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an atmosphere of truth and bring his characters to life. To illustrate his point, he recounted a fascinat-ing story of technique developed in connection with certain events in one of his recent books. From some retreat, instantly reached, he drew fourth a ten-page letter and draw-ings of some size, which, he ex-plained, were made by an American naval officer to convice him that he was wrong in certain descriptions of the Battle of Valcour Is-land. "The face is that this ex-naval of-ficer has not worked hard enough to obtain his information. He has taken it from histories, and most histories are wrong. To get correct information for 'Rabble" I dug it from the Canadian archives and the British Admiralty, but since I am a novelist and not an historian I find it rather difficult, not to say embarrassing, to convince some people that I am as good as I'd like to have them believe." Here Mr. Roberts cited the mys-tery of General Burgoyne's mis-tress, the woman whose charms delayed Burgoyne's retreat from Saratoga so long that disaster over-took his army. Historians were con-tent to state that the woman was wife of a commissary. Their posi-tion was based on the say-so of Baroness Riedesel, whose writings became their authority. Mr. Rob-erts, however, had to know who she was, since she promised, at one time, to become a character in 'Rabble in Arms'. "I asked Milton Lord, director of the Boston public library, who best could help me in this research. He referred me to Zoltan Haraszty, head of the rare manuscripts de-partment of the Boston public li-brary, Mr. Haraszty dug out the list of the seven commissaries attached to the British army. By the clever-est of literary detective work, he found out the one commissary to whose wife Burgoyne could have had access. The only question then to be decided was whether or not the Baroness had lied. Historical research, you see, is very simple, once you know how to do it!" Another factor essential to truth in writing historical novels, he pointed out, is application of data to what is known from one's own life experience. To illustrate this point, Mr. Roberts referred to the universally accepted statement, made by General St. Clair in his courtmartial, that there was a bright moon during the retreat of the American army from Ticonderoga in 1777. "When I applied this statement to my own experiences," said he. "I knew that if the moon was full the retreating Americans would have been seen and attacked by the British. They were not, however Why not? Either the British were crazy, or St. Clair was mistaken about the moon. I got a calendar for 1777 and found that on the date in question there was a new moon. A new moon sets before darkness shuts down. Therefore there had not been a moon that night, after all. St. Clair unconsciously lied. But historians have accepted the lie ever since. Most historians have mistaken their calling! They should have been novelists or plumbers!" This frank indictment was fol-lowed by equally hearty commen-dation of the way history is being taught at Exeter Academy. "I can pull down from library shelves hundreds of histories crammed with the grossest inac-curacies and half-truths. until re-cently such inaccuracies were tak-en as gospel in our school histories. But it is impossible to teach the true from the false, and Exeter is doing it." "How about source material?" was asked, the writer having in mind a reason given by Hugh Pen-dexter, the Norway author of his-torical novels of the West and Middle West, as to why he had not chosen Maine for a background for his work. He had said that he had not contracted adequate source material, and intimated that it seemed limited. "At first I had many difficul-ties," said Mr. Roberts. "I had to learn how to find these sources. Now I know. All you have to do is to enlist the help of the Congres-sional library, the Maine State li-brary, a couple of Senators, three or four rare book-dealers in Lon-don, a score of the best rare-cook dealers in Boston, Albany, Port-land, New York and Philadelphia, and employ research workers and photostatters to find and photo-graph long-lost manuscripts in England's public record office. "Once you know the ropes it is simplicity itself--tho it would be easier if days were 48 hours long, instead of 24," he added with vigor. "What are you writing now?" came the farewell query, no small amount of the author's preclous morning work-period having been consumed. There was no vestige of inertia, as Mr. Roberts turned back to his desk, preparatory to finishing the sentence he had been writing two hours previous. His evergy and zest seem unlimited. "I have been working on a long novel ina New England setting, to cover a period from 1759 tp 1780. Much of the action is laid in Kit-tery and Portsmouth, tho it moves to England, the Great Lakes re-gion, and perhaps to Algiers be-fore it is done. "Will it be finished this year?" was rather an over-anxious ques-tion, speaking for admirers of his productions. "No," he replied, "I've worked a year on it already, and it will take another year, at least." Mr. Roberts said that on all hiss books he had had the advice and assistance of Booth Tarkington, a neighbor at Kennebunk. Mr. Rob-erts considers him the greatest lit-erary craftsman writing in the English language today. "A lot of so-called great writers have been turned up in the past decade," he said, "but by compari-son with Tarkington they are jokes." It was interesting to find that Mr. Roberts insists that novels about people of New England are a s untrue as they are full, if the characters are grim, sour and aus-tere. "I've gunned with Maine people and fished with Maine people and lived among Maine people all my life. They are witty and they are amusing. One can't leave out the humor of our people and our people and be true to life, tho some authors have done it and have been acclaimed for it. The humor of our New Englanders is as good as any humor in the world!" he concluded. In the hot sun outside fountain waters were dancing, and roses and pansies were delicately fragrant. From the house, modestly set among densely shading trees just across the narrow roadway, em-erged Mrs. Roberts and a guest, ready for their ocean bath; and with a quick change of mind Mr. Roberts suddenly joined them. One leaves such a place reluc-tantly--there are so many things of interest from far corners of the world. But the Roberts' family seem entrenched in Maine. They'll be here on the coast year after year, continuingly hopeful that the beauty to which they were born and for which they have such a profound regard will be enhanced by wiser methods of conservation and development. So may it be!