In Bohemia with Du Maurier: The First of a Series of Reminiscences

Thus, whilst du Maurier's facile pen was throwing off black and white sketches of Miss Carry, it was reserved for me to paint her portrait in oils. Her real name was Octavie, not Carry; that appellation we had most unceremoniously and unpoetically derived from "Cigar." All else about her we invested, if not with ceremony with a full amount of poetry. And certainly there was a subtle quality in Carry, well worthy of appreciation, a faculty of charming and being charmed, of giving and taking, of free and easiness, coupled with ladylike reserve. She seemed to be born with the intuitive knowledge that there was only one life worth living, that of the Bohemian, and to be at the same time well protected by a pretty reluctance to admit as much. In fact, to give a correct idea of her I need but say her soul was steeped in the very essence of Trilbyism. Having got to Carry's soul, it may not be inappropriate to say something also about her looks; but to describe good looks is, as we all know, deliberately to court failure; far better request every man to conjure up his own type of beauty and he will be sure to be interested in the picture he evolves. That man will be nearest the truth whose young lady has a rich crop of brown curly hair, very blue inquisitive eyes, and a figure of peculiar elasticity.

Octavie L., dite Carry, was the daughter of an organist who had held a good position at one of the principal churches of Malines. When he died he left but a small inheritance to his widow; with what she could realise, she purchased the goodwill of a small tobacconist's store and set up in business. Neither the mother nor the daughter had much previous knowledge of the concern they had started, and they were consequently not very discriminating in the selection of their brands; but what was lacking in connoisseurship was fully made up for by Mrs. L.'s obliging manners and by Octavie's blue eyes. These had been steadily gaining in expression since she first opened them about seventeen years back. Customers soon came in, and for a time the little business was as flourishing as anything could well be in Malines. The average citizen of so ecclesiastically conservative, and hereditarily stationary a city could hardly be expected to encourage a new venture of the kind. Still even there there were some young men about town, a sort of "jeunesse doré", not of 18-carat gold perhaps, but a "jeunesse" quite equal to the pleasant task of buzzing around the fair tobacconist. Mrs. L. did her share of chaperoning; du Maurier and I supplied the rest, and watched over her with chivalrous, if not quite disinterested devotion. We differed in every respect from the type of the young man of the period above mentioned; so naturally we were bright stars in Carry's firmament; she looked upon us as superior beings, and, granting her points of comparison, not without cause; du Maurier could draw and I could paint; he could sing and I could mesmerise, and couldn't we just both talk beautifully! We neither of us encourage hero-worship now, but then we were "bons princes," and graciously accepted Carry's homage as due to our superior merits.

There are two drawings illustrative of that chivalrous devotion of ours. We are galloping along on our noble steeds, richly attired, as true knights and good should be when they go to pay homage to beauty.

"Beshrew thee, noble Sir Ragge! let us to the fair tobacconiste!"

"Aye! Gentle Sir Bobtaile! By my halidome, she's passing fair."

The second drawing shows our "Salut à la Gente et accorte pucelle!" and the winning smile with which Carry would receive us.

Mesmerism, or, as the fashion of to-day calls it, Hypnotism, formed so frequent a topic of conversation and speculation between du Maurier and myself, that it takes a very prominent place in my recollections.

