romantic, sensitive individual whose character
and characteristics made him a conspicuous figure everywhere he
went--and he went everywhere. His books were sold in great numbers,
but it might be said in terms of the trade that his personality had a
larger circulation than his literature. He probably knew more waiters,
generals, actors, and princes than any man who ever lived, and the
people he knew best are not the people who read books. They write them
or are a part of them. Besides, if you knew Richard Davis you knew his
books. He translated himself literally, and no expurgation was needed
to make the translation suitable for the most innocent eyes. He was
the identical chivalrous young American or Englishman who strides
through his pages in battalions to romantic death or romantic marriage.
Every one speaks of the extraordinary youthfulness of his mind, which
was still fresh at an age when most men find avarice or golf a
substitute for former pastimes. He not only refused to grow old
himself, he refused to write about old age. There are a few elderly
people in his books, but they are vague and shadowy. They serve to
emphasize the brightness of youth, and are quickly blown away when the
time for action arrives. But if he numbered his friends and
acquaintances by the thousands there are other thousands in this
country who have read his books, and they know, even better than those
who were acquainted with him personally, how good a friend they have
lost. I happened to read again the other day the little collection of
stories--his first, I think--which commences with "Gallegher" and
includes "The Other Woman" and one or more of the Van Bibber tales.
His first stories were not his best. He increased in skill and was
stronger at the finish than at the start. But "Gallegher" is a fine
story, and is written in that eager, breathless manner which was all
his own, and which always reminds me of a boy who has hurried home to
tell of some wonderful thing he has seen. Of course it is improbable.
Most good stories are and practically all readable books of history.
No old newspaper man can believe that there ever existed such a "copy
boy" as Gallegher, or that a murderer with a finger missing from one
hand could escape detection even in a remote country village. Greed
would have urged the constable to haul to the calaboose every stranger
who wore gloves. But he managed to attach so many accurate details of
descripti