Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-03-21
NEW BOOKS IN REVIEW
Novelist Calls
Last Creation
Her Hotel Book

Kate Douglas Wiggin gives charm
Ing account of how her latest book,
The Story os Waitstill Baxter" was
written. Everybody is ready to ac-
knowledge the charm of Kate Douglas
Wiggins's style, and this revelation
of her mental processes will be in
teresting to her public. The book is
published by the Houghton- Mifflin
Company:
Where and when was 'Waitstill
Baxter written? On reflection it &C.
ours to me that l shall always think
of this as my one and only hotel
book Almost every page of my
work has hitherto been done at my
country house in Maine, but among
the very few places left in the busy
noisy world where an author can
work without interruption, is hotel.
"One can get solitude, freedom and
concentration not only in some idyllic
hostelry far removed from cities, but
also In some sky parlor in the very
heart of a roaring, hustling, luxury
ridden, pleasure-seeking civilization.
II CHANGED to be in Garden City for
q few days rest last January, and
took some of my favorite brown en-
Velopes full of notes with me, merely
to rearrange their contents, nothing
being further from my intention or
desire than writing a book; but no
sooner did the name 'Waitstill BaN-
ter" meet my eye on the outside OF
one of the envelopes than il began at
last to tell me u story for which
had been waiting.
81 fought against it, but II insisted
and persisted until / returned to town
in a very rebellious mood with three
finished chapters in my travelling bag.
nj my home
pleasures had tendency to interrupt
my work at that season of the year,
so in order to satisfy the claims of the
story, which by this time had taken
absolute hold on me, l persuaded an
obliging landlord to give me large
vacant room, where in sunny bay
window I installed a writing table,
pen and ink, screen and scrap
basket-flve articles with the help OF
which any author ought to be able
to write a fairly decent book! per
haps you will say the more he uses
the scrap basket the better the book
is likely to bed
p Here then the story grew until 1t
was about one-half finished. Its next
stage of development was in a little
sitting-room on the Lusitania sailing
from New York to Liverpool, and the
next in, the Northern Counties Hotel
in Belfast, Ireland, where l wrote reg
ularly from ten to one in the morn
ings. and finished my days at delight
full Irish tea and dinner parties.
"The book was now approaching an
end, and taking advantage OF fort
nights golfing holiday on the part of
my husband, l immured myself in a
favorite London hotel, and, secreting
my very existence from all my friends,
worked unremittingly until | brought
the story to a close. Then followed
week in the Randolph Hotel at Ok
ford, where I rewrote, polished, struck
out, and added to the tale while the
manuscript was in the hands Of the
typist.
AT length 1t was done: but let no
one suppose. that the pen was laid
down in Joy, as though a burlen had
slipped from the shoulders. There
Is a momentary sense of relief, per-
haps, but one is sorry to be parted
from anything which has been the
cause of such solicitude and much
pleasure; although after the eXhiliar-
alton that has accompanied the work,
comes the back water of fear and
anxiety lest the book be less than we
hoped, when our hope was brightest.
us it not strange that a minor au-
thor can be as much absorbed in her
work as the greatest genius in the
world of literature? The quality OF
the production itself seems to have
little to do with the matter. I was
as happy and as intoxicated with my
unpretentious story as Goethe could
ever have been with Wilhelm Meister,
or Carlyle with the French Revolu-
ton!
"One cannot claim that a book is
any finer for being so enthralling to
it's author, though the thing created
in love ought to be a little better than
the one fashioned in a mood of in
difference, disillusion, or hurry but
the JOY of the work itself Is surely
the greatest possible compensation to
an artist, however humble he may
he -