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.
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