One dark and snowy day last winter a distinguished company met in the Old Church at Chelsea to do honour to the memory of Henry James. Once more this January, under the same grey and gloomy skies, with the same war-cloud hanging like a pall over the land, another memorable gathering took place in the ancient riverside shrine, when the last rites were paid to another illustrious Chelsea resident, William De Morgan. Henry James, greatly as he had endeared himself to us all and nobly as he had thrown in his lot with England in these anxious times, had only recently made his home in this neighbourhood, but William De Morgan had been closely connected with Chelsea for nearly half-a-century. Chelsea was the scene of his triumphs both in art and literature. Here he set up his first kiln, in a garden at the back of Cheyne Row, and here too, in later years, he wrote his famous novels.

His family was of French origin. He told me how one of his Huguenot ancestors, four generations back, went out to India, and married two Frenchwomen in succession. His son, Auguste De Morgan, came over to England, settled here, and became the grandfather of the distinguished mathematician, Augustus De Morgan, who held the post of Professor of Mathematics at University College for more than thirty years, and married the daughter of another mathematician of note, the Cambridge Lecturer William Frend. This Mrs. De Morgan was a remarkable woman, of cultured tastes, whose beautiful face and lively interest in the people and things about her made her still attractive in old age. She is fondly remembered by many of her friends in Chelsea. Their eldest son, William De Morgan, was born at 69 Gower Street in 1839, and took up painting as a profession, before he turned his attention to pottery. His sister, Mary De Morgan, who died eight or nine years ago, was an able and talented woman—a marked contrast to her brother in appearance, being small and slight, with a sharp voice and abrupt manner. She amused people by her quick repartees and witty sayings and wrote several fairy-tales, which recalled Hans Andersen by their imaginative charm. The first of these—‘On a Pincushion’—was published in 1877, and illustrated with drawings by William De Morgan; the last—‘Wind-fairies’—appeared in 1900, and was dedicated to Angela, Dennis, and Clare Mackail, the grandchildren of Edward Burne-Jones. Mary De Morgan also wrote a striking novel, called ‘A Choice of Chance,’ which was published in 1887, under the nom de plume of William Dodson, a name which effectually concealed the writer’s identity. The gift of story-writing was evidently in the family, although in William De Morgan’s case it was to lie dormant for many years.

In 1871, on the death of his father, William De Morgan brought his mother and sisters to live in Cheyne Row, two doors from Carlyle’s home, and began to make his fine lustre-ware in a picturesque old building known as Orange House. After his marriage to Miss Evelyn Pickering in 1888, he settled in a charming old house in The Vale, where he and his wife lived until it was pulled down more than twenty years later, when they moved into a corner house in Church Street. Their winters, however, were chiefly spent in Florence, partly for the sake of De Morgan’s never robust health, partly in order to be near his wife’s uncle, the painter, Spencer Stanhope, who was a prominent member of the English colony in that city. But after the death of this relative the ties which bound the De Morgans to Florence were loosened, and in 1912 they finally gave up their Italian home to spend the whole year in Chelsea.

From his early youth William De Morgan was the intimate friend of Burne-Jones and William Morris, whose artistic aims and tastes he shared, and was a frequent and welcome visitor at the Grange and at Kelmscott House. His simple childlike nature, his ready wit and love of fun, made him a great favourite with the young people in both households. Lady Burne-Jones has told us what an active part he took in their family life, both in joy and sorrow, at one time amusing her children and their young cousin, Rudyard Kipling, with his merry pranks, and on another occasion, when she herself was dangerously ill, sitting up all night with her distracted husband. And Miss May Morris remembers the delight of her whole family when her father wrote to say that he was bringing De Morgan back from town to spend a few days at Kelmscott. De Morgan himself was never tired of recalling these blissful summer holidays in the old Manor on the Upper Thames, when he and Morris roamed up and down the lovely Cotswold country in search of a suitable place for their workshops. Eventually, in 1882, he built a factory for his tiles near Morris’s works at Merton Abbey, and his jars and dishes of glowing ruby and mother-of-pearl were always to be seen in the Morris Company’s showrooms in Oxford Street. In beauty of shape and colour, these lovely things recalled the wonderful Gubbio ware wrought by Messer Giorgio in Renaissance times, while De Morgan’s Persian tiles came so near to those which Lord Leighton brought from Damascus to decorate his Arab court, that it was almost impossible to detect any difference between the two.

