H. D.
BY GOUVERNEUR MORRIS
"And they rise to their feet as He passes by, gentlemen unafraid."
He was almost too good to be true. In addition, the
gods loved him, and so he had to die young. Some people think
that a man of fifty-two is middle-aged. But if R. H. D. had
lived to be a hundred, he would never have grown old. It is
not generally known that the name of his other brother was Peter Pan.
Within the year we have played at pirates together, at the
taking of sperm whales; and we have ransacked the Westchester
Hills for gunsites against the Mexican invasion. And we have
made lists of guns, and medicines, and tinned things, in case
we should ever happen to go elephant-shooting in Africa. But
we weren't going to hurt the elephants. Once R. H. D. shot a
hippopotamus and he was always ashamed and sorry. I think he
never killed anything else. He wasn't that kind of a
sportsman. Of hunting, as of many other things, he has said
the last word. Do you remember the Happy Hunting Ground in
"The Bar Sinister"?--"where nobody hunts us, and there is
nothing to hunt."
Experienced persons tell us that a manhunt is the most
exciting of all sports. R. H. D. hunted men in Cuba. He
hunted for wounded men who were out in front of the trenches
and still under fire, and found some of them and brought them
in.
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