All the readers of the Round Table have heard in some way or other of Mr. George du Maurier, the author of Trilby. His death a few days ago, at his home in London, closes the life of a man whose career is most interesting and suggestive to the average boy of ambition.
Mr. Du Maurier was born March 6, 1834. For many years after he had taken up the work of illustrating for Punch, the leading comic paper of England, he was known as the greatest living humorist and society artist. The work was difficult, and his drawings, although a large number were required in a year by the paper, did not give him a very competent livelihood. In 1888 he had, at the age of fifty-four made what would commonly be called an extraordinary name for himself. He was known in every family in the British Isles, and English-reading people all over the world knew of his work. Such fame acquired in this well-earned way would be quite enough for any one to have for an ambition, and yet had Mr. Du Maurier never made a drawing up to the time he was fifty-four years old the literary work he has done since then—that is, Peter Ibbetson, written in 1888; Trilby, written in 1893; and The Martian, just beginning in Harper's Magazine—would have made him a man with a name which is not only known all over the world where people read, but has placed him among the literary men of England—a name so much more famous and widespread than that of the illustrator that there will come a time when people will read his books and never know that he illustrated anything but his own works.
It is very often said to be the case that if a man is ever to make a name for himself he must show very definite signs of it before he is thirty, and that if he has not accomplished great things before he is forty he never will. Mr. Du Maurier's life is an absolute contradiction to this statement or rule, for the work for which he will really remain famous for a long time to come was not begun until eight years before his death, and he died at the age of sixty-two.
The point of great importance, however, is that, although after Trilby had appeared Du Maurier became immediately famous, he did not become suddenly possessed of great ability. He has said himself that these three books are not the only, nor by any means the most difficult, literary works he ever did, for for forty years, week by week, he had to work over the little two-line legends under his illustrations in Punch. He used to say that the work required to tell the story by one illustration and fifteen or twenty words required more literary ability in the choosing of the fifteen or twenty words than in the writing of a fifteen or twenty thousand word story. He was constantly having practice, therefore, in telling a great deal in a few well-chosen words. Besides this studying human beings as he did, and making drawings of their peculiarities and strengths and weaknesses year after year, he was all the time learning to know human nature, and laying up a store of material for the characters of his three books.
So that, after all, Mr. Du Maurier was, so to speak, studying for over fifty years to learn how to write and illustrate three books at the very end of his life, which were so well done that they have given him a greater name than most men get in a life-time of books or drawings. Daniel Webster told practically the same story after he had made his famous speech in the United States Senate against Mr. Hayne of South Carolina, when some one asked him how he could make one of the finest speeches ever made in the English language, lasting several hours, without the slightest preparation. His answer was that he had been preparing for it all his life, so that, after all, there is much truth of a certain kind in the statement that a great name must be begun early, for when you hear of a man becoming suddenly famous because of some great work of any kind accomplished late in life, you may be quite sure that the man has really been laboring all his life with the most persistent industry and energy to reach at last the great position which he occupies. And the making of such a name is open to any one who has the capacity for taking such infinite pains.
THE DISCOVERY OF A WIZARD.
One evening, towards the close of the last century, a traveller alighted at a little inn in the town of Würzburg, Germany. He was tall, dark, and rather sombre-looking. His strange ways soon aroused the curiosity of the towns-people to the highest pitch. He would take long rambles, often being absent from early morning till the time of the evening meal. Certain worthies reported having seen him, wrapt in contemplation, walking by the Rhine, occasionally waving his arms, and paying no attention to the passers-by. One person had seen his light burning far into the morning. But the landlady at first said she had no cause for complaint; the stranger was pleased with everything set before him, and seemed to be a perfect gentleman.
One morning one of the maids of the inn told the landlady that, listening at the stranger's key-hole the night before, she had heard him in earnest conversation with some person or thing, and yet no one had been seen to enter the room. The girl was severely reprimanded for her eavesdropping, but nevertheless the landlady took her post at the door the following evening, and had her story to tell. She had fully made up her mind that the stranger was in league with the evil one. She gave the information to the justices of the town, and sundry officers were speedily assembled about the stranger's door. Near at hand, too, was a goodly gathering of the town gossips. The oppressive silence was suddenly broken by the distinct tones of a dialogue going on in the stranger's room. The officers crowded around the door and heard the following conversation: