Without an idea--a crisp, definite, interesting idea is always there, whether you like her novels or no--without an idea Mrs. Porter won’t write. But when she begins to write she has much more than the idea. She has a synopsis written out. She couldn’t work without one, she says. And to that synopsis she sticks pretty closely. “For I must see my aim,” she explains, “I must have every part of the story bear definitely toward the object. The synopsis of _Pollyanna_ differs very little from the completed story. However, the glad game was not in the synopsis. That did invent itself--in the second chapter. And of course various characters always have a way of sort of writing themselves in, and new scenes and incidents suggest themselves as the book grows.” Does Mrs. Porter preach? Not by intention. She abhors the notion of trying to. She does believe that “the idea of happiness should be held up to people. But I do not attempt to preach happiness,” she adds hastily. “I make my characters as simple and natural as possible. If the characters are sufficiently vivid, if they are true, they can say a lot of things that no author could say directly without being charged with sermonizing.” Oho! remarks the critic, Mrs. Porter thinks that if she puts her preaching into the mouths of her persons she can escape the charge of sermonizing. Wrong. Mrs. Porter does not say that. She does declare that _if the characters are true_ they can say things that, from the author, would be mere preaching. Truth in your people comes first, must always be first; if they are true they can, and probably will, not only say but do many things with a moral in them. Why, aren’t we always reading a moral out of--or into--every other thing we hear our neighbors say or see them do? The critic has another quarrel with Eleanor Porter. He accuses her of “evasive idealism” and “sham optimism” in her stories. Let her answer him: “Just why the ‘realities of life’ should always mean the filth and brambles, sticks and stones and stumbling blocks of our daily pathway I have never understood,” she cries. “But such seems to be the case. To most critics there are evidently no pleasantly agreeable, decent qualities of life. But I believe that there are, and these realities may lend themselves to just as sincere and direct an interpretation of life as may the other kind. “There is a blue sky, there is a warm sun, and there are birds that sing in the treetops. Then why should their presence be unnoticed--sometimes? That is certainly not a sugary philosophy utterly without a basis in logic or human experience. I realize that this sort of thing can be overdone, but still contend that always to look at the hole instead of the doughnut is not only very foolish--but very detrimental to one’s digestion.”