Story of the Du Maurier Family

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19337, 29 May 1937, Page 9

Story of the Du Maurier Family

"THERE are footprints in the sand, and the mark of a hand upon a wall," writes Miss Daphne du Mauriei in "The Du Manners." "There are flowers pressed between the pages of a'book, colourless and flat, to which ii. dim fragrance clings. There are letters, crumpled and yellow with age, but the message they bring stares up at (he reader with vital, living force, as though they wore penned yesterday.

"Ghosts there are in plenty —not phantoms with pale faces trailing their chains into eternity, not headless horrors creaking upon the boards of lonely houses, but the happy shadowghosts of what has been, no more fearful than the binned photographs in the family album.

"Whoever lias loved much, felt deeply, trodden a certain path in happiness or pain leaves an imprint of himself for evermore.

"'('here are echoes for those who care to listen and visions for him who dreams. There are scents that linger in the air, and whispers of Hie years thai are gone. When (he turmoil of the present day becomes like thunder in (hi' ears, find the strain of modern lift! a burden too heavy to be borne, it is pleasant to shut out sound and sight and lose oneself on that silent shadow-world that marches a hand's breadth from our own."

It is in this mood that Miss Daphne du Marnier tells the story of her family from 181(1 to the marriage of her grandfather, George du .Marnier, the famous Punch artist and author Of "Trilby." Those who remember Miss du Manner's biography of her father "Gerald" will know that loyal ns she is to her own folk she is, never theless, not "Mind to weakness and failure, for these inevitable features of a full life are blended with success and good fortune when they came along.