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At Ventersberg we found every one harnessing up in the street and abandoning everything. We again felt this untimely desire for food, and had lunch at Jones's hotel on scraps and Cecil went off to see if she could loot the cook, as everyone but her had left the hotel and as we needed one in Pretoria. A despatch-rider came running to me as I was smoking in the garden and shouted that the "Roinekes" were coming in force over the hill. I ran out in the street and saw their shells falling all over the edge of the village. They were only a quarter of an hour behind us. I yelled for Cecil who was helping the looted cook pack up her own things and anyone else's she could find in a sheet. I gathered up a dog and a kitten Cecil wanted and left a note for the next English officer who occupied my room with the inscription "I'd leave my happy home for you." We then put the cook, the kitten, the dog and Cecil in the cart and I got on the horse and we let out for Kronstad at a gallop. We raced the thirty miles in five hours without one halt. That was not our cruelty to animals but Christian's who whenever I ordered him to halt and let us rest, yelled that the Englesses were after us and galloped on. The retreat was a terribly pathetic spectacle; for hours we passed through group after group of the broken and dispirited Boers. At Kronstad President Steyn whom I went to see on arriving ordered a special car for me, and sent us off at once. We reached here the next morning, Christian arriving a day later having killed one mule and one pony in his eagerness to escape. We are going back again as soon as Roberts reaches the Vaal. There there must be a stand. Love and best wishes to you all——
DICK.
June 8th, 1900.
On board the Kausler.
DEAR MOTHER:
We engaged our passage on this ship some weeks ago not thinking we would have the English near Pretoria until August. But as it happened they came so near that we did not know whether or not to wait over and see them enter the capital. I decided not, first, because after that one event, there would be nothing for us to see or do. We could not leave until the 2nd of July and a month under British martial law was very distasteful to me. Besides I did not care much to see them enter, or to be forced to witness their rejoicing. As soon as we got under way and about half the distance to the coast, it is a two days' trip. We heard so many rumors of Roberts's communication having been cut off and that the war was not over, that we thought perhaps we ought to go back— As we have no news since except that the British are in Pretoria we still do not know what to think. Personally I am glad I came away as I can do just as much for the Boers at home now as there where the British censor would have shut me off from cabling and mails are so slow. With the local knowledge I have, I hope to keep at it until it is over. But when I consider the magnitude of the misrepresentation about the burghers I feel appalled at the idea of going up against it. One is really afraid to tell all the truth about the Boer because no one would believe you— It is almost better to go mildly and then you may have some chance. But personally I know no class of men I admire as much or who to-day preserve the best and oldest ideas of charity, fairness and good-will to men.
DICK.
June 29th, 1900.
DEAR MOTHER:
We are now just off Crete, and our next sight of the blue land will be Europe. It means so many things; being alone with Cecil again, instead of on a raft touching elbows with so many strangers, and it means a shop where you can buy collars, and where they put starch in your linen. Also many beautiful ladies one does not know and men in evening dress one does not know and green tables covered with gold and little green and red bits of ivory where one passes among the tables and wonders what they would think if they knew we two had found our greatest friends in the Boer farmers, in Dutch Station Masters who gave us a corner under the telegraph table in which to sleep, with Nelson who kept the Transvaal Steam Laundry, Col. Lynch of the steerage who comes to the dividing line to beg French books from Cecil, and that we had cooked our food on sticks, drunk out of the same cups with Kaffir servants and slept on the ground when there was frost on it. It will be so strange to find that there are millions of people who do not know Komali poort, who have thought of anything else except burghers and roor-i-neks— It seems almost disloyal to the Boers to be glad to see newspapers only an hour old instead of six weeks old, and to welcome all the tyranny of collar buttons, scarf pins, watch chains, walking sticks and gloves even. I love them both and I can hardly believe it is true that we are to go to a real hotel with a lift and a chasseur, where you cannot smoke in the dining-room. As for Aix, that I cannot believe will ever happen— It was just a part of one's honeymoon and I refuse to cheat myself into thinking that within a week I will be riding through the lanes of the little villages, drinking red wine at Burget, watching Chas spread cheese over great hunks of bread and listening to three bands at one time. And then the joy to follow of Home and America and all that is American. Even the Custom House holds nothing but joy for me—and then "mine own people!" It has been six weeks since we have heard from you or longer, nearly two months and how I miss you and want you. It will be a happy day when Dad meets me at the wharf and I can see his blue and white tie again and his dear face under the white hat—where you and Nora will be I cannot tell, but I will seek you out. We will be happy together—so happy— It has been the longest separation we have known and such a lot of things have happened. It will be such peace to see you and hold you once again.
