Our author is fond of presenting events of the most momentous consequence through the lips of humble and indifferent observers. It is only the cabman's chance testimony which shows us that even Rosalind's superb self-control had the limit determined by real womanhood; and in _Joseph Vance_, the great climax of emotion, when Lossie visits her maligned old lover, is given with unconscious force through the faulty vernacular of the "slut" of a servant-maid, who is utterly unaware of the angels that ministered over that scene; and then by the broken English of the German chess-player, equally blind to the divine presence. Compare these two crude testimonies, which make the ludicrous blunders made by the Hostess in that marvellous account of the death of Falstaff, and you have a veritable harmony of the Gospels. Some novelists use an extraordinary style to describe ordinary events; Mr. De Morgan uses an ordinary style to describe extraordinary events. Even in his latest book, _It Never Can Happen Again_,[2] the least cheerful of all his productions, the title is intended to be as comforting as Charles Reade's caption, _It Is Never Too Late to Mend_. In this story, Mr. De Morgan descends into hell. Delirium tremens has never been pictured with more frightful horror than in the awful night when the mad wretch is bent on murder. No scene in any naturalistic novel surpasses this in vivid detail. Indeed, all of Mr. De Morgan's books might well be circulated as anti-alcohol tracts; the real villain in his tragedies is Drink. Even though drunkenness in a certain aspect supplies comedy in _Joseph Vance_, drink is, after all, the ruin of old Christopher, and we are left with no shade of doubt that this is so. Mr. De Morgan's unquestionable optimism does not blink the dreadful aspects of life, any more than did Browning's. The scene in the hospital, where the fingers without finger-nails clasp the mighty hand in the rubber glove, is as loathsomely horrible as anything to be found in the annals of disease. And the career of Blind Jim, entirely ignorant of his divine origin and destiny, is a series of appalling calamities. He has lost his sight in a terrible accident; he is run over by a waggon, and loses his leg; he is run over by an automobile, and loses his life. He has also lost, though he does not know it, what is far dearer to him than eyes, or legs, or life,--his little daughter. And yet we do not need the spirit voice of the dead child to assure us that all is well. Indeed, the tragic history of Jim and Lizarann is not nearly so depressing as the humdrum narrative of the melancholy quarrel between Mr. and Mrs. Challis. In previous novels, the author has been pleased to show us domestic happiness; here we have the dreary round of perpetual discord. Of course no one can complain of Mr. De Morgan for his choice in this matter; it is certainly true that not all marriages are happy, even though the majority of them (as I believe) are.