Unfortunately, in spite of its decorative charm and of the general admiration which it aroused, De Morgan’s pottery never proved a commercial success. This was partly due to the great cost of production, and partly no doubt to his own lack of business capacity. Like the French potter Palissy, whom in many ways he resembled, De Morgan’s fertile brain was always busy with fresh ideas, always starting out on untrodden tracks and attempting new experiments. If one of these happened to prove successful, he promptly frittered away his earnings in making fresh ventures on a new and grander scale. His kindness and liberality to the workmen in his service were unbounded. He took the deepest interest in their welfare, and countless instances of his generosity to individuals are on record.

During the winters which he spent abroad he was still busy with new experiments and inventions, and set up a shop in his garden in Florence, where he trained Italian workmen to paint tiles with Persian colours under the glaze. But by degrees his connection with the work ceased, and about ten years ago the factory was closed and the moulds destroyed, to the great regret of all lovers of art.

It was just at this moment, when William De Morgan was already sixty-six, that he startled the world and amazed his most intimate friends by revealing himself in a new and altogether unexpected capacity. Suddenly, without any warning, the great potter appeared before the public as a successful novelist. There are comparatively few men in any age who have attained distinction in two separate branches of art. Great poet-painters there have been, it is true, such as Michelangelo in Italy of the Renaissance, and Dante Rossetti in our own times, but there was generally a close connection between their creations in the different arts. Either the picture was inspired by the sonnet, or the verses gave birth to the painting. It would be difficult to trace any connection between De Morgan’s tiles and the novels which his prolific pen poured forth in his later years. Yet, as I have often heard him explain, his novels were indirectly the result of his work as a potter. It was during these first fifty years of his life, when he was busily engaged in making experiments and looking about for boys and men whom he could train to help him, that he acquired the familiarity with the working classes and dwellers in the slums which is one of the most striking features of his novels. The close and daily contact into which he was brought with his own potters, listening to their talk and watching them at work as he sat in a corner of the factory making designs or meditating new inventions, gave him that intimate knowledge of their habits and language, that insight into the points of view and prejudices of their class of which he writes with so much sympathy and kindly humour.

As a boy he remembered being told by his father, the professor of mathematics, that he possessed some literary power, and that if he applied himself to books he might do something in that line. But in those early days, young De Morgan’s sole ambition was to be a painter. So he entered the Academy school and, like Charles Heath in ‘Alice-for-Short,’ gave up painting to design stained glass, giving this up in turn when, about the age of thirty, he started his experiments as a potter. But he never made any attempt at original composition until he wrote his first novel, ‘Joseph Vance,’ when he was well on in the sixties.

It was at this interesting moment in De Morgan’s career, in the summer of 1906, that I had the good fortune to meet him at a country house, where he was staying with one of his oldest friends. We had often met before, generally at Burne-Jones’ house, and as I sat by his side at dinner we recalled those happy times and sighed for the days and the friends that were no more. George Howard, Lord Carlisle, who happened to be my other neighbour, joined in our conversation and agreed with all De Morgan said of the brilliant play of fantasy, the wit and tenderness, the indefinable charm which made our beloved painter the most delightful companion in the world. And with tears in his eyes, De Morgan said how it was always thus in life. ‘We fail to realise the importance of the present and let the good days go by, without any attempt to keep a record of our friends’ words and actions, until it is too late.’ Towards the end of dinner he dropped his voice and whispered that he had a secret to tell me. ‘The fact is,’ he said, ‘I have perpetrated the crime or the folly—whichever you choose to call it—of writing a novel, which has just been published, and what is more wonderful I have in my pocket a flattering review of the book, in to-day’s Spectator!’ He went on to tell me how the story of ‘Joseph Vance’ had grown into being; how when he was ill and away in Florence, a rheumatic hand disabled him from drawing, so he took to scribbling instead, and began to jot down ideas that came into his head, on scraps of paper; how his wife encouraged him to go on with the story; and how he became interested first of all in the character of Christopher Vance, the drunken old builder, and then in that of his heroine, ‘Lossie,’ till the actual writing became a pleasure and the book took its present shape. The speaker’s earnestness and animation, I remember, excited Lord Carlisle’s curiosity, and after dinner he asked me if what he had caught of our conversation could be true and De Morgan had really written a novel. There was no denying the fact, and soon we were all reading ‘Joseph Vance’ and the friendly review which had given its author so much satisfaction.