DICK.
AIX-LES-BAINS.
July 6th, 1900.
DEAR FAMILY:
Cecil and I arrived last night tired and about worn out—we had had a month on board ship and two days in the cars and when we got out at Aix and found our rooms ready and Francois waiting, we shouted and cheered. It was never so beautiful as it looked in the moonlight and we walked all over it, through the silent streets chortling with glee. They could not give us our same rooms but we got the suite just above them, which is just as good. They were so extremely friendly and glad to see us and had flowers in all the rooms. We have not heard a word about Chas yet, as our mail has not arrived from Paris, but I will cable in a minute and hear. We cannot wait any longer for news of him. I got up at seven this morning so excited that I could not sleep and have been to the baths, where I was received like the President of the Republic. In fact everybody seems to have only the kindest recollections of us and to be glad to have us back.
Such a rest as it is and so clean and bright and good—Only I have absolutely nothing to wear except a two pound flannel suit I bought at Lorenzo Marquez until I get some built by a French tailor. I must wear a bath robe or a bicycle suit until evening. We have not been to the haunts of evil yet but we are dining there to night and all will be well. Cecil sends her love to you all— Goodbye and God bless you.
Richard and his wife returned to America in the early fall of 1900 and, after a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Clark at Marion, settled for the winter in New York. They took a house in East Fifty-eighth Street where they did much entertaining and lived a very social existence, but I do not imagine that either of them regarded the winter as a success. Richard was unable to do his usual amount of work, and both he and his wife were too fond of the country to enjoy an entire winter in town. In the spring they went back to Marion.
MARION, MASSACHUSETTS. May, 1901.
We arrived here last night in a glowing sunset which was followed by a grand moon. The house was warm and clean and bright, with red curtains and open fires and everything was just as we had left it, so that it seemed as though we had just come out of a tortuous bad dream of asphalt and L. roads and bad air. I was never so glad to get away from New York.
Outside it is brisk and fine and smells of earth and melting snow and there is a grand breeze from the bay. We took a long walk to-day, with the three dogs, and it was pitiful to see how glad they were to be free of the cellar and a back yard and at large among grass and rocks and roots of trees. I wanted to bottle up some of the air and send it to all of my friends in New York. It is so much better to smell than hot-house violets. Seaton came on with us to handle the dogs and to unpack and so to-day we are nearly settled already with silver, pictures, clothes and easels and writing things all in place. The gramophone is whirling madly and all is well— Lots and lots of love.
DICK.
The following was written by Richard to his mother on her birthday:
MARION, MASSACHUSETTS.
June 27th, 1901.
DEAR MOTHER:
In those wonderful years of yours you never thought of the blessing you were to us, only of what good you could find in us. All that time, you were helping us and others, and making us better, happier, even nobler people. From the day you struck the first blow for labor, in The Iron Mills on to the editorials in The Tribune, The Youth's Companion and The Independent, with all the good the novels, the stories brought to people, you were always year after year making the ways straighter, lifting up people, making them happier and better. No woman ever did better for her time than you and no shrieking suffragette will ever understand the influence you wielded, greater than hundreds of thousands of women's votes.
We love you dear, dear mother, and we KNOW you and may your coming years be many and as full of happiness for yourself as they are for us.
RICHARD.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SPANISH AND ENGLISH CORONATIONS
Interrupted by frequent brief visits to New York Philadelphia, and Boston, Richard and his wife remained in Marion from May, 1901, until the early spring of 1902. During this year Richard accomplished a great deal of work and lived an ideal existence. In the summer months there were golf and tennis and an army of visitors, and during the winter many of their friends came from New York to enjoy a most charming hospitality and the best of duck shooting and all kinds of winter sports.
Late in April, they sailed for Gibraltar on their way to Madrid, where Richard was to report the coronation ceremonies, and from Madrid they went to Paris and then to London to see the coronation of King Edward. It was while on a visit to the Rudyard Kiplings that they heard the news that Edward had been suddenly stricken with a serious illness and that the ceremony had been postponed.
