The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-03-11
"SALLY SALT" ANO John RAWN"
Mrs. Wilson Woodrow and Emerson Hough Issue New
Novels Through the Bobbs-Merrill Company,
Treating of Opposite Types
~ ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.


must be invaluable for advertising
not, strangely, . kinswoman Of a Ger
tain presidential possibility. And this,
oddly enough, too. since both are clev-
er creators Of fiction.
Mrs. Woodrow is writer who came
into the magazine spot light a few
years since with a series of amusing
stories Of rural life in the South and
! West, and that she Is a better short
| story writer than q novelist, since her
epigrammatic style lends itself more
readily to fiction of the capsule vari-
ETY.. IL shown in her last novel, sally
Salt" just issued through the Bobbs-
Merrill Company.
This Is not saying, however, that
sally Salt" ia not an amusing and en-
! PERTAINING tale and that the heroine
does not possess a certain fascination,
more convincing from the printed page
| than on the cover where she Is shown
in impressionistic and transcendental
array.
sally Salt" is one of those heroines
popular nowadays-red-ha:red god
conventionally housed in a rambling,
garden-set domicile, the while she
does good to the OATS Of the country
side and gets mixed up emotionally
with fascinating gentlemen Of the
road.
The wonder will always remain to
the mere reader whose skin is subject
to the elements, how these Dianas
range the open in all weathers and yet
retain their opalescent tints. And still
we like it in a book 1t is life not as 1t
Is but as it ought to be. The story has
plot which il somewhat tenuous, is
we'll worked out, but it's charm lies in
its Demonstrations, it's mise en-
scene. it's conversations and it's hui
mour.
Incidentally its brief for women
farmers, since the heroine successful
~ manages two large farms while In
volved in the intricacies of a love af-
fair.
Here are some excerpts which Illus
trate the authors vivacity:
Nov, for my part, l have no time
to sit on stiles and wish some one
would come along and love me-"
"Of course like men," averred Sal
ly stoutly. They live sensible lives
and get to know something. 1 enjoy
having them about; but marriage is
different. It's too intimate, and there
are very few people that can emerge
from an intimacy with even a decent
respect for each other. And then it's
the dickens of a bore to be always try
ing to please some one. Do you think
would ever try to melt myself down
and run myself over into another mold
for the benefit Of any man on earth?
No. I'm going to live. I'm going to
follow any crazy idea that comes into
my head. I'm going to be free"
IAN eager stroller he
discerned forever the skull behind the
mask. and bartered with the grizzly
shade of disillusion."
1T takes a strong constitution to
stand up under too much cheerfulness
at the wrong time"
John Rawn," by Emerson Hough.
said to be a part of "triology."
through which the author is present
ing certain phases of American life Of
which "54-4O or Fight" and "The Pur-
chase Price," are the others, is one Of
those stories of an American type,
which the novelists of the day are CIV
en- to exploiting.
John Rawn," is a representative of
a class which is much to the fore at
present-the millionaire capitalist,
crushing men like shells. riding down
opposition, stealing. robbing. commit
ting industrial murder. discarding the
human foundation upon which he has
constructed his successful nfe-a ruth
less egotist. sucking the blood Of the
public to infuse life into his financial
veins.
Really representative Of what is
termed the middle class"-uneducat.
ed but ambitious and with a god.like
egotism which sees in the universe
himself dominant and all things point
ing his way, attaining wealth. without
the concomitant of culture. he feels
himself apart from his fellows. he
looks down" on those from whom he
sprung and to whom he is in no wise
socially superior and regards himself
as forming a part of what is falsely
termed "aristocracy," a conspicuous
element in this country which is as an
omalous socially as it Is obnoxious in
its pretensions and detrimental to the
ideals Of the nation.
Throwing his faded old wife into
the offing, with a million dollar check
to console her, he takes TO himself
his stenographer. young, clever, beau
tiful. ambitious and interruptions
That she should, later, fall in love
with Rawn's son.in.law, whom he has
incidentally robbed of valuable inven-
tons upon which to build his fortune
and who. in turn. falls in love with the
second Mrs. John Rawn, is the emo
tional nemesis which visits him at the
time when he has lost his entire for
tune.
That his former wife should step in.
to the breach at this moment and hand
him over the million dollar check
without the batting of an eye-lash and
that he should accept it saying!
'thankyou-goodbye! at time when |
his daughter had committed suicide
because she had found out that her
h,1o kov u ~