From the first the success of the book was phenomenal. The girls in the office where the manuscript was typed became so much absorbed in the story that they forgot to go on with their work. The critics were unanimous in their chorus of praise, in spite of the unusual length of the book, which at first seemed likely to prove a stumbling-block. Mr. Punch pronounced ‘Joseph Vance’ to be quite the best novel which he had read for a long time, and the public on both sides of the Atlantic hailed the advent of a new star in the literary horizon.

The plunge once made, William De Morgan went merrily on, and novel after novel poured forth in rapid succession from his pen. ‘Joseph Vance’ was followed in 1907 by ‘Alice-for-Short,’ which contains the author’s reminiscences of his experiences as an art-student, and is dedicated to the memory of Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. Then came ‘Somehow Good,’ in which the lively ‘Sally’ rivalled his first creation, ‘Lossie,’ in the affections of the writer, as in those of his readers. Indeed, after the manner of authors, De Morgan confessed that he had fallen in love with his latest creation, but that he was not in the least responsible for Sally’s erratic conduct, as she simply went her own way and did whatever she liked with him. The wife’s meeting with her long-lost husband was, he sometimes said, the passage by which he wished to be remembered, just as Thackeray used to say that Becky Sharp’s pride in her Guardsman was what he himself should select as the best thing that he had written.

In 1909 De Morgan published a two-volume novel, ‘It Never can Happen Again,’ which he dedicated to the memory of Ralph, second Earl of Lovelace, ‘in remembrance of two long concurrent lives, and an uninterrupted friendship.’ Lord Lovelace (who died in 1906) he always said had been his earliest friend in Chelsea. His mother, Ada, daughter of Lord Byron, and first Countess of Lovelace, used to study mathematics with Professor Augustus De Morgan, and their children had known each other from the age of eight or nine. This new book was hardly as successful as its predecessors, although the episode of the blind beggar Jim and ’Lizer Ann was as fresh and delightful as anything its author had ever written.

Lord Lovelace himself once aptly described De Morgan’s novels as ‘the work of an idealist with realistic details,’ combining the sentiments and traditions of the Victorian age with the more analytical methods of the present generation. His sensitiveness to the deep impressions left on the youthful mind by passing sights and sounds, and to the strange way in which these trivial incidents weave themselves about the great events of life, was a noteworthy feature of De Morgan’s writings. Another striking feature of his novels was the vigour and animation of the dialogue, whether he chronicles the sayings of East-end beggars or West-end charwomen—a class with which he seems to have possessed a close and intimate acquaintance—or whether he sets down the lively prattle of Florentine gardeners and barbers or the almost preternatural quickness of repartee possessed by the small urchins of the slums. These are all recorded in the writer’s own inimitable fashion, with the same note of originality, the same gentle irony and warm sympathy, together with a youthful optimism which never seemed to grow old. Dickens, it has often been remarked, was the model on which De Morgan fashioned his style, but there is less of caricature in the characters which De Morgan draws, they are more real and human, and always lovable. The digressions in which he often indulges, taking the reader into his confidence and moralising on love and parting, on death and a future life, seem rather to recall Thackeray.

In his next novel, ‘An Affair of Dishonour,’ which appeared in 1910, De Morgan made a new departure. Leaving contemporary England and London of the Victorian age, he placed the scene of Sir Oliver and Lucinda’s adventures in the days of the Restoration, and introduced a graphic account of the naval battle of Solebay into the story. Several good judges rank this tale amongst the author’s best efforts, but De Morgan himself was not of this opinion, and when an admirer congratulated him on his new ‘tour de force,’ he replied ‘Say, rather, tour de faiblesse!’