11, St. James's Place, St. James's Street, S. W. London.
June, 1902.
DEAR MOTHER:—
This is only to say that at the Kipling's we heard the news, and being two newspaper men, refused to believe it and went to the postoffice of the little village to call up Brighton on the 'phone. It was very dramatic, the real laureate of the British Empire asking if the King were really in such danger that he could not be crowned, while the small boy in charge of the grocery shop, where the postoffice was, wept with his elbows on the counter. They sent me my ticket—unasked—for the Abbey, early this morning, and while I was undecided whether to keep it—or send it back, this came. So, now, I shall frame it as a souvenir of one of the most unhappy occasions I ever witnessed. You can form no idea of what a change it has made. It really seems to have stunned every one—that is the usual and accepted word, but this time it describes it perfectly.
Goodbye, DICK.
During the summer of 1903 my mother and father occupied a cottage at Marion, and every morning Richard started the day by a visit to them. My brother had already bought his Crossroads Farm at Mount Kisco, and the new house was one of the favorite topics of their talk. The following letter was written by my mother to Richard, after her return to Philadelphia.
September, 1903.
Here we are in the old library and breakfast over. There seemed an awful blank in the world as I sat down just now, and I said to Dad "Its Dick—he must come THIS morning."
You don't know how my heart used to give a thump when you and Bob came in that old door. It has been such a good month—everybody was so friendly—and Dad was so well and happy—but your visits were the core of it all. And our good drives! Well we'll have lots of drives at the Crossroads. You'll call at our cottage every morning and I'm going to train the peacocks to run before the trap and I'll be just like Juno.
There isn't a scrap of news. It is delightfully cool here.
M.
CHAPTER XIV
THE JAPANESE-RUSSIAN WAR
During the fall and early winter of 1903 Richard and his wife lingered on in Marion, but came to New York after the Christmas holidays. The success of his farce "The Dictator" had been a source of the greatest pleasure to Richard, and he settled down to playwriting with the same intense zeal he put into all of his work. However, for several years Robert J. Collier and my brother had been very close friends, and Richard had written many articles and stories for Collier's Weekly, so that when Collier urged my brother to go to the Japanese-Russian War as correspondent with the Japanese forces, Richard promptly gave up his playwriting and returned to his old love—the role of reporter. Accompanied by his wife, Richard left New York for San Francisco in February.
February, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
We are really off on the "long trail" bound for the boundless East. We have a charming drawing-room, a sympathetic porter and a courtly conductor descended from one of the first Spanish conquerors of California. We arranged the being late for lunch problem by having dinner at five and cutting the lunch out. Bruce and Nan came over for dinner and we had a very jolly time. They all asked after you all, and drank to our re-union at Marion in July. Later they all tried to come with us on the train. It looked so attractive with electric lights in each seat, and observation car and library. A reporter interviewed us and Mr. Clark gave us a box of segars and a bottle of whiskey. But they will not last, as will Dad's razors and your housewife. I've used Dad's razors twice a day, and they still are perfect. It's snowing again, but we don't care. They all came to the station to see us off but no one cried this time as they did when we went to South Africa. Somehow we cannot take this trip seriously. It is such a holiday trip all through not grim and human like the Boer war. Just quaint and queer. A trip of cherry blossoms and Geisha girls. I send all my love to you.
DICK.
SAN FRANCISCO, February 26th.
DEAR MOTHER:
We got in here last night at midnight just as easily as though we were coming into Jersey City. Before we knew it we had seen the Golden Gate, and were snug in this hotel. Today as soon as we learned we could not sail we started in to see sights and we made a record and hung it up high. We went to the Cliff House and saw the seals on the rocks below, to the Park, the military reservation, Chinatown, and the Poodle Dog Restaurant. We also saw the Lotta monument, the Stevenson monument, the Spreckles band stand, the place where the Vigilance Committee hung the unruly, and tonight I went to a dinner the Bohemian Club gave to the War correspondents. I made a darned good speech. Think of ME making a speech of any sort, but I did, and I had sense enough not to talk about the war but the "glorious climate of California" instead and of all the wonders of Frisco. So, I made a great hit. It certainly is one of the few cities that lives up to it's reputation in every way. I should call it the most interesting city, with more character back of it than any city on this continent. There are only four deck rooms and we each have one. The boat is small, but in spite of the crowd that is going on her, will I think be comfortable. I know it will be that, and it may be luxurious.
