BOOKS AND BOOK-MEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 1, 7 January 1893, Page 8

BOOKS AND BOOK-MEN.

'TTyE colonials chiefly know Mr George Du Maurier \ y through the pages of Punch, in which he weekly satirizes the manners and customs of London society. It may be thought, therefore, that he is misplaced under the heading of this column. But all who have read ‘ Peter Ibbetson,’ a very quaint and decidedly clever novel, will admit that the well known artist has a right to be dubbed a bookman. He is, moreover, at present engaged on another novel, which will, his friends hope, make his name as famous in connection with the pen as it has been with the pencil. Mr Du Maurier has a great advantage in being able to illustrate his own books. The illustrator is too often at utter variance with the writer, and most readers of fiction must have time and again marvelled at the apparent utter inability of the artist to grasp what picture the author meant to call up. So much is this the case that illustrated books are generally detested by imaginative people, who suffer acutely when their ideal of the hero is ruthlessly slaughtered by some villainous picture.

Lovers of Dickens whose appetite for reminiscences is unsatiable, will read with delight the new memoirs of the great master by Miss Maiinie Dickens, his daughter.

Dickens was the man who was always in time. Unpunctuality, indeed, was the sin against Dickens :— ‘ There never existed, I think, in all the world, a more thoroughly tidy or methodical creature than was my father. He was tidy in every way—in his great, generous, and noble mind, in his handsome and graceful person, in his work, in keeping his writing-table drawers, in his large correspondence—in fact, in his whole life. 1 remember that my sister and I occupied a little garret room in Devonshire Terrace, at the very top of the house. He had taken the greatest pains and care to make the room as pretty and comfortable for his two little daughters as it could be made.

‘ Even in those early days he made a point of visiting every room in the house once each morning, and if a chair -were out of its place, or a blind not quite straight, or a crumb left on the floor, woe betide the offender. And then his punctuality I It was almost frightful to an unpunctual mind ! This again was another phase of his extreme tidiness ; it was also the outcome of his excessive thoughtfulness and consideration for others. His sympathy, also, with all pain and sufl’ering made him quite invaluable in a sick-room. Quick, active, sensible, bright and cheery, and sympathetic to a degree, he would seize the “case” at once, knowing exactly what to do, and do it.’

Miss Dickens corrects the impression that her father was a gourmet who constantly revelled in dainty dishes: —‘ In very many of my father’s books there are frequent references to delicious meals, wonderful dinners and more marvellous dishes, steaming bowls of punch, etc., which have led many to believe that he was a man very fond ot the table. And yet I think no more abstemious man ever lived. Io the “Gad’s Hill” days, when the house was full of visitors, he had a peculiar notion of always having the menrl for the day’s dinner placed on the sideboard at luncheon time. And then he would discuss every item in his fanciful humorous way with bis guests, much to this effect: “ Cock a leekie ? Good, decidedly good. Fried soles with shrimp sauce? Good again. Croquettes of chicken ! Weak, very weak ; decided want of imagination here,” and so on ; and he would apparently be so taken up with the merits or demerits of a menu that one might imagine he lived for nothing but the coming dinner. He had a small but healthy appetite, but was remarkably abstemious both in eating and drinkiug. He was delightful as a host, caring individually for each guest, and bringing the special qualities of each into full notice and prominence, putting the very shyest at his or her ea«e, making the best o' the most humdrum, and never thrustirg himself forward.’