The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-07-24
THE HOME OF BLAINE.
Gertrude AthertOn Tells About
Ancient Bar HarbOr.
EVERYTHING is CHANGED.
The Canoe Club Still Flourishes, but
There Il No Canoeing-How the
Statesman IL Watched.

BAR HARBoR, July 1s.-[Special Core
spondence. lin writing of the Bar Har-
Dor of today feel as if were plagiarising
Howell's Venetian Life" Gone is the
fish pond; gone is the summer girl !;
gone is the good old custom of rocking;
gone is the individuality of the buck
board. l might add that gone also-ap-
parently out of memory of even the oldest
lnhabitant-is the exaggerated informality
which gave Bar Harbor its early fame
The wondrous days We read of in Robert
Grants clever illusions, in the first subtle
pages of Mr.. Incouls Misadventure, in
Mrs. Burton Harrison's sketch bar Har-
Dor Days" are now on the shelves with
ancient history. Nowhere on this globe
can life be lived by law and line more con-
sistently than IN the Bar Harbor of 1892.
Its very informality is formal. The rus
tIcators," as the city people are elegantly
dubbed by the natives yawn by the stroke
ofthe clock and live and love and die with
a concession to custom which must save
them an infinite amount of trouble.
The hotel life is practically over, al
though few are crowded in the height of
the tourist season. Any one who is any
one has cottage" which may be any,
thing from structure of modest but ele-
CANT dimensions to stone castle. What
ever 1t be, however, even though its price
reach into the hundreds of thousands. it
is always a cottage. To call it otherwise
brands you with the green brand of the
uninitiated.
Of the sixteen hotels four are closed this
n cd fhn hnta of
Bar Harbor, famed in all written accounts
of the place, looks like deserted barrack
on frontier. Here was the fish pond"
i. e., the big Office wherein swarmed at the
hours of mail delivery all the girls and
young men of the always crowded hotel.
Here at all hours of the day and night
couples were stumbled over on every third
step of the stairs and in every shadowy
corner.
Charles Dudley Warner is held response
BILE for the decline and fall of Rodick's.
also for the coyness of the would-be
rocker" In his papers which ran
through Harper's Magazine three or four
years ago-"Their Pilgrimage''-he held
these innocent customs up to such fire
of comment that mothers no longer care
to bring their ducklings where they can
crock" and where the temptations to pub
licly spoon are so many. This also &C
counts for the disappearance of the sum-
mer girl. This purely American produc-
ton is the natural accompaniment of the
summer hotel, and when it ceases to be
de rigueur to go to the latter she has little
chance. The summer girl to be herself
must be seen en- masse, not only because
as an individual she is lost, but because she
needs the moral support of the other birds
OF her feather. But the abolition of that
gentle pastime known as rocking is
most to be regretted. To see two dozen or
more symmetry sentimental couples dis
tributed under generous and vivid sun
umbrellas about the rocks which girt
Frenchman's bay must have been sight
to gladden. the heart of the lover of the
picturesque. not to say the student of hu-
man nature. But today only their ghosts
are there. invisible even TO the ubiquitous
nurse maid and her horde of kids.
The Canoe Club still tlourishes and has
its parades and receptions at the pretty
club house on Bar island. But canoeing
as pastime, to be resorted to at any mo-
ment, is another of the bygones. The
reason is tragic one. Everybody remem-
bers the story of the young man and the
girl who left the ball room at Rodick's one
stormy night five years ago, intent upon a
canoe ride. The fishermen refused to let
their crafts to the foolhardy couple, but
the latter were determined and finally an
Indian was overcome by the greenbacks
and gave them his canoe. The young man
in his evening clothes and the young girl
in her pink ball dress and her diamonds
were never seen again. So impossible did
it seem to any rational person that they
could have been SO foolish for while the
belief was prevalent that they had eloped.
But proof came in later and there Is no
doubt that they are at the bottom of
Frenchman's Bay-that is to say, their
bones-and that cottagers and natives
have long since digested them.
Certain IL Is that the sensitive girl of
fashion looks upon canoeing with disfavor,
for she is not such stuff as tragedians are
made of. Today she drives, between 10
and II in the morning and 4 and III the
afternoon. She walks down town and
shops in the morning and does not disdain
soda water. Between luncheon and she
will see those who drop in, but as soon as
the season is ION" she has her stated day
or rather her mamma has-and she toes
the mark.
These afternoon receptions take place
on the wide back piazzas of the Cottages. 4"
and each hostess gravely assures you that
she has the finest view in Bar Harbor
That is to say, those who have~a view, and
you offer up prayer of silent thanksgiv-
ing when you find one who has not. As
the view is precisely the same from all
points-save that the Porcupines appear
to travel-you wonder if the cottagers are
blind when they call upon each other
From Mr.. Lawrence Green's Chatwold
there really is variation on Frenchman's
bay. the Porcupines and the distant hills