erson
who is not an undergraduate to share the life of undergraduates on
equal terms, to take part in their adventures, to be admitted to their
confidence is more difficult than it is for the camel to pass through
the eye of a needle or for the rich man to enter heaven. It was
characteristic of Davis that although he was a few years older than the
average university "man" and came from a strange country and, moreover,
had no official reason for being at Oxford at all, he was accepted as
one of themselves by the Balliol undergraduates, in fact, lived in
Balliol for at least a college term, and happening to fall in with a
somewhat enterprising generation of Balliol men he took the lead in
several escapades which have been written into Oxford history. There
is in the makeup of the best type of college undergraduate a wonderful
spirit of adventure, an unprejudiced view of life, an almost Quixotic
feeling for romance, a disdain of sordid or materialistic motives,
which together make the years spent at a great university the most
golden of the average man's career. These characteristics Davis was
fortunate enough to retain through all the years of his life. The same
spirit that took him out with a band of Oxford youths to break down an
iron barrier set by an insolent landowner across the navigable waters
of Shakespeare's Avon carried him, in after years, to the battlefields
where Greece fought against the yoke of Turkey, to the insurrecto camps
of Cuba, to the dark horrors of the Congo, to Manchuria, where gallant
Japan beat back the overwhelming power of Russia, to Belgium, where he
saw the legions of Germany trampling over the prostrate bodies of a
small people. Romance was never dead while Davis was alive."

That Richard lost no time in making friends at Oxford as, indeed, he
never failed to do wherever he went, the following letters to his
mother would seem to show:

OXFORD--May, 1892.

DEAR FAMILY:

I came down here on Saturday morning with the Peels, who gave an
enormous boating party and luncheon on a tiny little island. The day
was beautiful with a warm brilliant sun, and the river was just as
narrow and pretty as the head of the Squan river, and with old walls
and college buildings added. We had the prettiest Mrs. Peel in our
boat and Mrs. Joseph Chamberlain, who was Miss Endicott and who is very
sweet and pretty. We raced the other punts and rowboats and soon,
after much splashing and exertion, reache