The Washington herald., 1914-08-16
Copyright, lHl.)

at the River View when the whole sum
uner colony was thrown into a great
state of delighted excitement by the
proprietor's announcement that Richard
Henry Barlow, the distinguished au-
thor of "Madcap Miriam" a best
7 seller OF high power, had written
to say that he would spend few days
at the River View, if there was room
for him in that popular hostelry. Three
old ladies actually offered to give up
their comfortable quarters and room
together if that were necessary to make
way for so distinguished a visitor; and
as for the young ladies summering at
Blue Haven-well, their state of mind
Ldehes description.
Of course, there was in some quar-
tiers a feeling that perhaps Barlow was
not altogether a safe person for a de-
butante, or a widow of uncertain weeds,
and especially grass widow, to be seen
with in public Not that there was
ANYTHING in the least degree question
able, be it said, in Barlow's known
character; but because his books were
so fascinatingly naughty and so de-
iightfully risque. His heroines were for
the most part unconventional, to say the
least; and his heroes, while they never
actually fell into any of the moral
abysses which yawned before them,
nevertheless tangoed so perilously close
70 the edges thereof that few readers
could resist the temptation breathless-
4y to glance ahead few pages to as
sure themselves of their continuance
on the solid ground of rectitudes Mad
cap Miriam" had come pretty close to
setting the world on FIRE, not so much
because of its literary excellence as
dor the temperature of its love story,
(which was beyond all question high.
Such words as hectic" "feverish,"
'-throbbing" did it scant justice. 1t was
one long, passionate, tingling, bit OF
Eentient sensuality OF so palpitant a
character that such famous loves of
history as Abelard and Heloise, Paul
and Virginia and Romeo and Juliet ap-
peared models of geld hebetudinosity
alongside of it, and yet so slilfully had
at been phrased that no society for the
advertisement of vice could find a
sVord in it to justify it in getting out
an injunction to boom its sales. Board
ing-school girls devoured il. Grand
mothers everywhere gloated over its re-
Sivifying scenes. New Workers, long
lost to sensation, quivered under the
infatuating fascination of its periods
and supreme triumph of all. Mr.. B. w.
Squilldig, publisher of Squilldig's Mag
azine, a periodical of pernicity, sent
Barlow a blank check signed, with the
request that he fill it in himself for any
amount necessary to secure the next
story that oozed from his facile pen.
So why shouldn't the River View get
''het up as the proprietor put it, over
the possibility of this demigod's ar-l
rival? Why shouldn't the old ladies
quiver and the young ladies shiver and
the men folks hivver at the prospect !
of meeting face TO face this literary
White Hope-en famille, as it were,
not to say honi soft? It was as if Mr.. |
Shakespeare had come to town-nay.
better even that that. for there was
ample reason to believe that Shakes
peare was a dead one" while DicIie
BarIow-well, nobody could deny that
he was the livest literary lion of the
hour!
Wherefore, there was room at the
River View for Mr.. Richard Henry
Barlow, and accordingly Mr.. Richard
Henry Barlow, accompanied by his man
servant and his renovation trunk, ar
rived in due season.
'T feel" said Rawson, as Barlow pa
raded the full length of the dining-room
on the evening of his arrival Il feel
myself already in the atmosphere of
romance"
Same here" said L He looks
rather literary, doesn't he?"
Surprisingly so for literary man."
said Rawson. az wonder why Most
of the literati of today look either like
stockholders, or members of the /. w.
w. think shall ask Barlow where
he bought his Byronic makeup"
Strange to say, Barlow turned out to
be not only all that was expected of him,
but even more As a rule, great men,
and particularly writers, are a source
of great disappointment when met face
to face. They seldom quite fulfill our
expectations.
It was therefore, delightful surprise
to US all to find Richard Henry Barlow
more interesting even than his books,
and afable to the last degree. His
successes in literature seemed to have
left him wholly unspoiled. There were
no affectations about him whatsoever;
Ind the, way in which he joined in in
Everything that was doing about the I