﻿12 



Indiana University StvMes 



first place, when he has more than one plot in a story, the two do 

 not always coalesce into a unit}'. Perhaps the worst instance in 

 his novels of the "bifurcated plot", as Professor Matthews calls it. 

 appears in It Never Can Happen Again: until the final catastrophe 

 Occurs, almost no connection exists between the story of Lizarann 

 and her father and that of Challis and Judith. Lizarann's story 

 and that of Challis' wife and Charlotte Eldridge have but the 

 slightest relation, also. Notable instances of this same fault 

 occur in Thackeray's Vanity Fair and George Eliot's Middle- 

 march. Most of Dickens' novels offend in the same way. 



In the second place, De Morgan's plots do not move straight 

 forward, but zig-zag back and forth. Either he will give us the 

 details of a circumstance after he has told us of its occurrence, or 

 he will drop the narrative at a very exciting moment and tell us 

 about something else at a distance. He is very "Victorian" in 

 this respect, and, like Dickens, provokes us exceedingly at timer?. 

 This lack of plot construction, however, when combined with 

 the excellent characterization found in our author, on the whole, 

 adds to the verisimilitude of his stories. This certainly holds 

 true in the case of Thackeray. 47 Life itself has ragged edges; it 

 has not been finished off smooth; it zig-zags. 



In still another way De Morgan breaks the threads of his plots. 

 He stops at intervals to apologize to the reader for the lack of 

 interest or progress in the narrative; 48 for example, this digression 

 occurs in Somehow Good: 



Our story is like the scherzo in one respect; it has to be given in cte- 

 tached jerks — literary, not musical — these jerks don't come at any stated 

 intervals at all. The music was bad enough — so Sally and Laetitia thought 

 — but the chronicle is more spasmodic still. However, if you want to know 

 its remaining particulars, you will have to brace yourself up to tolerating 

 an intermittent style. It is the only one our means of collecting information 

 admits of. 49 



The same thing appears in 77 Never Can Happen Again: 



Those Avho measure events only by the bounce they manifest — their 

 rapidity, or unexpectedness, or by the clamour that accompanies them — 

 will wonder why any narrator of a story should think such flat incident 

 Avorth recording. But observe! — it was the very flatness of this conversa- 

 tion that gave it its importance, coming as it did on the top of the exhilara- 

 tion of Mr. Challis' visit, and his parting with that large and lively company 

 of friends less than two hours ago. 50 



47 Richarcl Bin-ton. Masters of the English Nocel, p. 206. 



4S Professor Phelps has pointed out that in this De Morgan is in line with a 

 tradition winch has always characterized the English novel (Essays on Modern Novel- 

 ists, pp. 13-15). , 



49 P. 87; see also p. 44. 



5op. 126. 



