r delight at his Byronic ability to
irradiate everything with romance. There has never been a moment like
the present in which there is a complete absence of pride in tradition,
which is pleasure in romance. But the reason is simple. Our traditions
belong to the pre-Industrial time. The romance of the Victorians was a
last glow in the sky. We might even go as far as to read an occult
significance into the art of Turner, the great painter of the sunset. We
nowadays go back to du Maurier's pictures, where the after-glow remains,
and they seem separated from us by something thicker than time, as if a
great wall had been built up between the age of the twopenny tube and
that of the carriage-and-pair. And lest there should remain a link
between them, over which we might be sentimental, the face of Buckingham
Palace is to be despoiled, the long grey outline, characteristic of
English monarchy in its reticence and repose, is, we imagine, to give
place to something in the image of a prosperous Insurance Office.

Already du Maurier's art is very precious; the environment of the people
whom he depicted is everywhere being smashed up. Our curiosity is
sharpened for everything that remains to reflect those people to us. Our
debt to the mirror of du Maurier's art increases every hour.

[Illustration]

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE DU MAURIER, THE SATIRIST OF
THE VICTORIANS***

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