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The “literary” or highbrow attitude toward Mrs. Atherton is perfectly conveyed in an article upon her by Mr. H. W. Boynton, also published in the New York Evening Post but over two years earlier, on February 26, 1916. We extract a few illustrative sentences:

“I may say frankly that I write of Mrs. Atherton not out of a special admiration for her work,” begins Mr. Boynton, in a highly self-revelatory manner, “but because for any surveyor of modern American fiction she is so evidently a figure in some measure ‘to be reckoned with.’... Her publicity may be said to have been extraordinary in proportion to her achievement.... The person who is examining her work as literature can find nothing to the purpose here (Mrs. Balfame).”

How comfortable to feel like that! Mrs. Atherton, with an amused smile, would probably say, at the intimation that there was no “literature” in Mrs. Balfame, and perhaps other of her books: “But life is so much more than literature!” When Mr. Boynton charges her with leaving life out of her books Mrs. Atherton will be seriously exercised.