DICK.
On way to Japan.
March 13th, 1904.
About four this afternoon we saw an irregular line of purple mountains against a yellow sky, and it was Japan. In spite of the Sunday papers, and the interminable talk on board, the guide books and maps which had made Japan nauseous to me, I saw the land of the Rising Sun with just as much of a shock and thrill as I first saw the coast of Africa. We forgot entirely we had been twenty days at sea and remembered only that we were ten miles from Japan, only as far as New Bedford is from Marion. We are at anchor now, waiting to go in in the morning. Were it not for war we could go in now but we must wait to be piloted over the sunken mines. That and the flashlights moving from the cruisers ten miles away gave us our first idea of war. To-morrow early we will be off for Tokio, as it is only forty miles from Yokohama. Of course, I may get all sorts of news before we land, but that is what we expect to do. It will be good to feel solid earth, and to see the kimonos and temples and geishas and cherry blossoms. I am almost hoping the Government won't let us go to the front and that for a week at least Cecil and I can sit in tea houses with our shoes off while the nesans bring us tea and the geishas rub their knees and make bows to us. I am sending you through Harper's, a book on Hawaii and one of Japan that I have read and like and which I think will help you to keep in touch with the wanderers. With all my love to all.
DICK.
TOKYO, March 22nd, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
The "situation" here continues to remain in such doubt that I cannot tell of it, as it changes hourly. There are three "columns," so far existing only in imagination. That is, so far as they concern the correspondents. The first lot have chosen themselves, and so have the second lot. But the first lot are no nearer starting than they were two weeks ago. I may be kept waiting here for weeks and weeks. I do not like to turn out Palmer, although I very much want to go with the first bunch. On the other hand I am paid pretty well to get to the front, and I am uncertain as to what I ought to do. If the second column were to start immediately after the first, we then would have two men in the field, but if it does not, then Collier will be paying $1000. a week for stories of tea houses and "festivals." Palmer threatens to resign if I take his place in the first column and that would be a loss to the paper that I do not feel I could make up. If it gets any more complicated I'll wire Collier to decide.
Meanwhile, we are going out to dinners and festivals and we ride. I have a good pony the paper paid for Cecil has hired another and we find it delightful to scamper out into the country. We have three rooms in a row. One we use for a sitting room. They look very welland as it is still cold we keep them cheerful with open fires. We have a table in the dining-room to ourselves and to which we can ask our friends. The food is extremely good. Griscom and the Secretaries have all called and sent pots of flowers, and we are dining out every other night. In the day we shop and ride. But all day and all night we the correspondents plot and slave and intrigue over the places on the columns. I got mine on the second column all right but no one knows if it ever will move. So, naturally, I want to be on the first. The rows are so engrossing that I have not enjoyed the country as I expected. Still, I am everlastingly glad we came. It is an entirely new life and aspect. It completes so much that we have read and seen. In spite of the bother over the war passes I learn things daily and we see beautiful and curious things, and are educated as to the East, as no books could have done it for us. John Bass who was my comrade in arms in Greece and his wife are here. They are the very best. Also we see Lloyd daily, and the hotel is full of amusing men, who are trying to get to the front. Of course, we know less of the war than you do. None of the news from Cheefoo, none of the "unauthorized" news reaches us. Were it not for our own squabbles we would not know not only that the country was at war but not even that war existed ANYWHERE in the world. We are here entirely en tourist and it cannot be helped. The men who tried to go with the Russians are equally unfortunate. Think of us as wandering around each with a copy of Murray seeing sights. That is all we really do, All my love.
DICK.
