own
request,[61] he says:--

"I do hope the reader does not dislike her--that is, if he knows
her. I am so fond of her myself, or, rather, so fond of what I
_want_ her to be. She is my _piece de resistance_, and I have often
heard her commended, and the praise of her has sounded sweet in
mine ears, and gone straight to my heart, for she has become to me
as a daughter. She is rather tall, I admit, and a trifle stiff; but
English women are tall and stiff just now; and she is rather too
serious; but that is only because I find it so difficult, with a
mere stroke in black ink, to indicate the enchanting little curved
lines that go from the nose to the mouth-corners, causing the
cheeks to make a smile--and without them the smile is
incomplete--merely a grin. And as for height, I have often begun by
drawing the dear creature little, and found that by one sweep of
the pen (adding a few inches to the bottom of her skirt) I have
improved her so much that it has been impossible to resist the
temptation--the thing is so easy, and the result so satisfying and
immediate."

Nowadays, he has declared, girls are no longer pretty--they are
beautiful; and as Mr. Galton, the anthropometrical expert, himself
admits, they, even more than the rest of mankind, have certainly grown
taller. The artist, as we have seen, invented the tall woman; the
Psyches of our fathers' days have become the Venuses and Junos of these;
and more than one writer has gravely sought to fix the responsibility,
or the credit, on Mr. du Maurier and his pencil. Scientific
investigation has taught us that the English girl tops her foreign
sisters, though her average weight is two pounds less than that of the
fair American; and there is little doubt that if she does not absolutely
adapt her height to the artist's sense of beauty and power of
inspiration, she has at least to thank him for making it fashionable.
The truth of the matter is that Mr. du Maurier has always been a close
observer; and just as his drawings have always been in the fashion in
point of dress through his careful watching of the changing wardrobe of
his wife and daughters, so was he the first to record the increasing
stature of English girls, even while Leech was still drawing them as he
had known them--short and buxom and "plump little dumplings"--never
recognising that they had been deposed by Fashion and improve