In Paris I had had opportunities of attending some most interesting séances, in consequence of which I soon proceeded to investigate the mesmeric phenomena on my own account. Now I have not touched the fluid for some thirty years; I swore off because it was taking too much out of me; but I look back with pleasure on my earlier experiments, successes I may say, for I was fortunate enough to come across several exceptional subjects. Du Maurier was particularly interested in one of these, Virginie Marsaudon, and had a way of putting puzzling questions concerning her faculties and my mesmeric influence. Virginie was a "femme de ménage" of the true Parisian type, a devoted elderly creature, a sort of cross between a charwoman and a housekeeper. I was not yet eighteen when I first went to Paris, to study under my cousin, the eminent painter, Henri Lehmann. At his studio I found Virginie installed as the presiding genius of the establishment, using in turn broom or tub, needle, grill or frying-pan as the occasion might require; the wide range of her powers I further extended by making a truly remarkable mesmeric subject of her. My début in Paris was that of the somewhat bewildered foreigner, speaking but very indifferent French, and she had from the first done what she could to make me feel at home in the strange city, treating me with truly motherly care and devotion. How completely she took possession of me, is shown by a passage in a letter she wrote when I was ill in Leipsic, where I had gone on a visit to my parents. After expressing her anxiety and her regret at not being there to nurse me, she emphatically says:—"Je rends Madame, votre mère, responsable de votre santé" (I make Madame, your mother, responsible for your health). It needed but little to lead her on from a state of docile and genial dependence to one of unconscious mesmeric subjection, and so, a few passes shaping her course, I willed her across the boundary line that separates us from the unknown, a line which, thanks to science, is daily being extended. Madame veuve Marsaudon was herself an incorrigible disbeliever in the phenomena of mesmerism, but as a subject her faculties were such as to surprise and convert many a scoffer.

At the séances, to which I invited my friends and a few scientific outsiders, I always courted the fullest investigation, taking it as the first duty of the mesmerist to show cause why he should not be put down as a charlatan. So we had tests and counter-tests, evidence and counter-evidence; there were doctors to feel the pulse and to scrutinise the rigidity of the muscles, experts to propound scientific ifs and buts, and wiseacres generally to put spokes in the wheel of progress, as is their playful way, wherever they find that wheel in motion. It was doubly satisfactory, then, that the good faith of subject and mesmerist could be conclusively proved.

One of these séances led to a rather amusing incident. One night I was awakened from first slumbers by a sharp ring at my bell, and when, after some parleying, I opened the door, I found myself confronted by two individuals. One I recognised as an "inquirer" who had been brought to my rooms some time previously; the other was a lad I had not seen before. The inquirer, I ascertained, having carefully watched my modus operandi on the occasion of his visit, had next tried experiments of his own. In this instance he had succeeded in mesmerising a lad, but had found it impossible to recall him to his normal condition. So, securing him by a leather strap fastened round his waist, he led him through the streets of Paris to my rooms. There we both tried our powers upon him, the result being very unsatisfactory. The youth, feeling himself freed from one operator and not subjected by the other, refused allegiance to either, and, being of a pugnacious temperament, he squared up and commenced striking out at both of us. It was not without considerable difficulty that I re-mesmerised him completely, and then, having previously prepared his mind to account naturally for his presence in my rooms, I succeeded in awakening him, and all ended happily. The inquirer was duly grateful, the youth went home strapless and none the worse for the adventure, and I proceeded to do some very sound sleeping on my own account.

I would say more of my séances and all the recollections they evoke, were I not impatient to get back to du Maurier and to Malines. Once on the experiences of those days, I have much to relate—pros and cons, if you please, for that subtle magnetic fluid, which, without physical contact, one human being can transmit to another, is a ticklish one to handle. I cannot pack my pen, though, and take train of thought to the Belgian city without mentioning my friend Allongé, the well-known French artist, then a fellow-student of mine at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. A chance contact of our knees as we sat closely packed with some sixty other students put me on the track of a new subject, perhaps the most interesting one it was ever my good fortune to come across. But of him another time.

Using the privilege of a mesmerist, I elect to will the reader—that is, if natural slumber has not ere this put him beyond my control—across the frontier, into the back parlour of Mrs. L.'s tobacco store. There I am operating on a boy—such a stupid little Flemish boy that no amount of fluid could ever make him clever. How I came to treat him to passes I don't remember; probably I used him as an object-lesson to amuse Carry. All I recollect is that I gave him a key to hold, and made him believe that it was red-hot and burnt his fingers, or that it was a piece of pudding to be eaten presently, thereby making him howl and grin alternately.

In the middle of our séance Carry is called away by a customer, one of the swells of Malines much addicted to a poetical expression of his admiration for the fair sex in general and for Carry in particular. Greatly to our edification, she was pleased to improve the occasion by leading him on, within our hearing, to make what is commonly called a fool of himself. The pleasant incident is recorded in the accompanying sketch.

