“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.
