Another splendid example of the author's versatility is this farcical,
humorous satire on the _art nouveau_ of to-day, Mr. Chambers, with all
his knowledge of the artistic jargon, has in this little novel created a
pious fraud of a father, who brings up his eight lovely daughters in the
Adirondacks, where they wear pink pajamas and eat nuts and fruit, and
listen to him while he lectures them and everybody else on art. It is
easy to imagine what happens when several rich and practical young New
Yorkers stumble upon this group. Everybody is happy in the end.
One might run on for twenty books more, but there is not space enough
more than to mention "The Tracer of Lost Persons," "The Tree of Heaven,"
"Some Ladies in Haste," and Mr. Chambers's delightful nature books for
children, telling how _Geraldine_ and _Peter_ go wandering through
"Outdoor-Land," "Mountain-Land," "Orchard-Land," "River-Land," "Forest-
Land," and "Garden-Land." They, in turn, are as different from his novels
in fancy and conception as each of his novels from the other.
Mr. Chambers is a born optimist. The labor of writing is a natural
enjoyment to him. In reading anything he has written, one is at once
impressed with the ease with which it moves along. There is no straining
after effects, no affectations, no hysteria; but always there is a
personality, an individuality that appeals to the best side of the
reader's nature and somehow builds up a personal relation between him and
the author. Perhaps it is this consummate skill, this remarkable ability
to win the reader that has enabled Mr. Chambers to increase his audience
year after year, until it now numbers millions; and it is only just that
critics should, as they frequently do, proclaim him "the most popular
writer in the country."