But mesmerism meant more than incidental amusement or even scientific experiment to us in those Antwerp and Malines days. When one stands on the threshold of a world of mysteries one cannot but long to bridge over the chasm that separates one from the gods, the fairies, or the fiends. To be sure, we should have been glad if we could have got "light, more light" thrown on our steps, but, failing that, we tried to find our way as best we could in the mist. We loved that never-attainable Will-o'-the-Wisp, "Truth," for its own dear Bohemian sake; so, guided by Fancy and Fantasy, we made frequent inroads into the boundless land where unknown forces pick up our poor dear little conception of the Impossible, and use it as the starting-point of never-to-be-exhausted possibilities.

Such a land was particularly well suited to the state of our outward-bound minds and our excelsior appetites. It was on one or the other of these excursions, I feel confident, that du Maurier was inoculated with the germs that were eventually to develop into Trilbyism and Svengalism. No wonder, then, if in more than one of his letters and sketches the future delineator of those characters embodies bold dreams and fancies, or if on one occasion he depicts himself, with fixed gaze and hair erect, sitting bolt upright on my hospitable sofa, thrilled and overawed by the midnight presence of the uncanny, which I had evoked for his benefit.

"Yes, governor, it's all very well to ask a nervous fellow to Antwerp and amuse him and make him ever so jolly and comfortable—But why, when the bleak November wind sobs against the lattice and disturbs the dead ashes in the grate, when everything is damned queer and dark, and that sort of thing, you know—why should you make nervous fellows' flesh creep by talk about mesmerism, and dead fellows coming to see live fellows before dying, and the Lord knows what else? Why, Gad! it's horrid!"

My rooms in Antwerp were the scene of many a festive gathering. We always spoke of them in the plural; it sounded better, but in reality there was only one room with two small alcoves. Studies and sketches covered the walls or littered the floor, and the genial figure of a skeleton, in very perfect condition, stood in the corner by the piano. At first it came with a view to instructing me in the Science of Anatomy, but soon, putting aside any didactic pretensions, my bony professor became quite a companion and friend; it was thus natural that on those occasions when guests had been convened to my rooms, he would take a leading part, generally appearing gracefully draped and appropriately illuminated, and thus forming a fitting background to the gay proceedings of the evening. We had music, recitation, and acting, mostly of an improvised, homemade character. The sounds thereof were not confined, however, to the narrow limits of home, but spread far beyond it, a fact which the neighbours, I am sure, would have been at any time ready most emphatically to attest.

In justice to myself I may say that I was primarily answerable for the magnitude of the sound waves, but I am bound to add that my example was followed and even improved upon by the more lung-gifted of my companions. Amongst the milder forms of entertainment was my impersonation of Rachel. That grand actress I had often seen in Paris, and had, more than once, shivered in my shoes as she annihilated the Tyrant, pouring forth the vials of her wrath and indignation in the classical language of Racine and Corneille. With those accents still ringing in my ears I came to Antwerp, and there, when surrounded by sympathetic friends, the spirit would sometimes move me, and I would feel—excuse the conceit of youth—as if I too could have been a great female Tragedian, had Fate not otherwise disposed of me. In such moments I would seize the blade of the paper-knife, and use the blood of the beet-root, drape myself in the classical folds of the bed-sheet, and go for the Tyrant, hissing fearful hexameters of scorn and vituperation into his ears, and usually winding up with a pose so magnificently triumphant that it would bring down any house which was not of the most solid construction.

Another time the cushion yonder would be my child—the orthodox long-lost one—"It is!—It is not!—It is!—Let me clasp it to my other cushion!" "Toi mon fils chéri. Ange de mon enfer, douleur de mes loisirs!"

The celebration of one of my birthdays was an event rescued from oblivion by du Maurier's pencil. He illustrates our lively doings on that day and my appearance the next morning. "Felix's mamma," he says, "had worked a very pretty cap for Felix, and Felix had it on the morning after his birthday, and Felix found that though the cap was very pretty, it made him look very seedy."

