De Morgan, William

William (1840-), an English novelist. He has won his reputation in a surprisingly short time. His American publishers tell us that he is "of an artistic and inventive turn of mind," that he has invented a duplex bicycle, "the most effective sieve in existence," and a fire grate which will consume its own smoke. He has been interested for years in ceramics; De Morgan tiles are considered especially artistic in England. William De Morgan is the son of Augustus De Morgan, a distinguished mathematician, a professor in University College, London. The elder De Morgan is the author of several mathematical works and of A Budget of Paradoxes, of which Holmes says: "Few persons ever read it through. Few intelligent readers ever took it up and laid it down without taking a long draught of its singular and interesting contents."

William De Morgan began his first novel, Joseph Vance, an Illwritten Autobiography, when sixty-four years of age. It was rejected by the publishers. Before making a second attempt to have the work printed, the author decided to have it typewritten. The woman who had this work in charge told a publisher that her girls were "reading the manuscript and crying over it," instead of copying it. It is hardly necessary to add that the story very soon appeared. Joseph Vance, as well as De Morgan's other stories, is a revival of the long, slow, old-fashioned way of story telling--the way of Dickens and Thackeray. To the reader of modern fiction, wearied with the strain of grasping the whole course of a human life, not to mention a philosophy of existence and a scheme of the universe in the reading of half a dozen pages, the story of Joseph Vance comes like "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Knowing that a man lives who had time to write it, we begin to feel that we may have time to read it.

Alice-for-Short, another novel by De Morgan, published in 1907, is somewhat more dramatic. It has been called "a genial ghost-and-murder story." Like Joseph Vance, its most striking characteristic is the author's love for what is human in his fellow beings. One critic says of it, "By every law of fiction, it should be a bore--as a matter of fact it is not." De Morgan's last and strongest story, Somehow Good, appeared in 1908. It is a story of the present, full of pathos and humor. It has more of plot than Joseph Vance, while lacking none of the human sympathy, the wholesomeness, and the wisdom of those earlier stories. All three of these stories have the peculiar effect of inspiring the reader with the fixed conviction that they recount actual occurrences and experiences of the writer. They are, of course, based on the author's knowledge of human life and character, but the incidents and personalities are almost wholly imaginary.

In my personal opinion, Joseph Vance, this "ill-written autobiography," is wise, witty, gentle, and of unflagging interest; but then I have been frightfully prejudiced in its favor--by reading it!--Mary Moss.

How can any appeal be made to the principles governing the art of fiction, in the case of Joseph Vance, a book which abides by no rule, and yet remains, when all is said, a beautiful work of art? Only a pedant could drag in matters of form and the like, with reference to a work so interpenetrated with human tenderness that the laying of academically critical hands upon it must seem merely an act of obtuse impertinence. . . . Mr. De Morgan is a novelist worthy of the old school. He has written just such a book as his famous predecessors were wont to write, a book to turn around in--a long, absorbing, and ennobling story.--Royal Cortissoz in N. Y. Tribune.

Joseph Vance is the first great English novel of the twentieth century.--Lewis Melville.

Demosthenes (385-322 B. C.), the greatest of Greek orators. He was a native of Athens. From his parents he inherited property and an ambition to distinguish himself as a public speaker. He studied rhetoric under the ablest teachers of the day. The accounts that have reached us of his early education inform us that he suffered from an impediment in his speech. He was so determined, however, to fit himself for public speaking, that he practiced with pebbles in his mouth, and frequented exposed caves on the coast, where he tried to make himself heard above the noise of the waves. In order to form his style he is said to have rewritten the history of Thucydides several times, much as Benjamin Franklin rewrote Addison's essays for the same purpose. Philip of Macedon, the shrewd father of Alexander the Great, endeavored to secure entrance for Macedonia into the councils of Greece. Demosthenes opposed Philip with all his power. His orations against Philip--Philippics, they are called--are regarded as the finest specimens of Greek oratory. He characterized Philip as a despot, against whom there was but one safeguard to a democracy; namely, distrust. He also delivered a famous oration on the occasion of dedicating a funeral mound to the memory of those who had fallen near Chaeronea. Another famous oration, that on the crown, was called forth by the acts of a political adversary whom he drove into exile. Demosthenes is credited with pure motives and sincere patriotism in opposing the designs of Philip and Alexander. Finally, however, the Macedonian influence became too powerful for him. He fled from Athens, and resided at Aegina. After the death of Alexander he returned to Athens, but was again exiled by Alexander's successor, Antipater. According to general accounts he became weary of being hunted, and ended his life by taking poison. A complete edition of his works contains 123 writings, including 61 orations. Some of these, however, are not considered genuine. See Cicero