It is pleasant to know that the success of De Morgan’s novels brought him the material rewards which his artistic pottery had failed to command, and better still to feel how thoroughly he enjoyed the fame and prosperity which had at length crowned his labours. He took a child-like pleasure in the letters which reached him from devoted admirers in all parts of the world, and often said that he was quite ashamed of the magnificent sums which he received from American publishers. The popularity of his novels showed no signs of diminishing. Each one was awaited with the same impatience, and in one instance a distinguished statesman who knew that his days were numbered, begged to see advance proofs of the forthcoming novel that was announced in the daily press, in order that he might enjoy this last pleasure before his death. In November 1910, De Morgan was the guest of honour at a dinner given by the Society of Authors, but his gratification at the compliment thus paid him was considerably damped when he found that he was expected to make a speech! So nervous was he at the prospect that he would not allow Mrs. De Morgan to be present, lest he should disgrace himself by breaking down. But, although his voice at first sounded a little weak and quavering, he got through the ordeal well, and amused his hearers by a good-humoured allusion to a boycott which his last novel had sustained at the hands of one of the largest circulating libraries, which had rejected it as being improper. This, he suspected, was rather due to the fact that he had outraged the feelings of circulating libraries by venturing to publish a novel in two volumes. But he confessed that he could not help feeling rather hurt at the treatment which he had received, because of the singular respect that he had always felt for libraries, ever since the day, sixty-six years before, when his mother first took him, as a small boy, into Mudie’s Library. He still remembered clearly how, as he stood with his chin resting on the counter, he saw a tall gentleman step out from the back of the shop and hand his mother a parcel of books. ‘That,’ said Mrs. De Morgan, ‘was Mr. Mudie.’ He never forgot the thrill which the words sent through him.