Part 7 (1/2)

dick

DENVER--March 7, 1892

DEAR FAMILY:

I arrived in Denver Friday night and realized that I was in a city again where thecivilized and so understanding that you mean to tip them I found my first letter on the newsstand and was very much pleased with it, and with the way they put it out The proof was perfect and if there had been more pictures I would have been entirely satisfied, as it was I was very e had not coes and generally disreputable I went to see a burlesque, and said ”Front row, end seat,” just as naturally as though I was in evening dress and high hat--and then I sank into a beautiful deep velvet chair and saw Ahts and heard the old old jokes and the old old songs we knoell and sing so badly The nextI went for et it It tookto finish it, and I do not know that it will ever be answered The best of it was that you were all pleased with my letters That put es and engages they did when I went away I did not intend to present any letters as I was going away that night to Creede, but I found I could not get any money unless some one identified me so I presented one to a Mr Jerome who all the bankers said they would be only too happy to oblige After one has been variously taken for a drurapher and has been offered so et back to a place where people know you--I told Mr Jerome I had a letter of introduction and that I was Mr Davis and he shook hands and then looked at the letter and said ”Good Heavens are you that Mr

Davis” and then rushed off and brought back the entire establishment brokers, bankers and mine owners and they all sat around and told s for me to do and eat than I could dispose of in a month

I am now en route to Creede Creede when you first see it in print looks like creede but after you have been in Denver or Colorado even for one day it reads like C R E E D E All theto make their fortunes, and toward that end they have on new boots and flannel shi+rts, and so and careful array cah as they looked and had never worn a flannel shi+rt before This car is typical of what they told me I would find at Creede There are rich mine owners who are pointed out by the conductor as the fifth part owner of the ”Pot Luck” mine, and dudes in astrakan fur coats over top boots and new flannel shi+rts, and hardened old ti and tin pans, who have prospected all over the state and wo

I feel awfully selfish whenever I look out of the car

Switzerland which I have never seen is a spot on the o up with snow on one side and black rows of trees and rocks on the other, and the clouds seem packed down between the above the clouds is all new to me and so very beautiful that I would like to buy a irl I will finish this when I get to Creede I expect to make my fortune there dick

CREEDE, March 7

A young man in a sweater and top boots met me at the depot and said that I was Mr Davis and that he was a young man whose life I had written in ”There was 90 and 9” He was fro a paper in Creede He said I was to stop with him-- Creede is built of new pine boards and lies between two immense mountains covered with pines and snow The town is built in the gulley and when the spring freshets co man, tookdudes and thoroughbred sports froht with four bunks and a stove, two banjos and H O P E They own numerous silver mines, lots, and shares, but I do not believe they have five dollars in cash ae picture of ood fellows We sat up in our bunks until two this o to Africa and Mexico and Asia Minor together--Lots of love

dick

Very happy indeed to be back in his beloved town, Richard returned to New York late in March, 1892, and resumed his editorial duties But on this occasion his stay was of particularly short duration, and in May, he started for his long-wished-for visit to London The season there was not yet in full swing, and after spending a few days in town, journeyed to Oxford, where he settled down to amuse hilish life as he found it In writing of this visit to Oxford, H J Whigham, one of Richard's oldest friends, and who afterward served with hins, said:

”When we first , to all practical purposes, the life of an undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford Anyone at all conversant with the customs of universities, especially with the idiosyncrasies of Oxford, knows that for a person 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 h 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 ”e country and,at Oxford at all, he was accepted as one of theraduates, in fact, lived in Balliol for at least a college tereneration of Balliol men he took the lead in several escapades which have been written into Oxford history There is in the raduate a wonderful spirit of adventure, an unprejudiced view of life, an al for roether olden of the average h 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 hiainst the yoke of Turkey, to the insurrecto cao, to Manchuria, where gallant japan beat back the overwhelions of Ger over the prostrate bodies of a small people Romance was never dead while Davis was alive”

That Richard lost no ti 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 caave an enor 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, as Miss Endicott and who is very sweet and pretty We raced the other punts and rowboats and soon, afterand exertion, reached the head of the river Then ent to, tea in New College and to see the sights of the different colleges now on the Thaes, painted different colors and gilded like circus band-wagons and decorated with coats of ars, lined the one shore for a quarter of a rads in blazers Then the boats caside on the towpath This was one of the hts of the country so far There were over six hundred , shouting and firing pistols It sounded like a cavalry charge and the line see was most theatrical and effective Then ent to the annual dinner of the Palmerston Club, where I made a speech which was, as there is no one else to tell you, well received, ”being frequently interrupted with applause,” froallery It was about Free Trade and the way Alish papers, and co to do with the speech I did not knoas going to speak until I got there, and considering the fact, as Wilson says, that your uncle was playing on a strange table with a crooked cue he did very well The nextwe breakfasted with the Bursar of Trinity and had luncheon with the Viscount St Cyres to e St Cyres is very shy and well-bred, and ould have had a good time had not the M P's present been filled with awe of the Lord Chief Justice and failed to draw him out As it was he told some very funny stories; then ent to tea with Hubert Howard, in whose roolish woe, so--called because it is eight hundred years old We sat at a high table in a big hall hung with pictures and lit by candles The under-grads sat beneath in gowns and rattled pewterdress and those that had them red and white fur collars After dinner we left the roo our napkins with us We entered a room called the Commons, where we drank wines and ate nuts and raisins It was all very soleht although nine o'clock

Then we ars and brandy and soda, but Arthur Pollen and I had to go and take coffee with the Master of Balliol, the only individual of whom Pollen stands in the least awe

He was a dear old”No, from America”; he said, ”O yes, it's the other one” I found the other one was an Indian princess in a cashmere cloak and diamonds, who looked so proud and lovely and beautiful that I wanted to take her out to one of the seats in the quadrangle and let her weep onthese cold people I cannot understand We were all to go to a concert in the chapel, and half of the party started off, but the Master's wife said, ”Oh, I am sure the Master expects them to wait for him in the hall It is always done”

At which all the wo re the others back Only the Indian girl and I remained undisturbed and puzzled The party came back, but the Master saw theenerally done” At which we all felt guilty When we got to the chapel everybody stood up until the Master's party sat down, but as it was broken in thewe had not all passed, got up again, so that I felt like saying, ”As you were, e in taking off his overcoat took off his undercoat, too, and stood unconscious of the fact before the whole of Oxford The faces of the audience which packed the place were soh at a tall, red-facedinto his coat, and then horror at seeing the Chief Justice in his shi+rt-sleeves, was a terrible effort--and no one would help him, on the principle, I suppose, that the Queen of Spain has no legs He would have been struggling yet if I had not, after watching hi with him, for a full entleman into it, at which he turned his head and winked

I will go back to town by the first to see the Derby and will get into lodgings there I AM HAVING A VERY GOOD TIME AND AM VERY WELL The place is as beautiful as one expects and yet all the ti one with its beauty