﻿Hale: William De Morgan 



23 



battle-point. But Frederick Hawkins remained unmoved. He knew the 

 old woman couldn't ketch holt upon him. 106 



She expresses contrition as far as error of judgment, but no, great re- 

 morse. She told her mastsr — meaning her husband — who said it was a 

 queer start. But it was that early! The exact bearing of this fact on the 

 matter was far from clear. 107 



The quoting of a character's speech indirectly in the body of 

 the text also contributes to the humor of our author's work, as in 

 the passages above. But his most characteristic humor is that 

 which he finds in the inconsequential workings of the human mind. 

 Our minds have an illogical, inconsequential way of expressing 

 themselves; we do not always say just what we mean; we take a 

 great deal for granted; our words by themselves are inadequate 

 and deceptive. De Morgan has seized upon this limitation of 

 thought and speech, and with it has developed a species of humor 

 all his own. The following are typical examples: 



"My word, missis, he was bad! Wanted to holler me over the coals, 

 he did, for behind my time. I could hear him wantin' to do it. But he 

 couldn't come by the breath." 108 



"My dear, you said nothing. But if your father could have heard what 

 you did not say, you know very well what he would have thought." 109 



They were not history, but Scripture, and broadly speaking might be 

 considered to have happened on Sunday. 110 



Mother Groves's hearing was none of the best; so when she condemned 

 the time-honored legend as outlandish and French, it may be she had really 

 supposed that some of the expressions were in a foreign tongue, any variety 

 of which she would consider French, failing instruction to the contrary. 

 But Lizarann's reference to the Lord, to sinners, and to repentance, was 

 strong enough in itself to keep suspicions of Voltaire and Tom Paine in 

 abeyance. M!rs. Groves therefore allowed the story to continue, and felt 

 fortified against the heresies abounding on the continent by the approved 

 religious bias of the narrator. 111 



As for the pulse, that she could not be certain about. But finding of 

 pulses was not one of her strong points. She had an inner conviction they 

 never occurred twice in the same place. 112 



The finest quality in the novels of William De Morgan is their 

 verisimilitude. In obtaining this, he has shown a good deal of 

 independence of his predecessors. It has already been pointed 

 out what assistance he received from them; but he has some: more 

 original devices for imparting reality to his stories. As we have 



Never Can Happen Again, pp. 138-139. 

 i" 7 Ibid., p. 185. ' ■ 



^Somehow Good, pp. 269-270. 

 ™*Ibid., p. 151. 

 ^Joseph Vance, p. 489. 

 111 It Never Can Happen Again, p. 141. 

 w-The Old Madhouse, p. 179. 



