pose; it hangs the
glamour of distance over the pages, and it puts the reader in direct
communication, as it were, with the characters in the book. The
narrator is garrulous, and often far from artistic with his scenes and
incidents; but it is Caskoden doing all this, not Mr. Charles Major,
and we never think of bringing him to task! Undoubtedly it is good art
to do just what Mr. Major has done--that is, it is good art to present
a picture of life in the terms of the period in which it flourished.
It might have been better art to clothe the story in the highest terms
of literature; but that would have required a Shakespeare.

The greatest beauty of Mr. Major's story as a piece of craftsmanship
is its frank show of self-knowledge on the author's part. He knew his
equipment, and he did not attempt to go beyond what it enabled him to
do and do well.

His romance will not go down the ages as a companion of Scott's,
Thackeray's, Hugo's and Dumas'; but read at any time by any
fresh-minded person, it will afford that shock of pleasure which
always comes of a good story enthusiastically told, and of a pretty
love-drama frankly and joyously presented. Mr. Major has the true
dramatic vision and notable cleverness in the art of making effective
conversation.

The little Indiana town in which Mr. Major lives and practices the law
is about twenty miles from Indianapolis, and hitherto has been best
known as the former residence of Thomas A. Hendricks, late
Vice-President of the United States. Already the tide of kodak artists
and autograph hunters has found our popular author out, and his
clients are being pushed aside by vigorous interviewers and reporters
in search of something about the next book. But the author of When
Knighthood was in Flower is an extremely difficult person to handle.
It is told of him that he offers a very emphatic objection to having
his home life and private affairs flaunted before the public under
liberal headlines and with "copious illustrations."

Mr. Major is forty-three and happily married; well-built and dark;
looking younger than his years, genial, quiet and domestic to a
degree; he lives what would seem to be an ideal life in a charming
home, across the threshold of which the curiosity of the public need
not try to pass. As might be taken for granted, Mr. Major has been all
his life a loving student of history.

Perhaps to the fact that he has never studied romance as it is in art
is largely d