an artist
never fully revealed themselves for the lack of the encouragement which
only a small cultivated public is prepared to give. He reconciled
himself to the big public with its less refined standard. His companion
Whistler remained loyal to the few who, by their quick response, could
follow the work of his genius in its last refinements. Du Maurier had
more artistic energy than Whistler, but he lived in a less exalted
artistic mood. Comparison of this kind would be irrelevant but for the
fact that behind all du Maurier's work in _Punch_ there seems to hover
an artist of a different kind from the one which it was possible for Mr.
Punch to employ.

[Illustration: Post-Prandial Pessimists

SCENE--The smoking-room at the Decadents.

_First Decadent_ (M.A., Oxon.). "After all, Smythe, what would Life be
without Coffee?"

_Second Decadent_ (B.A., Camb.). "True, Jeohnes, True! And yet, after
all, what is Life _with_ Coffee?"

_Punch_, October 15, 1892.]

Section 4

Sometimes we hear critics discussing whether beauty is or is not the
object of Art. As a matter of fact it does not really matter much
whether beauty is the object, since it is always the result of true
art. Craft is the language of an artist's sympathies--inspiration
flagging at the point where sympathy evaporates. The quality of craft is
the barometer of the degree of the artist's response to some aspect of
life. Absence of beauty in craftsmanship indicates absence of
inspiration, the failure to