Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-10-05
BY ANGUS PEKAERsoN

The most interesting room in the
home at Thomson, Ga, or Thomas
| E. Watson, nominee for the United
States senate, is the study in which
| he wrote his STORY of France" Life
| of Napoleon" and other volumes.
1t is crammed with books. They
are piled on a table, they are ar
ranged in rows on shelves, they lie
open just as he laid them down when
| he finished reading.
But there is no writing desk in
the room. The one big table is used
simply as a place on which to heap
bookshelf books, new books, maya
zines and newspapers, all used by
him in his daily reading, for the
general information they give or for
immediate use in his writing.
! From the table he picked up a
pad of paper, sat down in chair,
propped the paper on his knee and
| began to write with pencil.
That is my method" he said. 81
never use a writing desk. [ always
| hold a pad on my knee this way,
| or rest it on a book. Sometimes
stand up and write. Until lately
1 had never dictated a line. But the
| pressure Of work during my cam
paign made it necessary for me to
| try that time-saver. Being a lawyer,
I used to abhor a pencil and employ
only pen. But now I very often
use a pencil because it is less trou
BILE.
Il wrote the second volume of my
Story, of France 1870 pages, with
out changing a word. The original
manuscript. which 1 still have, shows
not a single pen scratch. And it
was printed just as I wrote it. In
writing Of that part of Napoleon's
life dealing with his efforts to get
to Waterloo from Paris, I completed
fifty to sixty pages one Sunday
morning. each page containing about
100 words"
The French people have bought
thousands of copies of Mr. Watson's
STORY of France" because it gives
the history of their country. and
because it contains much informa-
ton not found in the usual history.
Yet, he has never been to France,
and wrote his story of the French
people in his study at Thomson, Ga.
achievement was accomplished, he
led the wey to row of books in
the corner of his study and pointed
to the books ranged there-thick vol
umes, thin ones; old books, new
books, but all dealing with the life
tory of the French people.
81 neglected no source of informa-
ton in preparing my histor;" explain
ed Mr.. Watson. 7 read all the
ToCOSnlZSu UOOhS, anu lll0H CouSllC
ine the neglected ones-old books in
secondhand bookstores, the dust,
forgotten ones QUILL find sometimes
on the shelves in farm houses. In
this wa, was able to put into
my Story of France not only the
facts that are generally known, but
the neglected and important facts
which I CLEANED from these books
that no one seems to read now or
to quote"
In telling of hew he came to write
of the French people, he said:
when 1 was a boy. my grand.
father gave me a two-volume edition
of John S. C. Abbott's Life Of Ma
poleon,' a book which is almost
romance, because the writer had no
conception of Napoleon's real char
acter: and, by the way, neither did
Ida M. Tarbe1l. But that history
seemed to me the most fascinating
book in the world 1t and Don
Quixote' are two books in which l
could fairly lose myself.
Il became so absorbed then in Ma
poleons character that my interest
persisted all through life, and ex-
tended to all French history. I got
into the habit of going to old book