When Knighthood Was in Flower
Page 26
_The Author and The Book_
BY MAURICE THOMPSON
When a man does something by which the world is attracted, weimmediately feel a curiosity to know all about him personally. Mr.Charles Major, of Shelbyville, Indiana, wrote the wonderfully popularhistorical romance, When Knighthood was in Flower, which has alreadysold over a quarter million copies.
It is not mere luck that makes a piece of fiction acceptable to thepublic. The old saying, "Where there is so much smoke there must befire," holds good in the case of smoke about a novel. When a bookmoves many people of varying temperaments and in all circles ofintelligence there is power in it. Behind such a book we have theright to imagine an author endowed with admirable gifts ofimagination. The ancient saying, "The cup is glad of the wine itholds," was but another way of expressing the rule which judges a treeby its fruit and a man by his works; for out of character comes style,and out of a man's nature is his taste distilled. Every soul, like thecup, is glad of what it holds.
Mr. Major himself has said, in his straightforward way, "It is what aman does that counts." By this rule of measurement Mr. Major has aliberal girth. The writing of When Knighthood was in Flower was a deedof no ordinary dimensions, especially when we take into account thefact that the writer had not been trained to authorship or to theliterary artist's craft; but was a country lawyer, with an office tosweep every morning, and a few clients with whom to worry overdilatory cases and doubtful fees.
The law, as a profession, is said to be a jealous mistress, ever readyand maliciously anxious to drop a good-sized stumbling block in thepath of her devotee whenever he appears to be straying in thedirection of another love. Indeed, many are the young men who, onturning from Blackstone and Kent in a comfortable law office to Scottand Byron, have lost a lawyer's living, only to grasp the empty air offailure in the fascinating garret of the scribbler. But "nothingsucceeds like success," and genius has a way of changing rules andforcing the gates of fortune. And when we see the proof that a freshgenius has once more wrought the miracle of reversing all the finelogic of facts, so as to bring success and fame out of the verycircumstances and conditions which are said to render the featimpossible, we all wish to know how he did it.
Balzac, when he felt the inspiration of a new novel in his brain,retired to an obscure room, and there, with a pot of villainous blackcoffee at his elbow, wrote night and day, almost without food andsleep, until the book was finished. General Lew Wallace put Ben Hur onpaper in the open air of a beech grove, with a bit of yellowish canvasstretched above him to soften the light. Some authors use only themorning hours for their literary work; others prefer the silence ofnight. A few cannot write save when surrounded by books, pictures andluxurious furniture, while some must have a bare room with nothing init to distract attention. Mr. Charles Major wrote When Knighthood wasin Flower on Sunday afternoons, the only time he had free from theexactions of the law. He was full of his subject, however, anddoubtless his clients paid the charges in the way of losses throughdemurrers neglected and motions and exceptions not properly presented!
One thing about Mr. Major's work deserves special mention; its showsconscientious mastery of details, a sure evidence of patient study.What it may lack as literature is compensated for in lawful coin ofhuman interest and in general truthfulness to the facts and theatmosphere of the life he depicts. When asked how he arrived at hisaccurate knowledge of old London--London in the time of Henry VIII--hefetched an old book--Stow's Survey of London--from his library andsaid:
"You remember in my novel that Mary goes one night from BridewellCastle to Billingsgate Ward through strange streets and alleys. Well,that journey I made with Mary, aided by Stow's Survey, with his mapof old London before me."
It is no contradiction of terms to speak of fiction as authentic. Merevraisemblance is all very well in works of pure imagination; but ahistorical romance does not satisfy the reader's sense of justiceunless its setting and background and atmosphere are true to time,place and historical facts. Mr. Major felt the demand of hisundertaking and respected it. He collected old books treating ofEnglish life and manners in the reign of Henry VIII, preferring tosaturate his mind with what writers nearest the time had to say,rather than depend upon recent historians. In this he chose well, forthe romancer's art, different from the historian's, needs the literaryshades and colors of the period it would portray.
Another clever choice on the part of our author was to put the tellingof the story in the mouth of his heroine's contemporary. This, ofcourse, had often been done by romancers before Mr. Major, but hechose well, nevertheless. Fine literary finish was not to be expectedof a Master of the Dance early in the sixteenth century; so that SirEdwin Caskoden, and not Mr. Major, is accepted by the reader asresponsible for the book's narrative, descriptive and dramatic style.This ruse, so to call it, serves a double purpose; it hangs theglamour of distance over the pages, and it puts the reader in directcommunication, as it were, with the characters in the book. Thenarrator is garrulous, and often far from artistic with his scenes andincidents; but it is Caskoden doing all this, not Mr. Charles Major,and we never think of bringing him to task! Undoubtedly it is good artto do just what Mr. Major has done--that is, it is good art to presenta 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 termsof literature; but that would have required a Shakespeare.
