Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis Part 2

OUR STREET

"Our street is still and silent, Gra.s.s grows from curb to curb,

No baker's bells With jangling knells Our studious minds disturb.

No organ grinders ever call, No hucksters mar our peace; For traffic shuns our neighborhood And leaves us to our ease.

But now it lives and brightens, a.s.sumes a livelier hue; The pavements wide, On either side, Would seem to feel it too.

You might not note the difference, The change from grave to gay, But I can tell, and know full well, Priscilla walks our way."

Shortly after his return to college Richard celebrated his nineteenth birthday, and received these letters from his father and mother:

April 17th, 1883.

MY DEAR BOY:

When I was thinking what I could give to you to-morrow, I remembered the story of Herder, who when he was old and weak and they brought him food and wine asked for "a great thought to quicken him."

So I have written some old sayings for you that have helped me. Maybe, this year, or some other year, when I am not with you, they may give you, sometimes, comfort and strength.

G.o.d bless you my son--

YOUR OLD MOTHER

who loves you dearly--dearly.

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER PHILADELPHIA, April 17th, 1883.

MY DEAR BOY:

You are to be nineteen years old on Wednesday. After two years more you will be a man. You are so manly and good a boy that I could not wish you to change in any serious or great thing. You have made us very happy through being what you have been, what you are. You fill us with hope of your future virtue and usefulness.

To be good is the best thing of all; it counts for more than anything else in the world. We are very grateful that you have even in youth been wise enough to choose the right road. You will find it not easy to keep upon it always, but remember if you do get off struggle back to it. I do not know but I think G.o.d loves the effort to do as well as the act done.

I congratulate you my dear son, on your new birthday. I wish you health, happiness and G.o.d's loving care. May he bless you my son forever. I enclose a trifle for your pleasure. My love to you always, but G.o.d bless you dear d.i.c.k.

DAD.

In the fall of 1885, Richard decided to leave Lehigh and go to John Hopkins University, where he took a special course in such studies as would best benefit him in the career which he had now carefully planned. During this year in Baltimore Richard's letters show that he paid considerable attention to such important subjects as political economy and our own labor problems, but they also show that he did not neglect football or the lighter social diversions. In a short s.p.a.ce of time he had made many friends, was very busy going to dinners and dances, and had fallen in love with an entirely new set of maids and matrons. Richard had already begun to send contributions to the magazines, and an occasional acceptance caused him the satisfaction common to all beginners. It was in regard to one of these early contributions that my mother wrote Richard the following letter:

PHILADELPHIA

January 1887.

DEAR BOY:

What has become of The Current? It has not come yet. If it has suspended publication be sure and get your article back. You must not destroy a single page you write. You will find every idea of use to you hereafter.

Sometimes I am afraid you think I don't take interest enough in your immediate success now with the articles you send. But I've had thirty years experience and I know how much that sort of success depends on the articles suiting the present needs of the magazine, and also on the mood of the editor when he reads it.

Besides--except for your own disappointment--I know it would be better if you would not publish under your own name for a little while. Dr.

Holland--who had lots of literary shrewdness both as writer and publisher--used to say for a young man or woman to rush into print was sure ruin to their lasting fame. They either compromised their reputations by inferior work or they made a great hit and never played up to it, afterwards, in public opinion.

Now my dear old man this sounds like awfully cold comfort. But it is the wisest idea your mother has got. I confess I have GREAT faith in you--and I try to judge you as if you were not my son. I think you are going to take a high place among American authors, but I do not think you are going to do it by articles like that you sent to The Current.

The qualities which I think will bring it to you, you don't seem to value at all. They are your dramatic eye. I mean your quick perception of character and of the way character shows itself in looks, tones, dress, etc., and in your keen sympathy--with all kinds of people--Now, these are the requisites for a novelist. Added to that your humour.

You ought to make a novelist of the first cla.s.s. But you must not expect to do it this week or next. A lasting, real success takes time, and patient, steady work. Read Boz's first sketches of "London Life"

and compare them with "Sydney Carton" or "David Copperfield" and you will see what time and hard work will do to develop genius.

I suppose you will wonder why I am moved to say all this? It is, I think, because of your saying "the article sent to St. Nicholas was the best you would be able to do for years to come" and I saw you were going to make it a crucial test of your ability. That is, forgive me, nothing but nonsense. Whatever the article may be, you may write one infinitely superior to it next week or month. Just in proportion as you feel more deeply, or notice more keenly, and as you acquire the faculty of expressing your feelings or observations more delicately and powerfully which faculty must come into practice. It is not inspiration--it never was that--without practice, with any writer from Shakespeare down.

me. I don't say, like Papa, stop writing. G.o.d forbid. I would almost as soon say stop breathing, for it is pretty much the same thing. But only to remember that you have not yet conquered your art. You are a journeyman not a master workman, so if you don't succeed, it does not count. The future is what I look to, for you. I had to stop my work to say all this, so good-bye dear old chum.

Yours,

MOTHER.

If anything worried Richard at all at this period, I think it was his desire to get down to steady newspaper work, or indeed any kind of work that would act as the first step of his career and by which he could pay his own way in the world. It was with this idea uppermost in his mind in the late spring of 1886, and without any particular regret for the ending of his college career, that he left Baltimore and, returning to his home in Philadelphia, determined to accept the first position that presented itself. But instead of going to work at once, he once more changed his plans and decided to sail for Santiago de Cuba with his friend William W. Thurston, who as president of the Bethlehem Steel Company, was deeply interested in the iron mines of that region. Here and then it was that Richard first fell in love with Cuba--a love which in later years became almost an obsession with him. Throughout his life whenever it was possible, and sometimes when it seemed practically impossible, my brother would listen to the call of his beloved tropics and, casting aside all responsibilities, would set sail for Santiago.

After all it was quite natural that he should feel as he did about this little Cuban coast town, for apart from its lazy life, spicy smells, waving palms and Spanish cooking, it was here that he found the material for his first novel and greatest monetary success, "Soldiers of Fortune." Apart from the many purely pleasure trips he made to Santiago, twice he returned there to work--once as a correspondent during the Spanish-American War, and again when he went with Augustus Thomas to a.s.sist in the latter's film version of the play which years before Thomas had made from the novel.

CHAPTER III

FIRST NEWSPAPER EXPERIENCES

In the late summer of 1886 Richard returned from Cuba and settled down in Philadelphia to write an article about his experiences at Santiago and to look for regular newspaper work. Early in September he wrote his mother:

September, 1886.

DEAR MOTHER:

I saw the Record people to-day. They said there was not an opening but could give me "chance" work, that is, I was to report each day at one and get what was left over. I said I would take it as I would have my mornings free to write the article and what afternoons I did not have newspaper work besides. This is satisfactory. They are either doing all they can to oblige Dad or else giving me a trial trip before making an opening. The article is progressing but slowly. To paraphrase Talleyrand, what's done is but little and that little is not good.

However, since your last letter full of such excellent "tips" I have rewritten it and think it is much improved. I will write to Thurston concerning the artist to-morrow. He is away from B. at present. On the whole the article is not bad.

Your boy, d.i.c.k.