Photographs, which are driving pen illustrations out of the illustrated papers, are in themselves many of them highly artistic and beautiful, but in another sense familiarity with photographs has damaged the public sense of art and lost us the taste for merry, irresponsible freedom of drawing. There was no poverty in du Maurier's skill in illustration; but one is compelled to believe his resources as an artist never fully revealed themselves for the lack of the encouragement which only a small cultivated public is prepared to give. He reconciled himself to the big public with its less refined standard. His companion Whistler remained loyal to the few who, by their quick response, could follow the work of his genius in its last refinements. Du Maurier had more artistic energy than Whistler, but he lived in a less exalted artistic mood. Comparison of this kind would be irrelevant but for the fact that behind all du Maurier's work in _Punch_ there seems to hover an artist of a different kind from the one which it was possible for Mr. Punch to employ. [Illustration: Post-Prandial Pessimists SCENE--The smoking-room at the Decadents. _First Decadent_ (M.A., Oxon.). "After all, Smythe, what would Life be without Coffee?" _Second Decadent_ (B.A., Camb.). "True, Jeohnes, True! And yet, after all, what is Life _with_ Coffee?" _Punch_, October 15, 1892.] §4 Sometimes we hear critics discussing whether beauty is or is not the object of Art. As a matter of fact it does not really matter much whether beauty is the object, since it is always the result of true art. Craft is the language of an artist's sympathies--inspiration flagging at the point where sympathy evaporates. The quality of craft is the barometer of the degree of the artist's response to some aspect of life. Absence of beauty in craftsmanship indicates absence of inspiration, the failure to respond to life. Though du Maurier fell short of Keene in breadth of inspiration, there were still aspects of life which he represented better than that master, phases of life which he approached with greater eagerness. He expressed perfectly once and for all in art the life of the drawing-room in the great days of the drawing-room, as did Watteau the life of the Court in the great days of a Court. Men take their rank in art by expressing completely something which others have expressed incidentally.