Which may be so but which does not hold true of The Right Princess. There the identification of Frances Rogers’s beliefs with the faith of which Mrs. Eddy was the founder is not indispensable to the narrative. Miss Rogers need not have been a Scientist. We should still have an unusual and effectively told story, a novel quite as entertaining and worth the reader’s while as The Opened Shutters, from which the terminology of the Scientists is entirely absent.
The point we would make, then, the point that ought, in sheer honesty, to be made at the very outset of any consideration of Mrs. Burnham’s work, is her genuine and incontestable achievement as a straight-way, out-and-out, talented story-teller, a pure and simple fictioneer, an experienced and popular American novelist. That some of her novels have probably done more to put Christian Science precepts before the world in what the Scientist believes to be the true light than anything ever written other than the church’s texts—that this is so may be granted. But it is not a fact we have to concern ourselves with here. We concede it and pass on. We pass on in either direction, going back to the fourteen books which preceded The Right Princess or forward to the eight novels which have appeared since The Leaven of Love. They are the bulk of Mrs. Burnham’s work. And yet—it is to be feared we shall have to bestow most of our attention upon the six books between! They represent Mrs. Burnham’s widest popularity and what is possibly her best work judged strictly in literary aspects. But enough of this for the present; it is time enough to cross bridges when we come to them. Let us first get a glimpse of Mrs. Burnham herself.
A tall woman, spare in build, with light hair, blue eyes and a merry manner, a conversationalist with anecdotes, a manner of great simplicity, serenity, calm pleasantness. She was the eldest daughter of George F. Root, as popular a songwriter as this country has produced. Born in Newton, Massachusetts, she has lived most of her life in Chicago. She summers in Maine. Her education was in the public and in private schools in Chicago, and at the New Church School, Waltham, Massachusetts. Politically she is, or was, a Progressive; and at this point we cannot do better than to quote her own words in the Chicago Record-Herald of November 24, 1912:
“People who see the large, sunshiny hotel room in which I work, whose bay windows command a wide expanse of lake, say that they no longer wonder at the good cheer of my stories. If I ever had the blues I should believe in the water cure. I have always believed in the ounce of prevention. Indeed, I try it all summer up in Maine.
“Bailey Island, my summer home, is only a small green hill in the superb sweep of the Atlantic. My cottage stands eighty feet above the sea, and there is nothing but water between me and Europe. It is great fun for a woman who usually lives at a hotel to keep house three months of the year.
“But Bailey Island is not an inspiring place. I never work in summer. My father always told me to let the water in the reservoir fill up then. Besides, a brick wall is all the view I want when I am at work. Even this dear Lake Michigan is almost too distracting at times.
“Lake Michigan explains why I have not followed the tide of successful writers to New York. I love Chicago, with all its soot and wind. I am naturally optimistic, and therefore expect that within the next decade the Illinois Central will be electrified. Then won’t this spot be a winter paradise?
“Nevertheless, it is tempting to use my island as a background for my stories. In The Inner Flame I have gone back to it again. Besides, the Villa Chantecler is a real place—a henhouse cleared and renovated by an enthusiastic young artist and given that clever name. The Chantecler studio was too picturesque an incident not to become material.
“However, very little of my material is taken from real life. It is playing with fire to draw recognizable portraits of people; but I fancy nearly all authors are quite aware that they are making composite pictures of friends or acquaintances. For instance, the man who inspired the character of Philip Sidney, the hero of The Inner Flame, is a brother-in-law of John McCutcheon; while Edgar Fabian’s personality and mannerisms are copied faithfully from another one of my friends whose character is as different from Edgar’s as can be imagined. It is very seldom that any individual appeals to me as material, but when he or she does, I generally fall. Inasmuch as in all my books there is not one villain, I should not think they would mind.
“I have been asked whether I have a ‘method’ in writing. I have—necessarily. Genius has inspirations. It writes in the night, or walking in the field, and burns cords of cigarettes. Mere talent must be persistent and industrious, and can often forego cigarettes.