art.' On such a broad basis of criticism every admissible popularity may be fairly accounted for. "Mr. Roe, the man, is an exact counterpart, one may say, of Mr. Roe, the author. As an author, in the first place, he is remarkably candid. He has been so candid, indeed, that the tendency of certain critics to treat him disingenuously is rather absurd. These critics want him to write books, apparently, which he does not propose to write; they overlook the fact that Mr. Roe has stated very clearly just what he desires to write. In a preface to one of his novels he says, in effect, that if his books are not beautiful works of art they are at least books which tender peace and resignation to many lives. (I am not quoting, by the way, but am presenting the idea which must have been in Mr. Roe's mind when he wrote that preface.) There are so many clever books published nowadays which pervert the young and sensitive conscience--a word not included in the vocabulary of our 'disagreeably' artistic novelists--that it may be wise to accept Mr. Roe's novels as good morality, if not as the best literature. "It is not every author who puts himself into his books. Drunkards have written temperance tracts. Blackguards have written treatises on ideal existence. Posing fops have railed against the hardships which beset noble ambition. Mr. Roe has written the best that is in him for the best that is in thousands of men and women. I have tried to indicate briefly what he is as an author. As a man, he is not less genial, sincere, and agreeable than his books. The cleverest authors are, as a rule, far more entertaining and astonishing in their books than in themselves. In themselves, to speak the truth, they are not likely to be either entertaining or astonishing. I should look to few of them as acceptable hosts. Mr. Roe proved himself, and proved how good a host he was, on a recent Saturday afternoon, when some thirty or forty members of the Authors' Club accepted his invitation to spend a day at his house and grounds on the historic heights of Cornwall.