Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis | Page 8

beneath the print, they found their prophet and gladly perceived that a prophet is not always cowled and bearded, but may be a gallant young gentleman. This one called merrily to them in his manly voice; and they followed him. He bade them see that pain is negligible, that fear is a joke, and that the world is poignantly interesting, joyously lovable.
They will always follow him.

THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF DAVIS BY CHARLES DANA GIBSON
Dick was twenty-four years old when he came into the smoking- room of the Victoria Hotel, in London, after midnight one July night--he was dressed as a Thames boatman.
He had been rowing up and down the river since sundown, looking for color. He had evidently peopled every dark corner with a pirate, and every floating object had meant something to him. He had adventure written all over him. It was the first time I had ever seen him, and I had never heard of him. I can't now recall another figure in that smoke-filled room. I don't remember who introduced us--over twenty-seven years have passed since that night. But I can see Dick now dressed in a rough brown suit, a soft hat, with a handkerchief about his neck, a splendid, healthy, clean-minded, gifted boy at play. And so he always remained.
His going out of this world seemed like a boy interrupted in a game he loved. And how well and fairly he played it! Surely no one deserved success more than Dick. And it is a consolation to know he had more than fifty years of just what he wanted. He had health, a great talent, and personal charm. There never was a more loyal or unselfish friend. There wasn't an atom of envy in him. He had unbounded mental and physical courage, and with it all he was sensitive and sometimes shy. He often tried to conceal these last two qualities, but never succeeded in doing so from those of us who were privileged really to know and love him.
His life was filled with just the sort of adventure he liked the best. No one ever saw more wars in so many different places or got more out of them. And it took the largest war in all history to wear out that stout heart.
We shall miss him.

BY E. L. BURLINGAME

One of the most attractive and inspiring things about Richard Harding Davis was the simple, almost matter-of-course way in which he put into practice his views of life--in which he acted, and in fact WAS, what he believed. With most of us, to have opinions as to what is the right thing to do is at the best to worry a good deal as to whether we are doing it; at the worst to be conscious of doubts as to whether it is a sufficient code, or perhaps whether it isn't beyond us. Davis seemed to have neither of these wasters of strength. He had certain simple, clean, manly convictions as to how a man should act; apparently quite without self-consciousness in this respect, whatever little mannerisms or points of pride he may have had in others--fewer than most men of his success and fastidiousness--he went ahead and did accordingly, untormented by any alternatives or casuistries, which for him did not seem to exist. He was so genuinely straightforward that he could not sophisticate even himself, as almost every man occasionally does under temptation. He, at least, never needed to be told
"Go put your creed into your deed Nor speak with double tongue."
It is so impossible not to think first of the man, as the testimony of every one who knew him shows, that those who have long had occasion to watch and follow his work, not merely with enjoyment but somewhat critically, may well look upon any detailed discussion of it as something to be kept till later. But there is more to be said than to recall the unfailing zest of it, the extraordinary freshness of eye, the indomitable youthfulness and health of spirit--all the qualities that we associate with Davis himself. It was serious work in a sense that only the more thoughtful of its critics had begun of late to comprehend. It had not inspired a body of disciples like Kipling's, but it had helped to clear the air and to give a new proof of the vitality of certain ideals--even of a few of the simpler ones now outmoded in current masterpieces; and it was at its best far truer in an artistic sense than it was the fashion of its easy critics to allow. Whether Davis could or would have written a novel of the higher rank is a useless question now; he himself, who was a critic of his own work without illusions or affectation, used to say