In the other drawing he gives striking likenesses of the friends assembled to celebrate the festive occasion. They had come together in the evening, much in the same spirit that had led them under my windows in the morning, with a brass band and an enormous bouquet of cabbages, carrots, and cauliflowers. There, on the left, is Van Lerius with his hands in his pockets, next to him du Maurier; then Heyermans, Bource, and all the other chums, and, though last not least, the proud bearer of the steaming punch-bowl. What a set of jolly good fellows! It is quite a pleasure to pore over the sketch and contemplate du Maurier's phiz, expressing his unbounded capacity of enjoyment. I can see him taking points that fell flat with the other fellows. Quite a pleasure, too, to think of Huysmans' big nose and Van Lerius' bald head, of the tall and the short, of spindle shanks and chubby face.

Where are they all now? Some thirty-five years have elapsed, and the whirligig of time has been revolving with unfailing regularity, dropping us here and there, as caprice dictated, some to stand, some to fall. What has become of the threads of friendship, picked up at the studio or the café, perhaps whilst puzzling over the chess-board, or when harmonising in four-part song? Golden threads; some destined to be spun out and to become solidly intertwined; others to be hopelessly entangled or cruelly snapped asunder by the inexorable Fates. Where shall I find them now, those friends and boon companions of my Bohemian days? Here, there, and everywhere—perhaps nowhere! Some I see trotting briskly along the high-road of life, others dragging wearily through its tangled bypaths. Yet again others resting under a big, cold stone that bears an inscription and a couple of dates, fixed just above their heads.

II.

I well remember a certain "barrière" that protected the level crossing just outside the Malines Station. It was but an ordinary piece of hinged timber, but we, that is, du Maurier and I, can never forget it; for, as we stood by its side we vowed that come what might, we would never travel along that line and past the old gate without recalling that summer evening and re-thinking the thoughts of our early days.

It was also there, one evening, that we adopted our never-to-be-forgotten aliases—Rag and Bobtail. We had chanced upon a chum of ours named Sprenk lounging across that old barrière, and some fortuitous circumstance having revealed the fact that his initials were T.A.G., we forthwith dubbed him Tag. Out of that very naturally grew the further development: Rag, Tag, and Bobtail.

T.A.G. was an Englishman, strong and hearty and considerably taller than either of us. That alone would have sufficed to secure him the friendship of du Maurier, who ever worshipped at the shrine of physical greatness. He loved to look up to the man of six-foot-something, or to sit in the shadow of the woman of commanding presence, his appreciation of size culminating in the love of "Chang," that dog of dogs, whom we have all learnt to admire, as we followed his career through the volumes of the immortal Weekly, presided over by Toby and his master.

I somehow associate Tag with whisky and water; not that he took it much or often, but he gave one the impression that whatever others might do when amongst the benighted foreigner, he, for one, would not let a good old English custom drop into disuse. Looking at Tag one intuitively felt that his father before him had taken his moderate glass of W. and W., and that, if he married and had sons, they would do likewise. I do not think that he was particularly fond of art or artists, unless inasmuch as they were brother Bohemians. He was engaged, or, at least, he was generally just about to be engaged, in some business, and whilst waiting for the opportune moment to commence operations, he would settle down to an expectant present. The golden opportunity he was looking for was plainly visible on his horizon, but it had a way of remaining stationary, and as it was contrary to Tag's nature to move unless under great pressure, the two never met.

In the meanwhile Tag was one of our trio of chums; he was a good deal with us when we were out and about, bent on storming the world, or climbing Parnassus; we did the climbing, he the looking on, the parts thus being distributed to our mutual satisfaction. He was always pleasantly acquiescent, and had the rare gift of making himself useless agreeably; a common bond of interest we had in the Colorado claro and oscuro, whether the fair or dark, applied to the friendly weed or the still more friendly fair sex.

He describes himself pretty correctly in a letter he wrote to us from Paris, when he says:—

"Since my arrival here my notes of what I have to do represent what I have not done, and if it be true that the infernal regions are paved with good intentions, I shall be received on my arrival by a deputation of souls to thank me for my contribution to the pavement."

There are sketches in which Tag's eloquence is confined to one exclamation, "Matilda!" But whether that name was coupled with present felicity or future hopes I do not recollect. But du Maurier's lines describe him and our chumship much better than any words of mine could do. He says:—

(RAG)."

