Despite his partly French origin, or perhaps by reason of it, he possessed an enthusiastic appreciation for the purely English type of beauty, whether in men or women. The athletic sanity of our English life appealed to him strongly, and it was, perhaps, the consciousness of something in himself of the Gallic spirit, something that leaned towards greater refinement and delicacy, that kept him obstinately devoted to the more solid ideals of the land in which he dwelt. It was this, I am sure, that so strongly attracted him to Millais, whose robust character, both as expressed in the man and exhibited in his art, he passionately admired. And I think it was the suspicion of a danger lest he might be tempted to surrender himself to something not so healthy in its outlook that left him with a constant sense of reserve in his appreciation of men like Rossetti and Burne-Jones. And yet he was far too gifted an artist not to be sensible to the genius of both. But it was as a man, and apart from any profession of faith, that he was so wholly delightful. His professed principles, though always sincerely held and admirably expressed, and his constant respect for the steady decorum of English character, gave scarcely a hint of the special charm of his own temperament. In moments of gaiety his high spirits were infectious, and he became on certain occasions, when the mood stirred him, the veriest and most delightful of Bohemians. I recall him, at one of the annual feasts at Maidenhead held by a little club called “The Lambs,” keeping the whole table in roars of laughter by an impromptu speech wherein he gave free rein to his humour and fancy--a speech which, I think, made us all feel that his constantly expressed reverence for the English ideal must have occasionally suffered some sense of fatigue that needed for its cure a sudden reversion to the land of his blood. We none of us suspected in those days--he himself perhaps least of all--that he was destined to win such world-wide fame as an author, and it was perhaps not until he became an author that it was possible to realise in what affectionate remembrance he held the days of his studentship in Paris. Du Maurier’s early contributions to _Once a Week_ scarcely gave more than a hint of that humorous quality which he afterwards developed in the pages of _Punch_. It was there that he translated with caricature the extravagances and eccentricities of that æsthetic cult which had indeed little counterpart in real life, excepting in so far as they were summed up in the conscious affectations of poor Oscar Wilde. But at the time they were accepted by the public as in some sense a satire upon the newer school of painting, and--although that, I know, was no part of Du Maurier’s intention--these drawings served in no small degree to encourage the spirit of ridicule with which some of the more serious work of the time was received.