to
take except by conquest. The business of the original division of human
possessions by the sanguinary method was well over; it was now the
merchant's day. It was plain that trade could no longer be despised,
when, literally in an age of peace and inventive commerce, indolence was
the only alternative to engagement in it.

Du Maurier was very tolerant to social intruders when they were pretty.
He rather entered into Mrs. de Tomkyns' aims, and showed it by making
her pretty. Her ends might not be the highest, but the tact and the
subtlety displayed in her campaign were aristocratic in character, and
he would not have her laughed at personally, though we may laugh at the
topsy-turvy of a Society in which the entrance into a certain
drawing-room becomes the fun reward for the perseverance of a lifetime.
But du Maurier shuddered when behind this lady, distinguished in the
fact of the possession of genius, he saw a multitude of the aspirateless
at the door. We never lose upon the face, which showed as his through
his art, the expression of well-bred resentment, yet certainly of
amusement also.

During the period of du Maurier's work for _Punch_ the actor gets his
position in Society; and we see desolate gentlemen in other professions
drifting about at the back of the room like ships that drag their
anchor, while all the feminine blandishment of the place is concentrated
on the actor. By following up his drawings we can see the whole surface
of Victorian Society change in character; we can see one outrageous
innovation after another solidify into what was correct.

There never was a period like the Victorian; in many respects the
precedents of all older periods of Society fail to apply. In it the
aristocrats believed in democracy, and resented the democrat who was
practically their own creation. While the democrat held no faith with
the same fervour as his belief that "whatsoever is lovely and of good
report" could only be obtained by mingling with the upper classes. It
was the commercial glory of the great Industrial Reign that turned the
whole character of London Society upside down in du Maurier's time. It
became the study of the Suburbs to model themselves on Mayfair, to
imitate its "rages" and "crazes" in every shade. It is all the vanities
of this emulation which du Maurier records; there is little in his art
to betray the great influences Ecclesiastically, scientifically, and
politically, which expressed the geni