It seems a sort of bitter irony that he who had covered so
many big events of world importance in the past twenty years
should be abruptly torn away in the midst of the greatest
event of them all, while the story is still unfinished and its
outcome undetermined. If there is a compensating thought, it
ties in the reflection that he had a life of almost
unparalleled fulness, crowded to the brim, up to the last
moment, with those experiences and achievements which he
particularly aspired to have. He left while the tide was at
its flood, and while he still held supreme his place as the
best reporter in his country. He escaped the bitterness of
seeing the ebb set in, when the youth to which he clung had
slipped away, and when he would have to sit impatient in the
audience, while younger men were in the thick of great, world-
stirring dramas on the stage.
This would have been a real tragedy in "Dick" Davis's case,
for, while his body would have aged, it is doubtful if his
spirit ever would have lost its youthful freshness or boyish
enthusiasm.
It was my privilege to see a good deal of Davis in the last
two years.
He arrived in Vera Cruz among the first of the sixty or
seventy correspondents who flocked to that news centre when
the situation was so full of sensational possibilities.
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