author's thoughts; but just as you can hear Browning's voice all through those "utterances of so many imaginary persons, not mine," so I feel confident that amid all the light banter of this charming talk in the fortieth chapter, the following remark of Dr. Thorpe expresses the philosophy of William De Morgan, and at the same time the basal moral principle underlying this entire novel:--"The highest good is the growth of the Soul, and the greatest man is he who rejoices most in great fulfilments of the will of God." For although Mr. De Morgan belongs, like Dickens, to the great humorists, who, while keenly conscious of the enormous difference between right and wrong, regard the world with a kindly smile for human weakness and folly, he is mainly a psychologist. To all of his novels he might appropriately have prefixed the words of the author of _Sordello_: "My stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul; little else is worth study." All the characters that he loves show _soul-development_; the few characters that are unlovely have souls that do not advance. Joseph, Lossie, Janey, Alicia, Charles Heath, Rosalind, Athelstan, have the inner man renewed day by day; one feels that at physical death such personalities proceed naturally into a sphere of eternal progress. On the other hand, Joey's soul stands still; so do the souls of Violet, Lavinia Straker, Mrs. Vereker, Mrs. Eldridge, Judith, and Mrs. Craik. Why should they live for ever? They would always be the same. This is the real distinction in these novels between people that are fundamentally good and those that are fundamentally bad; whether their badness causes tragedy or merely constant irritation. It is an original manner of dividing virtue from vice, but it is illuminating. The events in Mr. De Morgan's books are improbable, but the people are probable. The same might be said of Shakespeare. It is highly improbable that Christopher Vance could have risen to fortune through his sign-board, or that Fenwick should have been electrocuted at the feet of his wife's daughter. But Christopher Vance, Fenwick, and Sally behave precisely as people would behave in such emergencies in real life. In many ways I think Christopher Vance is the most convincing character in all the novels; at any rate, I had rather hear him talk than any of the others. There is no trace of meanness in him, and even when he is drunk he is never offensive or disgusting. The day after he has returned intoxicated from a meeting of the Board of Arbitrators, he seems rather inquisitive as to his exact condition, and asks his son:-- "I wasn't singin' though, Nipper, was I?" I said certainly not! "Not 'a Landlady of France she loved an Officer, 'tis said,' nor 'stick 'em up again in the middle of a three-cent pie'?"