YOKOHAMA—April 2, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
I just got your letter dated the 28th of February and the days following in which you worried over me in the ice coated trenches of Korea. I read it in a rickshaw in a warm sun on my way to buy favors for a dinner to Griscom. We have had three warm days and no doubt the sun will be out soon. The loss of the sun, though, is no great one. We have lots of pleasures and lots of troubles in spite of the Sun. Yesterday the first batch of correspondents were sent on their way. I doubt if they will get any further than Chemulpo but their going cheered the atmosphere like a storm in summer. The diplomats and Japanese were glad to get rid of them, they were delighted to be off. Some had been here 58 days, and we all looked at it as a good sign as it now puts us "next." But after they had gone it was pretty blue for some of them were as good friends as I want. I know few men I like as well as I do John Bass. Many of them were intensely interesting. It was, by all odds, the crowd one would have wished to go with. As it is, I suspect we all will meet again and that the two columns will be merged on the Yalu. None of the attaches have been allowed to go, so it really is great luck for the correspondents. Tell Chas I still am buying my Kit. It's pretty nearly ready now. I began in New York and kept on in Boston, San Francisco, and here. It always was my boast that I had the most complete kit in the world, and in spite of Charley's jeers at my lack of preparedness everybody here voted it the greatest ever seen. For the last ten days all the Jap saddlers, tent makers and tinsmiths have been copying it.
DICK.
TOKIO—May 2, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
Today, we walked into our new house and tomorrow we will settle down there. We rented the furniture for the two unfurnished rooms; knives, forks, spoons, china for the table and extras for 35 dollars gold for two months. It took six men to bring the things in carts. They got nothing. Yesterday, I took two rickshaw men from half past twelve to half past five. Out of that time they ran and pushed me for two solid hours. Their price for the five hours was eighty cents gold. What you would pay a cabman to drive you from the Waldorf to Martin's. I wish you could see our menage. Such beautiful persons in grey silk kimonos who bow, and bow and slip and slide in spotless torn white stockings with one big toe. They make you ashamed of yourself for walking on your own carpet in your own shoes. Today we got the first news of the battle on the Yalu, the battle of April 26-30th. I suppose Palmer and Bass saw it; and I try to be glad I did what was right by Collier's instead of for myself. But I don't want to love another paper. I suppose there will be other fights but that one was the first, and it must have been wonderful. On the 4th we expect to be on our way to Kioto with Lloyd and his wife and John Fox. By that time we expect to be settled in the new house.
DICK.
TOKIO, May 22nd, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
You will be glad to hear that the correspondents at the front are not allowed within two and a half miles of the firing line. This I am sure you will approve. Their tales of woe have just been received here, and they certainly are having a hard time. The one thing they all hope for is that the Japs will order them home. My temper is vile to-day, as I cannot enjoy the gentle pleasures of this town any longer and with this long trip to Port Arthur before I can turn towards home. I am as cross as a sick bear. We were at Yokohama when your last letters came and they were a great pleasure. I got splendid news of The Dictator. Yesterday we all went to Yokohama. There are four wild American boys here just out of Harvard who started the cry of "Ping Yang" for the "Ping Yannigans" they being the "Yannigans." They help to make things very lively and are affectionately regarded by all classes. Yesterday, they and Fox and Cecil and I went to the races, with five ricksha boys each, and everybody lost his money except myself. But it was great fun. It rained like a seive, and all the gentlemen riders fell off, and every time we won money our thirty ricksha men who would tell when we won by watching at which window we had bet, would cheer us and salaam until to save our faces we had to scatter largesses. Egan turned up in the evening and dined with John and Cecil and me in the Grand Hotel and told us first of all the story the correspondents had brought back to Kobbe for which every one from the Government down has been waiting. It would make lively reading if any of us dared to write it. To-day he made his protests to Fukushima as we mapped them out last night and the second lot will I expect be treated better. But, as the first lot were the important men representing the important syndicates the harm, for the Japs, has been done. Of course, much they do is through not knowing our points of view. To them none of us is of any consequence except that he is a nuisance, and while they are conversationally perfect in politeness, the regulations they inflict are too insulting. However, you don't care about that, and neither do I. I am going to earn my money if I possibly can, and come home.
DICK.
TOKIO, June 13th, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
We gave a farewell dinner last night to the Ping Yannigans two of whom left on the Navy expedition and another one to-morrow for God's country. There were eight men and we had new lanterns painted with the arms of Corea and the motto of the Ping Yannigans. Also many flags. All but the Japanese flag. One of them with a side glance at the servants said, "Gentleman and Lady: I propose a toast, Japan for the Japanese and the Japanese for Japan." We all knew what he meant but the servants were greatly pleased. Jack London turned up to-day on his way home. I liked him very much. He is very simple and modest and gave you a tremendous impression of vitality and power. He is very bitter against the wonderful little people and says he carries away with him only a feeling of irritation. But I told him that probably would soon wear off and he would remember only the pleasant things. I did envy him so, going home after having seen a fight and I not yet started. Still THIS TIME we may get off. Yokoyama the contractor takes our stuff on the 16th, and so we feel it is encouraging to have our luggage at the front even if we are here.
