Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-05
Creator of "Penrod" Soon to
Leave Hospital for
Indianapolis.
NOVELIST PRODUCES TWO
BOOKS DESPITE TROUBLES
Dictation Found Much Easier Than
Noted Author Had
Anticipated.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.


| Lifelong darkness is a threat of the
past for Booth Harrington, celebrated
American novelist.
A little more than a year ago it
| seemed likely that the observant and
sympathetic eyes of the creator of PEN
| ROD" through which the whole world
had looked upon the homely beauties of
Midwestern boyhood, soon would be
closed.
| Mr.. Harrington entered the Wilmer
Institute at Johns Hopkins University
Hospital with an advanced case of cata-
| ract. Operative procedure was, at the
best, uncertain.
| He is back again, after a year of
| strenuous literary work. for what, the
| surgeons hope, will be the final step in
the treatment. His sight has been re-
J stored nearly to normal, and there is
little fear that the cataract growth will
| return.
Depends on Observations.
The eyes of a novelist, with which he
| must gather from the world around him
| the details to be transformed into litera-
ture by his interpretative imaginat ton,
are indispensable. This is particularly
the case, Mrs. Harrington revealed here
| today, with such a creative writer as her
husband, who depends on his own OBJ
! servations of life and nature to such an
extent that he deliberately refrains from
reading the fiction of other men lest he
| should allow unconsciouSly some of their
ideas to creep into his own work.
But Mr.. Harrington left Johns Hop
kinS Hospital last Spring with strict in
| functions to spare his eyes as much as
| possible. His mind was full of ideas
which had come into being during his
weeks as an invalid-and to Mr.. Tark-
| ington ideas mean work. Even within a
few days of the operation he had been
working.
A business man can call his stenog-
rapher and dictate his letters. Even a
,, producer of cheap fiction, built up en-
tirely on the plot. can dispense with
| the eye-straining labor of writing. Such
men are not required to put into words
| nuances of thought and character in
| depreciation such as distinguish the
work of Mr.. Harrington.
Must Visualize Work.
But the artist in words must visualize
his work step by step-must weigh each
| syllable with his eye and brain And
this was essentially what the author of
| "Penrod" had been forbidden to do.
Somehow he must adapt the procedure
| of the unimaginative business man to
the purposes of the imaginative artist
1t was like restricting a landscape
| painter to the brush of Whitewater.
Her husband, says Mrs. Harrington
frankly looked upon the prospect with
fear. Neither his mind nor his work
were the mind or work of dictator -
He could not see the place of the stenog-
rapher in art.
Yet during the single year, with the
result of the operation in doubt, Booth
Harrington not only conquered this
hard condition but practically completed
| two books. One of them was a re-
arrangement of "Penrod" stories, which
before had appeared only in magazines
1t required much rewriting to adap,
them to book form with a continuous
thread Of narrative running through
| them. The other was a full-length
novel. yet unpublished, based on the
lives of his Summer neighbors along the
Maine coast. of whom he has made an
intensive study during the last few
years.
Debating his novel. Mrs Harrington
says, really came easier than the author
had any reason to anticipate. He usu-
ally calls his stenographer about 10 am
and works pretty steadily until 4 or
pm. OF course, there is a good deal
of revising to be done, but the sub
tlety of thought does not seems to suf-
fer from the new method.
Probably Funniest.
The revision of the Penrod stories
are perhaps the funniest of all, ano
the new novel delves deeply into the
psychological nuances of the New Eng
| land Coast people.
Mr.. Tarkingtons intensive eye strain
all his life, his wife reveals, may have
had a good deal to do with his threat
ened blindness. His production has
not come into being out of thin air
From school days on the novelist has
pored far into the night over history
biography and science, everything, tr
fact, but the fiction of other men.
He will leave Johns Hopkins in few
days to return to Indianapolis, the scene
of so many of his stories, and thence
to his Summer home on the Maine
Coast. His eyesight has so improved
the physicians have assured him. that
it will be safe to resume this his favor.
| tie sport of motor boating, acting as
his own pilot and engineer. 1t is like
new lease on life for the novelist
whose imagination responds to the roll
! of the motor boat.
He has plans for great deal OF
work, and Mrs Harrington says he
has arranged for new place to write
this Summer. 1t is the interior of an
old sailing ship drawn up before Their
house, where he can be alone to think
| out the problems of constructing plots
characters and realistic pictures OF life