How do we know what we know? What is knowledge? Some might comfortably respond to such epistemological questions by saying ‘I believe something to be true, it matches the reality I observe and therefore I know it to be true’. Complicating such an answer, a philosopher would take issue with the assumptions behind the key terms ‘believe’, ‘reality’, ‘know’ and ‘true’. Like such philosophers, Mary Cholmondeley forces her readers to think deeply about reality, belief and how we know what we think we know in her short stories ‘St. Luke's Summer’ (1908), ‘The Romance of His Life’ (1921) and ‘The Stars in Their Courses’ (1921). Cholmondeley embeds philosophical arguments about knowledge into engaging short stories, using the genre to popularize the complex works of philosophers who we know influenced her, such as Plato and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the works of philosophers who were her contemporaries and may have influenced her thinking, such as William James, Bertrand Russell and Hans Vaihinger.

For characters in these three short stories, belief and reality become confused. Intriguingly, these characters’ beliefs have an effect on reality, sometimes even becoming ‘truth’ for all as they work to shape a collective reality based on their own beliefs. The characters who manipulate the world to match their beliefs are not figured as the heroes or heroines of their stories. Thus, Cholmondeley seems to be warning that attempting to shape the world to coincide with our beliefs is not a good idea. Throughout Cholmondeley's works, but particularly in these three short stories, we can see the evolution of her philosophical argument. As she plays with this theme, she suggests that, in the absence of true knowledge, the human mind fills in the gaps and creates its own reality.

Catherine Rainwater and William J. Scheick note a similar theme in Red Pottage, arguing that Cholmondeley's novel portrays art reflecting and influencing life. With regard to the reading experience, they argue that, according to Cholmondeley, readers of the novel ‘have a responsibility to realize their own active role in the process of selecting and imitating art’.