The enforced break up of his old home in the Vale, Chelsea, and the move to another house in Church Street, were serious interruptions in De Morgan’s placid life, and when we met in the following summer he told me that for the last six months he had not been able to write a line, adding that it was perhaps just as well, since during the last five years he had written and published above a million and a quarter words! By the end of 1910, however, he and his wife were happily settled in their new home, to which they soon became deeply attached. That winter they spent Christmas in London for the first time, and before long decided to give up their house in Florence and make their home entirely in Chelsea. Here they lived happily, surrounded by old friends and their own beautiful works of art—De Morgan’s lustre-ware and Persian tiles, and his wife’s pictures. Mrs. De Morgan was an accomplished artist, and before her marriage her works appeared for many years at the Grosvenor and New Gallery exhibitions. Her industry was still as great as ever, and she went on painting her pictures while De Morgan wrote his novels. Music was another of their favourite occupations. They were regular attendants at the Albert Hall Sunday Concerts and the musical afternoons at Leighton House, and when they settled in Church Street De Morgan found a new source of delight in the pianola. He became the proud possessor of an Angelus, which he played all the evenings, and declared that it first revealed Beethoven to him. But long before this he had loved and studied the great master’s works, and readers of ‘Joseph Vance’ will remember the fine passage in which he describes the comfort that came to the bereaved widower in a dark hour, through hearing a movement of the Waldstein Sonata.

During the winter and spring of 1911 De Morgan found time to write another short novel, called ‘A Likely Story,’ in which he tried—not altogether successfully—to weave an Italian tale of the sixteenth century into the modern life of Chelsea. But the Italian part of the book is told with consummate art, and might almost pass as the work of Bandello or Luigi da Porto.

There was, however, general rejoicing among the readers of De Morgan’s novels when he returned to his older and more familiar vein in his second two-volume novel, ‘When Ghost meets Ghost,’ which appeared early in 1914. The plot of the story turns on the adventures of twin sisters, who are parted by a cruel fate in their youth, and only meet again after interminable vicissitudes and delays, when they are eighty years of age. This time his interest in the tale and the pleasure which he took in elaborating every detail carried him beyond his usual limits, and the story in its original form made up over a thousand pages. When in response to a gentle remonstrance from his publisher he succeeded in cutting out two hundred pages, he found it absolutely necessary to add another fifty or sixty, ‘to fill up the gaps.’ But in spite of its great length, much of the book was written in the author’s happiest manner, and many of his critics placed it next to ‘Joseph Vance’ in their estimation.

The letters which he received on this occasion, as he said in his quaint fashion, ‘greatly alimented his vanity.’ But he noticed that most of his readers referred to ‘Joseph Vance’ as his best book and to ‘Lossie’ as their favourite heroine. He confessed that for his part ‘Janey’ was ‘his darling,’ and took great pains to explain that she was not to be regarded as a ‘pis-aller,’ but as the best possible helpmeet for Joseph Vance—the true wife of his soul. One thing which surprised and gratified him extremely was the warm appreciation expressed for his novels by so many of the clergy—‘even Canons and Bishops’ of the Church of England, ‘in spite of all his heresies!’ It was in recognition of this kindly attitude that he felt it necessary to introduce a good parson into his novel, ‘It Never can Happen Again,’ in the person of the Rector, Athelstan Taylor, who refutes the ‘ultra-liberal views’ expressed by Alfred Challis.

He came to the conclusion that what attracted ecclesiastics of this description in his writings must be his ‘immortalism.’ As he always insisted, he had a firm faith in an overruling Providence which orders all things well, and in a future life where we shall see and know our lost friends once more.

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.

Long residence in Chelsea had made William De Morgan familiar with its chief landmarks and leading inhabitants. He had known Carlyle and Rossetti, Whistler and William Bell Scott, John Hungerford Pollen and many other celebrities of past days. The historic monuments in the Old Church, and the families whom they commemorate, the Cheynes and Petitts, the Laurences and Danvers, were a theme of which he was never tired. He mourned over the destruction of the old wooden Battersea bridge that figured so often in Whistler’s paintings and etchings. He had many stories to tell of the part which it had played in the old life of Chelsea, and of the health-giving properties associated with the structure in the minds of former inhabitants. There was, it appears, a popular superstition among Chelsea folk some fifty years ago that seven currents of air met in the middle span of the bridge. A carpenter who is still living vividly remembers being taken by his mother to stand on the bridge, on a bitterly cold March day, with his six brothers and sisters, who were all suffering from whooping-cough. It must have been a case of kill or cure, but in this instance the good woman’s faith seems to have been justified, for all her seven children got over the whooping-cough and grew up hale and hearty.