The portraits of Rag and Bobtail head the page. A space was left for Tag's, but never filled.

Apropos of plans and prospects on Tag's distant horizon, I find a passage in one of his letters, dated November, 1857, which is well worth recording. I quote it to give myself and my fellow Europeans an opportunity of rejoicing that Tag's scheme belonged to those that were not to be realised. It runs thus:—

"As du Maurier's eye, though better, will, most probably, not allow him to resume his profession as a painter, we have determined to try our fortune together in Australia, and mean to start from here early in February. He hopes to obtain employment by drawing sketches, caricatures, &c., for the Melbourne Punch, and other illustrated papers. You know how eminently suited he is for that kind of work, and we hear that an artist of talent of that description is much wanted out there, and would be sure to do exceedingly well. I, of course, do not intend to start in that line, but hope to be able to support myself for the first few years, after which I shall establish myself in business on my own account, and I trust, with luck, I may return home in the course of from ten to fifteen years, if not with immense riches, at all events with enough to enable me to pass the remainder of my 'old age' in peace and comfort."

Did Tag ever go, I wonder? Did he come back, and has he perhaps been enjoying his "old age" somewhere over here for the last thirty years?—I wish you would say what has become of you, my dear Tag. I'm sure we should be chums again, if you're anything like the dear old stick-in-the-mud of former days! Don't you recollect that sketch of Rag's? I had nearly forgotten to mention it, the one with the three ropes of life. I am climbing ahead with fiendish energy. Rag follows, steadily ascending, weighted as he is with a treasure, a box marked "Mrs. Rag, with care," and your noble form is squatting on the floor, a glass of the best blend at your feet, and a cigar you are enjoying from which rises the legend that makes you say, "What the deuce am I to do with this confounded rope? Hang myself, I wonder?" Nonsense, to be sure; but do come and tell me what you have done with the rope, or say where I can find you still squatting.

That music of a certain spontaneous kind, the music within us which we were ever longing to bring to the surface, was a bond of union between du Maurier and myself, I have already mentioned; but that bond was to be greatly strengthened by the music that great musicians on more than one occasion lavished on us. First came Louis Brassin, the pianist. He had studied under Moscheles at the Conservatorio of Leipsic, the city of Bach and Mendelssohn fame; and there, from the days of his boyhood, he had belonged to the little circle of intimates who frequently gathered around the master at his house.

When, a few years later, he came to Belgium on a concert tour, he and I found no difficulty in taking up the old friendship contracted in my father's house, just where we had left it. The boy had become the man, the student had developed into the artist and thorough musician. He was the boonest of boon companions, and his jokes were so broad that they often reminded one, in their crudeness and their rudeness, of certain passages in Mozart's early letters. To say that he spoke French with a German accent à la Svengali would be putting it very mildly; Teutonic gutturals would most unceremoniously invade the sister language; d's and t's, b's and p's would ever change places, as they are made to do in some parts of the Fatherland. With all that, he rejoiced in a delightful fluency of speech, conveying quaint and original thought. There was something decidedly interesting about Brassin's looks, but his figure gave one the impression of having been very carelessly put together; when he walked his head went back on his shoulders, and his hat went back on his head; his long arms dangled, pendulum-like, by his sides, while his lanky legs, dragging along anyhow, were ever lagging behind one another. But when he opened the piano and put hands and feet to keys and pedal, he was not the same individual. He would turn on nerve and muscle-power, and would hurl avalanches of music and torrents of notes at his audience till he, in his turn, was overwhelmed with thunders of applause. And those were the days, we must remember, when but few men could play at a greater rate than twenty to twenty-five miles an hour; when grand pianos were not yet ironclad and armour-plated, or had learnt proudly to display the maker's name on their broadside when they went forth to do battle on the concert field.

Brassin used to draw inane caricatures of himself, which he would present to us with a triumphant laugh of immoderate calibre. I have preserved some of these, but decidedly prefer du Maurier's rendering of our common friend. In the accompanying drawing he shows him at the piano, entertaining us on "A rainy day."

"Ah! Felix, amico mio," he says, "may thy room be always as jolly, thy coffee be ever so sweet, as on that happy morning! May Brassin's fingers be ever as brilliant and inspired! May Tag be ever as lazy, and with equal satisfaction to himself, and may I never be blinder! Amen."