DICK.
YOKOHAMA, July 26th, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
We gave in our passes to-day, and sail to-morrow at five. They say we are not to see Port Arthur fall but are to be taken up to Oku's army. That means we miss the "popular" story, and may have to wait around several weeks before we see the other big fight. They promised us Port Arthur but that is reason enough for believing they do not intend we shall see it at all. John and I are here at a Japanese hotel, the one Li Hung Chang occupied when he came over to arrange the treaty between China and Japan. It is a very beautiful house, the best I have seen of real Japanese and the garden and view of the harbor is magnificent. I wish Cecil could see it too, but I know she would not care for a room which is as free to the public view as the porch at Marion. It has 48 mats and as a mat is 3 x 5 you can work it out. We eat, sleep and dress in this room and it is like trying to be at home on top of a Chickering Grand. But it is very beautiful and the moonlight is fine and saddening. No one of us has the least interest in the war or in what we may see or be kept from seeing. We have been "over trained" and not even a siege of London could hold our thoughts from home. I have just missed the mail which would have told me you were at Marion. I should so love to have heard from you from there. I do not think you will find the Church house uncomfortable; and you can always run across the road when the traffic is not too great, and chat with Benjamin. I do hope that Dad will have got such good health from Marion and such lashers of fish. I got a good letter from Charles and I certainly feel guilty at putting extra work on a man as busy as he. Had I known he was the real judge of those prize stories I would have sent him one myself and given him the name of it. Well, goodbye for a little time. We go on board in a few hours, and after that everything I write you is read by the Censor so I shall not say anything that would gratify their curiosity. They think it is unmanly to write from the field to one's family and the young princes forbade their imperial spouses from writing them until the war is over. However, not being an imperial Samaari but a home loving, family loving American, I shall miss not hearing very much, and not being able to tell you all how I love you.
DICK.
DALNY, July 27th, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
We left Shimonoseki three days ago and have had very pleasant going on the Heijo Maru a small but well run ship of 1,500 tons. Fox and I got one of the two best rooms and I have been very comfortable. We are at anchor now at a place of no interest except for its sunsets.
We have just been told as the anchor is being lowered that we can send letters back by the Island, so I can just dash this off before leaving. We have reached Dalny and I have just heard the first shot fired which was to send me home. All the others came and bid John and me a farewell as soon as we were sure it was the sound of cannon. However, as it is 20 miles away I'll have to hang on until I get a little nearer. We have had a very pleasant trip even though we were delayed two days by fog and a slow convoy. Now we are here at Dalny. It looks not at all like its pictures, which, as I remember them were all taken in winter. It is a perfectly new, good brick barracks-like town. I am landing now. The two servants seem very satisfactory and I am in excellent health. Today Cecil has been four days at Hong Kong. Please send the gist of this letter dull as it is to Mrs. Clark. When I began it I thought I would have plenty of time to finish it on shore. Of course, after this all I write and this too, I suppose will be censored. So, there will not be much liveliness. I have no taste to expose my affections to the Japanese staff. So, goodbye.
R.
July 31st, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
We have been met here with a bitter disappointment. We are all to be sent north, although only 18 hours away. We can hear the guns at Port Arthur the fall of which they promised us we would see. To night we are camping out in one of the Russian barracks. To-morrow we go, partly by horse and partly by train. A week must elapse before we can get near headquarters. And then we have no guarantee that we will see any fighting. This means for me a long delay. It is very disappointing and the worst of the many we have suffered in the last four months. I have written Cecil asking her to seriously think of going home but I am afraid she will not. Were it not for that and the disappointment one feels in travelling a week's journey away from the sound of guns I would be content. My horse is well and so am I. It is good to get back to drawing water, and carrying baggage and skirmishing about for yourself. The contractor gave us a good meal and the servants are efficient but I like doing things myself and skirmishing for them. We make a short ride this morning of six miles to Kin Chow and then 30 miles by rail. "Headquarters" is about a five days ride distant. Tell Chas my outfit seems nearly complete. Maybe I can buy a few things I forgot in Boston at Kin Chow. Fox and I will get out just as soon as we see fighting but before you get this you will probably hear by cable from me. If not, it will mean we still are waiting for a fight. The only mistake I made was in not going home the first time they deceived us instead of waiting for this and worst of all.
to you all.