In spite, however, of his affection for Chelsea and its people, De Morgan never forgot Italy and the Florentine home where he and his wife had spent so many happy seasons. He missed the sun and the flowers and thought with regret of his friend Spencer Stanhope, whose death had left so great a blank in the English colony at Florence. Often he recalled the painter’s lovely home at Villa Nuti, where the De Morgans always spent the week-end, and their pleasant walks up the steep hillside, on radiant April mornings, when Val d’Arno lay below in the first flush of spring loveliness.

One evening towards dusk I happened to meet him in Chelsea, in front of a new Roman church which has been built of recent years in Cheyne Row. The door stood open and we saw the priest within reciting the office of Benediction, the clouds of incense rising heavenwards and the gleam of silver and lighted candles on the altar. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘I like that, it makes me feel I am at home again!’ And then it flashed across him that this church stood on the exact spot where his first pottery kiln had been set up, in the garden of Orange House; and so, as he said, ‘it really was his home.’

The sudden outbreak of war, in August 1914, found the indefatigable author busy with a new novel which promised to be both original and entertaining. It was the story of his own recollections of life in Chelsea during the last fifty years, put in the mouth of an old pauper exactly his own age, who was supposed to be living in the workhouse near his home. But, like many other authors, De Morgan found it impossible to go on writing when his whole soul was absorbed in the life and death struggle in which the Empire found itself involved. The new novel was left unfinished, but since a considerable part had been already written, it is to be hoped that both this fragment, and another novel on which he had been for some time engaged, may eventually see the light.

During the next two years and a half, De Morgan thought of little but the war. He followed every step of the campaign by land and by sea, and did his utmost to enlighten public opinion abroad and in the United States. More than this, he devoted a great part of his time to making scientific experiments at the Polytechnic and perfecting new discoveries, which might prove useful in submarine warfare. All his old love for chemistry now revived, and many were the suggestions for saving life and destroying hostile craft which he sent to the Board of Admiralty.

The splendid optimism and youthful enthusiasm which were so marked a feature of his character carried him safely through the darkest days of the last two winters. He took keen interest in an exhibition of his wife’s symbolical paintings dealing with subjects suggested by the war, which was held in Chelsea last spring, and was very proud of the substantial sum which it realised for the English and Italian Red Cross Societies. All through these anxious months his familiar figure was frequently to be seen in the streets of Chelsea. You met him in the morning doing his own marketing and carrying provisions home, and late in the dusk of evening he was constantly to be seen setting out on a rapid walk along the Embankment. Often you caught sight of him stopping at a street corner to exchange greetings with some old inhabitant or engaged in earnest conversation with a soldier in khaki just back from the front. The tall figure was slightly bowed with advancing years, and Time had whitened the locks and beard that were once a rich brown, but the brisk, alert step and clear blue eyes with their frank, kindly glance, were still the same as ever.

The last time I saw him he was singularly bright and hopeful. He had thoroughly enjoyed a short September holiday at Lyme Regis, and was eloquent on the beauty of the Dorset and Devon coast. And he spoke with the utmost confidence of the coming campaign on the Western front next spring. For him there could be no doubt as to the final issue of the struggle. The devil was let loose for a while and all the powers of evil were ranged against us in the battle, but right must conquer in the end, he felt convinced, and the hour of victory, he believed, was not far off. Alas! he was not destined to see the day to which he looked forward with such serene confidence. A sharp and sudden attack of influenza carried him off after a fortnight’s illness, and on the 15th of January he breathed his last. A few days later, a large company of the friends who had known and loved him met in the Old Church, which has played so great a part in the history of Chelsea and is so often mentioned in his books. Here his mortal remains were laid under a violet pall, bright with flowers, while sweet boy-voices sang his last Requiem. Among the mourners were the children and grandchildren of Burne-Jones and the daughter of William Morris. So, with the music and flowers which he had loved, and with familiar faces all around, he passed to his well-earned rest, followed by the love and gratitude of thousands whose lives had been cheered and gladdened by his genius.

Julia Cartwright.