In the fifty years that had passed since Punch's birth in 1841, "Society," as it was then understood, had undergone a revolution which not only changed its structure but altered the meaning of the word. It had, in Mr. A. B. Walkley's phrase, become one of those "discoloured" words like "respectable" and "genteel," in which the new "connotation" strove with and gradually supplanted the old. "Society," in the old limited sense, stood for a limited, exclusive and predominantly aristocratic set, arrogant at times, but not wanting in a certain self-respect. But by the 'nineties it had become amorphous, unwieldy, cosmopolitan and plutocratic. Du Maurier, the finest and best equipped of the commentators and critics of the old régime, who recognized its distinction and its drawbacks, and satirized with impartial ridicule decadent aristocrats and vulgar intruders, was perhaps felix opportunitate mortis:—
He brought from two great lands the best of both
In one fine nature blent.
Lover of English strength and Gallic grace,
Of British beauty, or of soul or face,
Yet with that subtler something born of race
That charm to cleanness lent.
A Thackeray of the pencil! So men said.
His reverence high for the great Titan dead
Put by such praise with ease;