That sketch admirably pourtrays the lankiness and flabbiness of Brassin's figure, contrasting as it did with the strength of the wrist and the grip of the fingers. He was certainly a fine subject for du Maurier, whom I always looked upon as a sort of vivisector of music and musicians, of their methods and their moods. A brilliant career awaited Louis Brassin, but it was to be suddenly and unexpectedly cut off. He died some ten years ago at the age of forty-four.

In 1858 my father came on a visit to Antwerp with my mother and my youngest sister, Clara. Wherever my father took up his abode, even temporarily, a grand piano would in the natural course of events gravitate towards him, and a select circle of art lovers would soon be grouped around it. Amongst the friends in the Antwerp circle were—Van Lerius, Tadema, Baron Leys, Heyermans, and Bource. My sister at that time was a bright and happy creature, not long out of her teens, full of hopes—alas! never to be realised, and of talents never to be matured. The large dark eyes—they seemed the gift of her godmother, the famous Malibran—reflected the artist's soul, and a grand soprano voice spoke its powerful language. Du Maurier and she were soon on a brother and sisterly footing, and they ever remained so.

Of the pleasant evenings we of the circle spent together I recall one in particular. My sister had been singing one song after another; my father was engaged in an animated conversation with Stefani, the pianist, on the relative merits of Mendelssohn and Schumann. Du Maurier and I had been sitting at the farther end of the room, talking of his eyes. At that time one doctor held out hopes; another, a great authority, had considered it his painful duty not to conceal the truth from his patient, and had, with much unction and the necessary complement of professional phraseology, prepared him for the worst. The sight of one eye had gone, that of the other would follow. Those were anxious days, both for him and for his friends; but, whatever he felt, he could talk about his trouble with perfect equanimity, and I often wondered how quietly he took it, and how cheerfully he would tell me that he was "fearfully depressed." That evening I had been putting the chances of a speedy recovery before him, and making predictions based, I am bound to admit, on nothing more substantial than my ardent hopes. But du Maurier was too much of a philosopher to be satisfied with such encouragement as I could give, and said: "No, I had better face the enemy and be prepared for the worst. If it comes, you see, my dear fellow, there is Nature's law of compensation, and I firmly believe that one cannot lose one faculty without being compensated by some great gain elsewhere. I suppose one gets to see more inside as things grow darker outside. If one can't paint, one must do something else—write perhaps; that is, as long as one can, and then, if the steam accumulates, and one wants a safety valve to let it off, dictate." Happily, to this day he writes, and need not have recourse to dictation.

When we joined our friends we found Van Lerius and Heyermans had been pressed into the service, and were making sketches for my sister's album. Du Maurier took up a pencil, and, with a few characteristic touches, drew that sister's eyes. "Quand je les vois," he wrote underneath, "j'oublie les miens. (Reflexion d'un futur aveugle.) When I see them I forget my own. (Reflections of a man going blind.)"

Soon the main business of the evening was resumed. Was it Beethoven's sonata for piano and violin, or a mighty improvisation on classical themes that came first? I do not recollect; but I remember that du Maurier's rendering of Balfe's "When other lips and other hearts," with my scratch accompaniment, was warmly greeted by all lips and hearts present.

When these pleasant evenings had come to an end, the friendly intercourse was not allowed to drop, and so a number of sketches by her new friends found their way into Miss Clara's album.

In the following winter, when I left on a short visit to Leipsic, he sent her a few lines through me. I quote from his letter because the wording is peculiar, and illustrates his capacity for expressing himself in a language that he had to evolve from his inner consciousness:—

"Herr Rag schickt zu Fräulein Moscheles sein empfehlung und ihren bruder; es wird höflicht gebeten das sie wird die sach reciprokiren, und in fünftzen dägen ihr empfehlung und seinen freund zuruck schicken."

For the benefit of those whose inner consciousness is not in touch with the above, I give the English version:—

"Mr. Rag sends his greeting and her brother to Miss Moscheles, and kindly requests her to reciprocate the proceeding in a fortnight by returning her greeting and his friend."

