Part 1 (1/2)

Adventures and Letters

by Richard Harding Davis

CHAPTER I

THE EARLY DAYS

Richard Harding Davis was born in Philadelphia on April 18, 1864, but, so far as ether several years later in the three-story brick house on South Twenty-first Street, to which we had just moved For more than forty years this was our home in all that the word implies, and I do not believe that there was ever ainfluence in Richard's life and in his work As I learned in later years, the house had come into the possession of my father and mother after a period on their part of hard endeavor and unusual sacrifice It was their ambition to add to this hos of life, but to create an atmosphere which would prove a constant help to those who lived under its roof--an inspiration to their children that should endure so long as they lived At the time of my brother's death the fact was frequently commented upon that, unlike most literary folk, he had never knohat it was to be poor and to suffer the pangs of hunger and failure That he never suffered from the lack of a home was certainly as true as that in his work he knew but little of failure, for the first stories he wrote for the ht him into a prominence and popularity that lasted until the end But if Richard gained his success early in life and was blessed with a very lovely hoht up in a manner which in any way could be called lavish

Lavish he may have been in later years, but if he was it ith the money for which those who knew hieneral way, I cannot remember that our life as boys differed in any essential from that of other boys My brother went to the Episcopal Academy and his weekly report never failed to fill the whole house with an i fears as to the possibilities of his future At school and at college Richard was, to say the least, an indifferent student And what , particularly to his teachers, was that h To ”crib,” to lie, or in any way to cheat or to do any unworthy act was, I believe, quite beyond his understanding

Therefore, while his constant lack of interest in his studies goaded his teachers to despair, when it ca on the part of the student body he was invariably found aligned on the side of the faculty Not that Richard in any way rese or was even, so far as I know, ever so considered by the ether too red-blooded for that, and I believe the students whoonized rather admired his chivalric point of honor even if they failed to iressive, radical, outspoken, fearless, usually of the opposition and, indeed, often the solethe students at the several schools he attended he had but few intiroups of which he happened to be a ination usually made him the leader As far back as I can re--usually a new club or a violent refore, as in all the other walks of life, the reformer must, of necessity, lead a so letter, written to his father when Richard was a student at Swarthive an idea of his conception of the ethics in the case:

SWARTHMORE--1880

DEAR PAPA:

I am quite on the Potomac I with all the boys at our table were called up, there is seven of us, before Prex for stealing sugar-bowls and things off the table All the youths said, ”O President, I didn't do it” When it caravely, and he passed on to the last Then he said, ”The only boy that doesn't deny it is Davis Davis, you are excused I wish to talk to the rest of theentleman if he would only try I aht this idea is too idiotic for ued that to deny youwould of course causethese two considerations with each other, to deny nothing but let the good-natured old duffer see how silly it was by retaining a placid silence and so crushi+ng his base but thoughtless behavior and machinations

dick

In the early days at home--that is, when the sun shone--we played cricket and baseball and football in our very spacious back yard, and the prograe without notice When it rained we adjourned to the third-story front, where we played melodrama of simple plot but many thrills, and it was always Richard rote the plays, produced them, and played the principal part As I recall these dramas of h the co rew into two very lovely wo so sentimental or futile as love-scenes But whatever else the play contained in the way of great scenes, there was always acomposed of a chair and two tables--and Richard was forever leading his little band over the pass while the band, wholly indifferent as to whether the road led to honor, glory, or total annihilation, meekly followed its leader For some reason, probably on account ofto obey his command, I was invariably cast for the villain in these early dramas, and the end of the play always ended in a hand-to-hand conflict between the hero and myself As Richard, naturally, was the hero and incidentally the stronger of the two, it can readily be i Strangulation was the method usually employed to finish e, I can testify to his extraordinary ability as a choker

But these early days in the city were not at all the happiest days of that period in Richard's life He took but little interest even in the social or the athletic side of his school life, and his failures in his studies troubled him sorely, only I fear, however, because it troubled his reat day of the year to us was the day our schools closed and we started for our summer vacation When Richard was less than a year oldfro illness, had left Philadelphia on a search for a complete rest in the country Their travels, which it seee of discovery and adventure, finally led them to the old Curtis House at Point Pleasant on the New Jersey coast But the Point Pleasant of that time had very little in common with the present well-known su journey by rail followed by a three hours' drive in a rickety stagecoach over deep sandy roads, albeit the roads did lead through silent, sweet-s pine forests Point Pleasant itself was then a collection of half a dozen big farms which stretched from the Manasquan River to the ocean half acould have been more primitive or as I remember it in its pastoral loveliness e the river ran its silent, lazy course to the sea With the exception of several farmhouses, its banks were then unsullied by human habitation of any sort, and on either side beyond the low green banks lay fields of wheat and corn, and dense groves of pine and oak and chestnut trees