The greatest beauty of Mr. Major's story as a piece of craftsmanshipis its frank show of self-knowledge on the author's part. He knew hisequipment, and he did not attempt to go beyond what it enabled him todo 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 anyfresh-minded person, it will afford that shock of pleasure whichalways comes of a good story enthusiastically told, and of a prettylove-drama frankly and joyously presented. Mr. Major has the truedramatic vision and notable cleverness in the art of making effectiveconversation.
The little Indiana town in which Mr. Major lives and practices the lawis about twenty miles from Indianapolis, and hitherto has been bestknown as the former residence of Thomas A. Hendricks, lateVice-President of the United States. Already the tide of kodak artistsand autograph hunters has found our popular author out, and hisclients are being pushed aside by vigorous interviewers and reportersin search of something about the next book. But the author of WhenKnighthood was in Flower is an extremely difficult person to handle.It is told of him that he offers a very emphatic objection to havinghis home life and private affairs flaunted before the public underliberal 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 adegree; he lives what would seem to be an ideal life in a charminghome, across the threshold of which the curiosity of the public neednot try to pass. As might be taken for granted, Mr. Major has been allhis life a loving student of history.
Perhaps to the fact that he has never studied romance as it is in artis largely due his singular power over the materials and atmosphere ofhistory. At all events, there is something remarkable in his vividpictures not in the least traceable to literary form nor dependentupon a brilliant command of diction. The characters in his book arewarm, passionate human beings, and the air they breathe is real air.The critic may wince and make faces over lapses from taste, andprotest against a literary style which cannot be defended from anypoint of view; yet there is Mary in flesh and blood, and there isCaskoden, a veritable prig of a good fellow--there, indeed, are allthe _dramatis personae_, not merely true to life, but living beings.
And speaking of _dramatis personae_, Mr. Major tells how, soon afterhis book was published, his morning mail brought him an interestingletter from a prominent New York manager, pointing out the dramaticpossibilities of When Knighthood was in Flower and asking for theright to produce it. While this letter was still under consideration,a telegram was received
at the Shelbyville office which read: "I wantthe dramatic rights to When Knighthood was in Flower." It was signed"Julia Marlowe." Mr. Major felt that this was enough for one morning,so he escaped to Indianapolis, and after a talk with his publishers,left for St. Louis and answered Miss Marlowe's telegram in person. Atthe first interview she was enthusiastic and he was confident. Shegave him a box for the next night's performance, which Miss Marlowearranged should be "As You Like It." After the play the author wasenthusiastic and the actress confident.
At Cincinnati, the following week, the contract was signed and thesearch for the dramatist was begun. That the story would lend itselfhappily to stage production must have occurred even to the thoughtlessreader. But it is one thing to see the scenes of a play fairlysticking out, as the saying is, from the pages of a book, and quiteanother to gather together and make of them a dramatic entity. MissMarlowe was determined that the book should be given to a playwrightwhose dramatic experience and artistic sense could be relied on tolead him out of the rough places, up to the high plane of convincingand finished workmanship. Mr. Paul Kester, after some persuasion,undertook the work. The result is wholly satisfactory to author,actress and manager--a remarkable achievement indeed!
Mr. Major's biography shows a fine, strong American life. He was bornin Indianapolis, July 25, 1856. Thirteen years later he went with hisfather's family to Shelbyville, where he was graduated from the publicschool in 1872, and in 1875 he concluded his course in the Universityof Michigan. Later he read law with his father, and in 1877 wasadmitted to the bar. Eight years later he stood for the Legislatureand was elected on the democratic ticket. He served with credit oneterm, and has since declined all political honors.
The title, When Knighthood was in Flower, was not chosen by Mr. Major,whose historical taste was satisfied with Charles Brandon, Duke ofSuffolk. And who knows but that the author's title would have provedjust the weight to sink a fine book into obscurity? Mr. John J.Curtis, of the Bowen-Merrill Company, suggested When Knighthood was inFlower, a phrase taken from Leigh Hunt's poem, the Gentle Armour:
"There lived a knight, when knighthood was in flower, Who charmed alike the tilt-yard and the bower."
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Transcriber's note--typographical errors corrected in text:
Page 15: Gentlema replaced with Gentleman
Page 102: way replaced with was
Page 154: extra 'the' removed
Page 306: Garcon replaced with Garcon