DICK.
MANCHURIA, August 14, 1904.
We have been riding through Manchuria for eleven days. Nine days we rode then two days we rested. By losing the trail we managed to average about 20 miles a day. I kept well and enjoyed it very much. As I had to leave my servant behind with a sick horse, I had to take care of my mule and pony myself and hunt fodder for them, so I was pretty busy. Saiki did all he could, but he is not a servant and sooner than ask him I did things myself. We passed through a very beautiful country, sleeping at railway stations and saw two battle fields of recent fights. Now we are in a Chinese City and waiting to see what should be the biggest fight since Sedan. The Russians are about ten miles from us, so we are not allowed outside the gates of the city without a guide. Of course, we have none of that freedom we have enjoyed in other wars, but apart from that they treat us very well indeed. And in a day or two they promise us much fighting, which we will be allowed to witness from a hill. This is a very queer old city but the towns and country are all very primitive and we depend upon ourselves for our entertainment. I expect soon to see you at home. In three more days I shall have been out here five months and that is too long. Good luck to you all.
R. H. D.
MANCHURIA, August 18th, 1904.
We still are inside this old Chinese town. It has rained for five days, and this one is the first in which we could go abroad. Unless you swim very well it is not safe to cross one of these streets. We have found an old temple and some of us are in it now. It is such a relief to escape from that compound and the rain. This place is full of weeds and pine trees, cooing doves and butterflies. The temples are closed and no one is in charge but an aged Chinaman. We did not come here to sit in temples, so John and I will leave in a week, battle or no battle. The argument that having waited so long one might as well wait a little longer does not touch us. It was that argument that kept us in Tokio when we knew we were being deceived weekly, and the same man who deceived us there, is in charge here. It is impossible to believe anything he tells his subordinates to tell us, so, we will be on our way back when you get this. I am well, and only disappointed. Had they not broken faith with us about Port Arthur we would by now have seen fighting. As it is we will have wasted six months.
Love to Dad, and Chas and Nora and you.
DICK.
In writing of his decision to leave the Japanese army, Richard, after his return to the United States, said:
"On the receipt of Oku's answer to the Correspondents we left the army. Other correspondents would have quit then, as most of them did ten days later, but that their work and Kuroki, so far from being fifty miles north toward Mukden, as Okabe said he was, was twenty miles to the east on our right preparing for the, closing-in movement which was just about to begin. Three days after we had left the army, the greatest battle since Sedan was waged for six days.
"So, our half-year of time and money, of dreary waiting, of daily humiliations at the hands of officers with minds diseased by suspicion, all of which would have been made up to us by the sight of this one great spectacle, was to the end absolutely lost to us. Perhaps we made a mistake in judgment. As the cards fell we certainly did.
"The only proposition before us was this: There was small chance of any immediate fighting. If there were fighting we would not see it. Confronted with the same conditions again, I would decide in exactly the same manner. Our misfortune lay in the fact that our experience with other armies had led us to believe that officers and gentlemen speak the truth, that men with titles of nobility, and with the higher titles of General and Major-General, do not lie. In that we were mistaken."
Greatly disappointed at his failure to see really anything of the war, much embittered at the Japanese over their treatment of the correspondents, Richard reached Vancouver in October. As my father was seriously ill he came to Philadelphia at once and divided the next two months between our old home and Marion.
On December 14, 1904, my father died, and it was the first tragedy that had come into Richard's life, as it was in that of my sister or myself. As an editorial writer, most of my father's work had been anonymous, but his influence had been as far-reaching as it had been ever for all that was just and fine. All of his life he had worked unremittingly for good causes and, in spite of the heavy burdens which of his own will he had taken upon his none too strong shoulders, I have never met with a nature so calm , so simple, so sympathetic with those who were weak—weak in body or soul. As all newspaper men must, he had been brought in constant contact with the worst elements of machine politics, as indeed he had with the lowest strata of the life common to any great city. But in his own life he was as unsophisticated; his ideals of high living, his belief in the possibilities of good in all men and in all women, remained as unruffled as if he had never left his father's farm where he had spent his childhood. When my father died Richard lost his "kindest and severest critic" as he also lost one of his very closest friends and companions.