When I think how easily and spontaneously such sketches dropped from his pen, I am reminded of a passage in one of Mendelssohn's letters to my mother; he sends her the Mailied and says: "This morning a song came to me. I really must write it down for you." So, too, from the first the pen-and-ink compositions came to du Maurier. His talent manifested itself not only in a desire to illustrate this or that incident or adventure, but also in his inexhaustible capacity for making something out of nothing, and as the nothing was never lacking, he might well say: "Dear Bobtail, I will never write without sending my compliments to thine album." His rendering of "Cher Lix," for instance, takes the shape of a graceful monogram, or diplogram, or whatever I ought to call a combination of our two profiles and my name.

He starts a short missive with a sketch of himself seated in his trunk, pipe in mouth, and says: "Dear Bobtail, I write to you out of sheer idleness, so as to have an excuse not to pack up for the next half-hour." Or he draws himself looking over my shoulder whilst I am writing to my sister and puts the supposed context of my letter:—

"Bobtail writes (in German of course):

"I won't write any more, for there's an indiscreet fellow looking over my ——"

"Rag. It's not true, I swear. (For Miss Clara.)"

Another time he wants me to send him some brushes and various other painting materials he enumerates: "Oh, and a little thing like this for oil to do the thing cheesy." He depicts himself quite elated; his eyes seemed so much better that he had once more resumed work in the studio of his friend Goyers. "Gruss from maternal and self," he ends; "ganz hertzlich; come soon, or write soon, or do something soon, hang it.—Thy RAG, jusqu' à la mort."

Monsieur Staps, Sous-Chef of the "Guides," the best military band in Brussels, was a friend of ours. He had invited us to one of the famous Concerts du Conservatoire, a treat in anticipation of which du Maurier at once takes to the pen, and shows us in classical garments and dignified attitudes listening to the "young men of the Conservatorio." "Sketch represents," he says "Claudius Felix et Publius Busso, cum centurione Guidorum, audientes juvenes Conservatorioni, A.D. CCLVIII." The "Busso" derived from his full name—George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier.

In striking contrast with the last drawing is the next. Here we are decidedly anything but conventional in our attire, as he depicts us in "Double-bedded room, Brussels. Time 11 a.m. (train starts 11.20). Bobtail's face being rather smutty, he washes it, and Rag's boots being rather tight, he puts them on at leisure, during which process he has time to smoke three pipes. Bobtail. Bub-bub-bub-bub ... whew ... pouf!... Rag. How many?"

A favourite theme of his was his supposed inability to shine on occasions when I had introduced him to friends of mine, and was particularly anxious to show him off to advantage, and then, again, the unrelenting fate that would swiftly overtake him if he ventured to put himself forward. I need not say that the inability and the discomfiture existed only in his imagination, for in all circles he was ever appreciated and admired. But he would have it otherwise, and pourtrays us side by side with the legend—

Another drawing shows what happened when for once in a way he presumed to accept the homages of the fair.

"One fine morninge, earlie, at ye Café de la Plage, Blankenberghe, ye celebrated Rag, deeming himself alone, treateth himself to a private performance of ye Padre furioso e figlia infelice, in imitatione of his illustrious friende, Felix Bobtailo. Presentlie a voice exclaimeth behind him, 'Monsieur, permettez moi de vous féliciter,' and a ladie politelie maketh him complimente on his talente. Rag replieth that she must not be surprised thereat, as hys life has been spent among ye great musicians, and that therefore he can scarcelie helpe being a consummate musician himselfe. Shortly after as he lighteth hys cigarre at ye barre, he enquireth bumptiously, 'Who might that good ladie be?' 'She is the prima-donna of the Munich Opera, Monsieur.' Whereupon ye soul of ye humiliated Rag sinketh into hys bootes, and he retireth for ever under a perpetual extinguisher.

"Ye hero of ye above unfortunate adventure presenteth hys compliments to Miss Clara Moscheles, and beggeth she will deigne to accepte ye sketche in acknowledgment of ye last box of 'acidulated lemon-flavoured droppes' entrusted to her brother's care (need he remark that they have not yet reached their destination).