t inspiration
away from himself.

[Illustration: "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi!"

"By the way, Duchess, supposing that we _do_ succeed in getting the
House of Lords abolished this Session, won't it be a great blow to the
Duke?"

"Yes, if he ever hears of it; but I shan't tell him, you know!"

_Punch_, March 22, 1884. ]

The drawing "Things one would rather have expressed Differently"
(reproduced opposite page 194) represents du Maurier's final phase at
its very best. It has the precision of workmanship of a thing executed
to a well-tried recipe. It is dainty as well as precise; and still in
the way the dimpling of soft dress fabric is touched in, sympathetic,
and characteristic of the earlier du Maurier. It belongs to the _Trilby_
period, but is better than the illustrations to _Trilby_.

Section 3

The unpublished sketches which we have been allowed to reproduce from du
Maurier's private sketch-book, and which we are using as end pieces, are
very interesting. In the strictest artistic sense there is very little
of the art of pen-drawing to-day. In the work done with the pen for
modern illustration the inking-in is too much of an after process of ink
upon pencil work. The quality of the drawing is really determined by the
pencil, which is the actual medium of work. In going over the pencil
work the ink-line follows it in many cases so closely that it cannot
assert the characteristics of penmanship. But in making preliminary
small studies for a picture with the pen, an artist, feeling less
necessity for a certain kind of accuracy, often uses the pen much more
freely, sympathetically, and happily because he is actually drawing with
it and not merely following over forms determined first in another
medium. We have printed the reproductions from the sketch-book about
their original size. Many of them express the freer qualities of real
pen-drawing--an autographic character in the line-work akin to that
secured in original etching. The pen is an instrument that works best on
a small scale, in which it can be manipulated flexibly in the fingers;
in this it is like the etching-needle itself. The artist working direct
with his pen has before him while he draws the actual effect of his ink
on paper, instead of having to imagine it in advance while he works out
his subject in pencil. The vignette of the man lying back in his chair
near the leaded window (page 147) has qualities in the shadow of the
window that we look to