The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-03-24
H. RIDER HAGGARD.
San Francisco Post.

Last season the lion of London lit- erary salons. was Rider Haggard. While the Pal H0U Gazette was daily printing several columns to prove to the world his plagiarism, he was be- ing feted at dinner and high tea.
 There is prevailing idea among the general public that the writer of "She," "King Solomon's Mines' and "Allan Quartermain" must be one of those mysterious creatures living in a state of artificial exaltation, and evolv- ing those weird fancies from chloral heated imagination. To realize the desperate fallacy of such a theory, one needs to meet and observe a man who lends no external indications of inn portunate insight; not one of those nervous, fragile, unearthly entities such type as our Edgar Allan Poe vividly furnishes forth.
 When I first met MT. Haggard I was most impressed with his simplic- ity of appearance, his self-poise and air of speeches. self-appreciation. I saw in throng of three hundred au- thors tall, slender young man, ac- cepting the worship of deity with scarcely a propitiatory smile. He im- pressed me as one who had become fla miliar with applause rather than gay ety.
 His figure is interesting and entirely wanting in eccentricity, but not, it is true, wanting in certain kind of dis tinction that is almost plainness.
 He is blonde type of man, with a prevalence of those tints known as ashen. A sallow, colorless skin, un- lighted by warmer hues; hair dark. ened only by the mingling of the deeper drab shades, and a dull blue eye, which physicians are wont to as- sociate with the an@mic temperament. His forehead is square and strong, his lips firm, his chin restive and his eyes full of clear, deep, concentrative force. An unemotional face, implying none of the lighter, tenderer moods; a face utterly lacking in strong pigment, but rich in puissance of modelling. In stature symmetrical, erect without pomposity; a physical structure held together and given motive power by sinews of spring wire, expressing sturdiness, endurance and elasticity His voice in speech is low, measured and melodious.
 He passes through great drawing room in mood of complete absorp- tion and complete abstraction, looking over the heads of people. When he is introduced to an hitherto unknown admirer-and there is at all times a galaxy of humber satellites waiting to join the revolving circle and catch glint from his splendor-with a vague manner of well-bred eanus he listens to the fulsome and over full allusions to his books.
 When he is in London he lives qui- etly in bachelor artlessness a figure at receptions, banquets and lawn fetes, never yet making his presence in great throngs too cheap. He belongs most e-eminently to that easy and bril- liant world, from social point of view, known as Upper Bohemia. In social status MT. Haggard is not at the apex-not one of those artists in the drama, wielders of the brush, spinners of verse who have sons at Eton, houses in fashionable quarters, villas on the Thames, a moor rich in grouse, and a river abounding in salmon on the other side of the Tweed, horses, carriages, visiting lists, fine friends whatever, in fact, lends distinction and financial responsibility to life.
 When he deigns to reveal himself in London drawing-roo he is recog- nized and pointed out as Rider flag gard one who has become person. age by right of superior gifts and the important place he has suddenly leaped into among famous men of let ters. Never, be it recorded to his honor, has he suggested the exclama- tion, "Who is that cratic person?" He is a man without personal fad possessing nature free from the taint of that pernicious species of grotesque advertising, so generally resorted to by genius in these days, when to wear the crown of eccentricity points the swiftest and surest method of pleasing the fancy and impressing the memory of society.
 He has not appealed to the vision by cultivating the Whistler lock of hair sprouting like silver feather amid dark tresses, nor has he sought to create sensation by endeavoring to give some professional beauty the golden key to those cipher black-let- ter inscriptions of Amenartus, after the fashion of Oscar Wilde, who made considerable reputation by teaching Mrs. Langtry Greek, before he founded the worship of the pining lily.
 He neither invites nor does he cor dially entertain discussion of his the- ories and their successful results, yet ia not inxincihlv silent on fha on hiacf