Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis | Page 3

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ADVENTURES AND LETTERS OF RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
EDITED BY CHARLES BELMONT DAVIS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.
THE EARLY DAYS II. COLLEGE DAYS III. FIRST NEWSPAPER
EXPERIENCES IV. NEW YORK V. FIRST TRAVEL ARTICLES VI.

THE MEDITERRANEAN AND PARIS VII. FIRST PLAYS VIII.
CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA IX. MOSCOW, BUDAPEST,
LONDON X. CAMPAIGNING IN CUBA, AND GREECE XI. THE
SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR XII. THE BOER WAR XIII. THE
SPANISH AND ENGLISH CORONATIONS XIV. THE
JAPANESE-RUSSIAN WAR XV. MOUNT KISCO XVI. THE
CONGO XVII. A LONDON WINTER XVIII. MILITARY
MANOEUVRES XIX. VERA CRUZ AND THE GREAT WAR XX.
THE LAST DAYS

CHAPTER I
THE EARLY DAYS
Richard Harding Davis was born in Philadelphia on April 18, 1864, but,
so far as memory serves me, his life and mine began together several
years later in the three-story brick house on South Twenty-first Street,
to which we had just moved. For more than forty years this was our
home in all that the word implies, and I do not believe that there was
ever a moment when it was not the predominating influence in
Richard's life and in his work. As I learned in later years, the house had
come into the possession of my father and mother after a period on
their part of hard endeavor and unusual sacrifice. It was their ambition
to add to this home not only the comforts and the beautiful inanimate
things of life, but to create an atmosphere which would prove a
constant help to those who lived under its roof--an inspiration to their
children that should endure so long as they lived. At the time of my
brother's death the fact was frequently commented upon that, unlike
most literary folk, he had never known what it was to be poor and to
suffer the pangs of hunger and failure. That he never suffered from the
lack of a home was certainly as true as that in his work he knew but
little of failure, for the first stories he wrote for the magazines brought
him into a prominence and popularity that lasted until the end. But if
Richard gained his success early in life and was blessed with a very
lovely home to which he could always return, he was not brought up in

a manner which in any way could be called lavish. Lavish he may have
been in later years, but if he was it was with the money for which those
who knew him best knew how very hard he had worked.
In a general way, I cannot remember that our life as boys differed in
any essential from that of other boys. My brother went to the Episcopal
Academy and his weekly report never failed to fill the whole house
with an impenetrable gloom and ever-increasing fears as to the
possibilities of his future. At school and at college Richard was, to say
the least, an indifferent student. And what made this undeniable fact so
annoying, particularly to his teachers, was that morally he stood so very
high. To "crib," to lie, or in any way to cheat or to do any unworthy act
was, I believe, quite beyond his understanding. Therefore, while his
constant lack of interest in his studies goaded his teachers to despair,
when it came to a question of stamping out wrongdoing on the part of
the student body he was invariably found aligned on the side of the
faculty. Not that Richard in any way resembled a prig or was even, so
far as I know, ever so considered by the most reprehensible of his
fellow students. He was altogether too red-blooded for that, and I
believe the students whom he antagonized rather admired his chivalric
point of honor even if they failed to imitate it. As a schoolboy he was
aggressive, radical, outspoken, fearless, usually of the opposition and,
indeed, often the sole member of his own party. Among the students at
the several schools he attended he had but few intimate friends; but of
the various little groups