_Trilby_ was a name that had long lain _perdu_ somewhere "at the back of du Maurier's head." He traced it to a story by Charles Nodier, in which Trilby was a man. The name Trilby also appears in a poem by Alfred de Musset. And to this name, and to the story of a woman which was once told to him, du Maurier's _Trilby_ owed her birth. "From the moment the name occurred to me," he said, "I was struck with its value. I at once realised that it was a name of great importance. I think I must have felt as happy as Thackeray did when the title of _Vanity Fair_ suggested itself to him." _Trilby_ is written with a daintiness that corresponds with the neatness of its illustrations. It has the attractiveness which du Maurier had such skill in giving. But though dealing with Bohemia, the author is conventional; that is, he keeps strictly to the surface of things. And every true sentiment of the book is spoilt by the quickly following laugh in which the author betrays his dread of being thought to take anything seriously. [Illustration: Berkeley Square, 5 P.M. _Punch_, August 24, 1867.] The machinery of the plot is crude; perhaps this reason as well as the delicate one assigned made Mr. Henry James refuse it. But du Maurier had a curious skill in revealing states of mind of real psychological and pathological interest. The sudden cessation of the power to feel affection, and of the ability to respond emotionally to nature, the curious loss of bloom in mental faculty in the case of Little Billee, in this we have an inquiry into a by no means unusual state of mind carried out with scientific exactness to an artistic end. Mr. Henry James would no doubt have preferred this phenomenon as the basis of a plot to the preposterous mesmerism which forms the plot of _Trilby_, he being one of the few who understand that a dramatic situation is a mental experience. In _Peter Ibbetson_ the "dreaming truly"--the illusion that becomes as great as reality--is the phenomenon the author examines. "Dreaming truly" is like the ecstasy of the saints: it is the "will to believe" in the very act of willing. Du Maurier was spoilt for romance by his long connection with a comic paper. It had become a habit with him to be on his guard against everything that could be travestied. This was the conventional side of du Maurier in evidence, as it is also in that other flaw in the simple story of _Trilby_--the adulation of worldly success. We find him constantly writing in this strain in the description of character: "He is now one of the greatest artists in the world, and Europeans cross the Atlantic to consult him"; or of another character: "And now that his name is a household word in two hemispheres"; and of another: "Whose pinnacle (of pure unadulterated fame) is now the highest of all," &c. [Illustration] §3