Gertrude Atherton says: “I think Lydia of the Pines is an American classic.” Margaret Deland wrote to Mrs. Willsie concerning Still Jim:
“All the book is American to the roots—but big Jim is the American soul. It is too massive a book to write about in detail;—it’s the whole effect that moves me: truth, beauty and democracy. A fine piece of work—an honest heart behind it. I congratulate you.”
The element of mysticism in Mrs. Willsie finds its outlet in the two and three line reveries which she puts at the head of her chapters. Thus in Still Jim a desert rock muses:
“Humans constantly shift sand and rock from place to place. They call this work. I have seen time return their every work to the form in which it was created.”
“Coyotes hunt weaker things. Humans hunt all things, even each other, which the coyote will not do.”
In Lydia of the Pines it is a pine tree which murmurs:
“The young pine knows the secrets of the ground. The old pine knows the stars.”
“Nature is neither cruel nor sad. She is only purposeful, tending to an end we cannot see.”
There should be mention of Mrs. Willsie’s most recent book, Benefits Forgot: A Study of Lincoln and Mother Love. This is a brief but true story of a young army surgeon for whose education his mother had made great sacrifices. Mrs. Willsie tells how President Lincoln learned of the young man’s neglect of his mother and brought him to realize his ingratitude. It is a very fine and very touching little story.
Has the war changed Mrs. Willsie’s ideas and ideals? No, it has sustained and strengthened them; it has supplied her with evidence in their support and justification in their advancement. We quote an interview with the novelist by Maxwell Aley: