m
other men--differ in his personal character and in the character of his
work? And that question I can answer off-hand, without taking thought,
and be sure that I am right.

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. Of all the great
people of every continent, this was the one we most desired to see.

The boys of those days left college to work, to raise families, to grow
grizzled; but the glamour remained about Davis; HE never grew grizzled.
Youth was his great quality.

All his writing has the liveliness of springtime; it stirs with an
unsuppressible gayety, and it has the attraction which companionship
with him had: there is never enough. He could be sharp; he could write
angrily and witheringly; but even when he was fiercest he was buoyant,
and when his words were hot they were not scalding but rather of a dry,
clean indignation with things which he believed could, if they would,
be better. He never saw evil but as temporary.

Following him through his books, whether he wrote of home or carried
his kind, stout heart far, far afield, we see an American writing to
Americans. He often told us about things abroad in terms of New York;
an