Between us and the ocean werefields of corn, broken by little clureen pasture , white sand-dunes, and the great silver se breakers, and the broad, blue sea On all the land that lay between us and the ocean, where the town of Point Pleasant now stands, I think there were but four farmhouses, and these in no way interfered with the landscape or the life of the primitive world in which we played

Whatever the mental stimulus my brother derived from his hoth that stood hins of his later years he derived froe we lived in was an old two-story fra-rooreat stone fireplace flanked by cupboards, fro those happy days I know Richard and I, openly and covertly, must have extracted tons of hardtack and cake The little house was called ”Vagabond's Rest,” and a haven of rest and peace and content it certainly proved for many years to the Davis family From here it was that s on his all-day fishi+ng excursions, while my mother sat on the sunlit porch and wrote novels and arments of her very active sons

After a seven-o'clock breakfast at the Curtis House our energies never ceased until night closed in on us and from sheer exhaustion we dropped unconscious into our patch-quilted cots All day long am or rowed, or sailed, or played ball, or ca as our activities were ceaseless and our breathing apparatus given no rest About a mile up the river there was an island--it's a very small, prettily wooded, sandy-beached little place, but it seeh in those days Robert Louis Stevensonit Treasure Island, and writing the new name and his own on a bulkhead that had been built to shore up one of its fast disappearing sandy banks But that is very modern history and to us it has always been ”The Island” In our day, long before Stevenson had ever heard of the Manasquan, Richard and I had discovered this tight little piece of land, found great treasures there, and, hand in hand, had slept in a six-by-six tent while the lions and tigers growled at us fro forests

As I recall these days of my boyhood I find the recollections of our life at Point Pleasant much more distinct than those we spent in Philadelphia For Richard these days were especially welcome They meant a respite from the studies which were a constant menace to himself and his parents; and the freedom of the open country, the ocean, the ave his body the constant exercise his constitution seeination which was even then very keen, certainly keen enough to make the rest of us his followers

In an extremely sympathetic appreciation which Irvin S Cobb wrote about my brother at the time of his death, he says that he doubts if there is such a thing as a born author Personally it so happened that I never greith any one, except my brother, who ever became an author, certainly an author of fiction, and so I cannot speak on the subject with authority But in the case of Richard, if he was not born an author, certainly no other career was ever considered So far as I know he never even wanted to go to sea or to be a bareback rider in a circus A boy, if he loves his father, usually wants to follow in his professional footsteps, and in the case of Richard, he had the double inspiration of following both in the footsteps of his father and in those of his mother For years before Richard's birth his father had been a newspaper editor and a well-knoriter of stories and his reat distinction Of those times at Point Pleasant I fear I can ree Laaret Ruff, and Milne Rae couple, Colonel Olcott and the afterward fa to start a Buddhist cult in this country; Mrs Frances Hodgson Burnett, with her foot on the first rung of the ladder of fame, who at the time lovedand, reatly to Richard's and ht, upset the famous authoress At a later period the Joseph Jeffersons used to visit us; Horace Howard Furness, one of my father's oldest friends, built a summer hohter Georgie Barrymore spent their summers in a near-by hostelry

I can remember Mrs Barrymore at that time very well---wonderfully handsome and a reatly, even though it were in secret Her daughter Ethel I reed child in a scarlet bathing-suit running toward the breakers and then dashi+ng ure of a child, butfor Richard to notice at that ti-suit and he beca the latter half of his life, through the good days and the bad, there were very few friends who held so close a place in his sympathy and his affections as Ethel Barrymore

Until the summer of 1880 my brother continued on at the Episcopal Academy For some reason I was sent to a different school, but outside of our supposed hours of learning ere never apart With less than two years' difference in our ages our interests were much the saely limited to out-of-door sports and the theatre Weindeed when my father first led us by the hand to see our first play On Saturday afternoons Richard and I, unattended but not wholly unalar weekly adventure Having joined our father at his office, he would invariably take us to a chop-house situated at the end of a blind alley which lay concealed sohborhood of Walnut and Third Streets, and where we ate a lish chops and apple pie As the luncheon drew to its close I remember how Richard and I used to fret and fume while my father in aof musty ale But at last the three of us, hand in hand,briskly toward our happy destination

