III.
When I first spoke, long ago, of the confidential attitude of Thackeray, I said that now we would not endure it. But I was wrong, if I meant that more than the very small number who judge novels critically would be impatient of it. No sooner were those fearful words printed than I began to find, to my vast surprise, that the confidential attitude in Thackeray was what most pleased the greatest number of his readers. This gave me an ill opinion of their taste, but I could not deny the fact; and the obstreperous triumph of Trilby, which was one long confidence, has since contributed to render my defeat overwhelming. Du Maurier's use of the method, as he perfected it, was so charming that I am not sure but I began to be a little in love with it myself, though ordinarily superior to its blandishments. It was all very well to have Thackeray weep upon your neck over the fortunes of his characters, but if he had just been telling you they were puppets, it was not so gratifying; and as for poor Sterne, his sighs were so frankly insincere you could not believe anything he said. But Du Maurier came with another eye for life, with a faith of his own which you could share, and with a spirit which endeared him from the first. He had prodigious novelties in store: true-dreaming, hypnotism, and now (one does not know quite what yet) intelligence from the neighborly little planet Mars. He had the gift of persuading you that all his wonders were true, and his flattering familiarity of manner heightened the effect of his wonders, like that of the prestidigitator, who passes round in his audience, chatting pleasantly, while he pours twenty different liquors out of one magical bottle.
I would not count his beautiful talent at less than its rare worth, and if this figure belittles that, it does him wrong. Not before in our literature has anything more distinct, more individual, made itself felt. I have assumed to trace its descent, from this writer to that; but it was only partly so descended; in what made it surprising and captivating, it was heaven-descended. We shall be the lonelier and the poorer hereafter for the silence which is to be where George du Maurier might have been.
W. D. Howells.