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Indiana University Studies 



member them. 97 The impression of their being caricatures may 

 have been caused by the old-fashioned, eccentric pictures that 

 accompany them. Or it may be due to the inability of many 

 respectable people to see the "funny side" of normal people, for 

 all good people are not born with a keen sense of the ridiculous. 

 Be this as it may, in this aspect of his humor, De Morgan follows 

 in the steps of his great predecessor, as the following passages will 

 show : 



But this porter's name was Onions, and he had no soul, except one 

 that was wrapped up in remuneration. So he accepted fourpence and saw 

 nothing. 98 



But — where was the Deceased Wife's Sister? Samuel explained. He 

 had shown the lady into the mezzanina room, as directed. Samuel felt 

 proud of his Italian over this. 99 



She could keep off people's corns altogether, but she could not go over 

 them on tiptoe. 100 



Miss Upwell had her own share of inquisitiveness. and a little of some- 

 one else's. 101 



A good deal of this author's humor, like that of Dickens and 

 Thackera}', depends upon his manner of expression. Sometimes 

 he simply puts things in an unusual, original way: 



Tea waited to be made, like Eve when she was a rib. 102 



An up-to-date English servant respects herself more, or less, in propor- 

 tion to the degree of confusion into which she can plunge her employers 

 when she throws up her situation. 103 



He was just on the point of putting salt on the tail of an unidentified 

 Samnite, or a finishing touch on the demolition of Bopsius. 104 



At other times he uses a colloquial or otherwise irregular 

 vocabulary and idiom: 



He made himself into a perfect bolster with wraps, and put on a re- 

 spirator. This damned thmg, however, he took off again, as it impeded 

 respiration. 105 



Mrs. Groves worked rising indignation into her speech, after the manner 

 of her class. Even so the Choctaw or Cherokee stimulates himself to 



97 "If the creation of differentiated types of humanity who persist in living in 

 the imagination be the cardinal gift of the fiction writer, then this one (Dickens) is 

 easily the leading novelist of the race. Putting aside for the moment his caricaturing 

 tendency, one fact confronts us, hardly to be explained away: we can close our eyes 

 and see Micawber, Mrs. Gamp, Pegotty, Dick Swiveller. the Artful Dodger. Joe 

 Gargery, Tootles, Captain Cuttle, and a hundred more, and their sayings, quaint 

 and dear, are like household companions. And this is true of no other story -maker 

 who has used English speech — it may be doubted if it is true to like degree of Shake- 

 peare himself." Richard Burton. Masters of the English Novel, p. 180. 

 9S It Never Can Happen Again, p. 121. 

 "Ibid., p. 667. 



™°The Old Madhouse, p. 159. 



ioi A Likely Story, p. 243. 



w-Ibid.. p. 201. 



103 It Never Can Happen Again, p. 456. 

 ^Somehow Good, p. 555. 

 "*Ibid., p. 258. 