At that time there were only a few first-class theatres in Philadelphia--the Arch Street Theatre, owned by Mrs John Drew; the Chestnut Street, and the Walnut Street--all of which had stock co star acted as the supporting company These were the days of Booth, Jefferson, Adelaide Neilson, Charles Fletcher, Lotta, John McCullough, John Sleeper Clark, and the elder Sothern And how Richard and I worshi+pped them all--not only these but every small-bit actor in every stock coe did in to hold them all, and to overcome this defect we had our bedrooray wallpaper supported by a maroon dado At the top of the latter ran two parallel black picture raphs of the actors and actresses which for the ht most worthy of a place in our collection As the roos ran entirely around it, we had plenty of space for even our very elastic love for the heroes and heroines of the footlights

Edwin Forrest ended his stage career just before our time, but I know that Richard at least saw him and heard that wonderful voice of thunder It see hoedian At the out and had his bad leg stretched well out before hi at the time and never very reatto my mother, as always a most truthful narrator) Forrest broke forth in a volcano of oaths and for blocks continued to hurl thunderous broadsides at Richard, which my mother insisted included the curse of Roedian's repertory which in any way fitted the occasion Nearly forty years later my father becareatest charity ever founded by an actor for actors, and I am sure by his efforts of years on behalf of the institution did reatest of all the faedians

From his youth my father had always been a close student of the classic andhis friends many of the celebrated actors and actresses of his time In those early days Booth used to come to rather formal luncheons, and at all such functions Richard and I ate our luncheon in the pantry, and when the great -room ere allowed to couratively, at the feet of the honored guest and generally, literally, on his or her knees

Young as I was in those days I can readily recall one of those lunch-parties when the contrast between Booth and Dion Boucicault struckblack eyes, shaggy hair, and lank figure, his wonderfully , while the bald-headed, rotund Boucicault, his twinkling eyes snapping like a fox-terrier's, interrupted the sonorous speeches of the tragedian with crisp, witty criticish and even brought a sic features of Booth hi formal about our relations with John Sleeper Clark and the Jefferson family They were real ”home folks” and often occupied our spare room, and when they ith us Richard and I were allowed to come to all the meals, and, even if unsolicited, freely express our views on the modern drama

In later years to our Philadelphia houstin Daly and that wonderful quartet, Ada Rehan, Mrs Gilbert, James Lewis, and our own John Drew Sir Henry I always recall by the first picture I had of hi far away fro curiously at Richard and lasses and then, with equal interest, turning back to the ash of a long cigar and talking drama with the famous jerky, nasal voice but alith a reat liking to Richard in those days, sent him a church-warden's pipe that he had used as Corporal Brewster, and made much of him later when my brother was in London Miss Terry was ainto the house like a ind and filling the place with the sunshi+ne and happiness that seeustin Daly usually came with at least three of the stars of his company which I have already mentioned, but even the beautiful Rehan and the nice old Mrs Gilbert seehly awed in the presence of ”the Guv'nor” He was a most crusty, dictatorial party, as I re eyes and raven locks, always dressed in black and always failing to find virtue in any actor or actress not a member of his own company I remember one particularly acrid discussion between hiard to Julia Marloas thenher first bow to the public Daly contended that in a few years the lady would be absolutely unheard of and backed his opinion by betting a dinner for those present with ment would prove correct However, he was very kind to Richard and myself and frequently allowed us to play about behind the scenes, which was a privilege I iranted to very few of his friends' children One night, long after this, when Richard was a reporter in New York, he and Miss Rehan were burlesquing a scene from a play on which the last curtain had just fallen It was on the stage of Daly's theatre at Thirtieth Street and Broadway, and froloo When they had finished the mock scene Richard went over to Daly and said, ”How bad do you think I aht the greatest ruive you a hundred dollars a week, and you can sign the contract whenever you're ready” Although that wasin his chosen profession at the time, and in spite of the intense interest he had in the theatre, he never considered the offer seriously As a matter of fact, Richard had e, and in after-years, when he was rehearsing one of his own plays, he could and frequently would go up on the stage and read almost any part better than the actor eesture and the art of ti which can only be attained after sound experience, but his reading of lines and his knowledge of characterization was quite unusual In proof of this I know of at least two ers hen Richard wanted to sell them plays, refused to have hiave the dialogue a value it did not really possess