An analysis of his works, a study of that book which the
Recording Angel keeps will show one dominant characteristic to
which even his brilliancy, his clarity of style, his excellent
mechanism as a writer are subordinate; and to which, as a man,
even his sense of duty, his powers of affection, of
forgiveness, of loving-kindness are subordinate, too; and that
characteristic is cleanliness. The biggest force for
cleanliness that was in the world has gone out of the
world--gone to that Happy Hunting Ground where "Nobody hunts
us and there is nothing to hunt."
BY BOOTH TARKINGTON
To the college boy of the early nineties Richard Harding Davis
was the "beau ideal of jeunesse doree," a sophisticated
heart of gold. He was of that college boy's own age, but
already an editor--already publishing books! His stalwart
good looks were as familiar to us as were those of our own
football captain; we knew his face as we knew the face of the
President of the United States, but we infinitely preferred
Davis's. When the Waldorf was wondrously completed, and we
cut an exam. in Cuneiform Inscriptions for an excursion to see
the world at lunch in its new magnificence, and Richard
Harding Davis came into the Palm Room--then, oh, then, our day
was radiant! That was the top of our fortune: we could never
have hoped for so much.
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