During the short illness that preceded my brother's death, although quite unconscious that the end was so near, his thoughts constantly turned back to the days of his home in Philadelphia, and he got out the letters which as a boy and as a young man he had written to his family. After reading a number of them he said: "I know now why we were such a happy It was because we were always, all of us, of the same age."
CHAPTER XV
MOUNT KISCO
During my brother's life there were four centres from which he set forth on his travels and to which he returned to finish the articles for which he had collected the material, or perhaps to write a novel, a few short stories, or occasionally a play, but unlike most of the followers of his craft, never to rest. Indeed during the last twenty-five years of his life I do not recall two consecutive days when Richard did not devote a number of hours to literary work. The centres of which I speak were first Philadelphia, then New York, then Marion, and lastly Mount Kisco. Happy as Richard had been at Marion, the quaint little village, especially in winter, was rather inaccessible, and he realized that to be in touch with the numerous affairs in which he was interested that his headquarters should be in or near New York. In addition to this he had for long wanted a home of his very own, and so located that he could have his family and his friends constantly about him. Some years, however, elapsed between this dream and its realization. In 1903 he took the first step by purchasing a farm situated in the Westchester Hills, five miles from Mount Kisco, New York. He began by building a lake at the foot of the hill on which the home was to stand, then a water-tower, and finally the house itself. The plans to the minutest detail had been laid out on the lawn at Marion and, as the architect himself said, there was nothing left for him to do but to design the cellar.
Richard and his wife moved into their new home in July, 1905, and called it Crossroads Farm, keeping the original name of the place. In later years Richard added various adjoining parcels of land to his first purchase, and the property eventually included nearly three hundred acres. The house itself was very large, very comfortable, and there were many guest-rooms which every week-end for long were filled by the jolliest of house-parties. In his novel "The Blind Spot," Justus Miles Forman gives the following very charming picture of the place:
"It was a broad terrace paved with red brick that was stained and a little mossy, so that it looked much older than it had any right to, and along its outer border there were bay-trees set in big Italian terracotta jars; but the bay-trees were placed far apart so that they should not mask the view, and that was wise, for it was a fine view. It is rugged country in that part of Westchester County—like a choppy sea: all broken, twisted ridges, and abrupt little hills, and piled-up boulders, and hollow, cup-like depressions among them. The Grey house sat, as it were, upon the lip of a cup, and from the southward terrace you looked across a mile or two of hollow bottom, with a little lake at your feet, to sloping pastures where there were cattle browsing, and to the far, high hills beyond.
"There was no magnificence about the outlook—nothing to make you catch your breath; but it was a good view with plenty of elbow room and no sign of a neighbor—no huddling—only the water of the little lake, the brown November hillsides, and the clean blue sky above. The distant cattle looked like scenic cattle painted on their green-bronze pasture to give an aspect of husbandry to the scene."
Although Richard was now comfortably settled, he had of late years acquired a great dread of cold weather. As soon as winter set in his mind turned to the tropics, and whenever it was possible he went to Cuba or some other land where he was sure of plenty of heat and sunshine. The early part of 1906 found him at Havana, this time on a visit to the Hon. E. V. Morgan, who was then our minister to Cuba. From Havana he went to the Isle of Pines.
ISLE OF PINES, March 26th, 1906.
DEAR MOTHER:—
We are just returning from the Isle of Pines. We reached there after a day on the water at about six on Wednesday, 22nd. They dropped us at a woodshed in a mangrove swamp, where a Mr. Mason met us with two mules. I must have said I was going to the island because every one was expecting me. Until the night before we had really no idea when we would go, so, to be welcomed wherever we went, was confusing. For four days we were cut off from the world, and in that time, five days in all, we covered the entire island pretty thoroughly— It was one of the most interesting trips I ever took and Cecil enjoyed it as much as I did. The island is a curious mixture of palm and pines, one minute it looks like Venezuela and the next like Florida and Lakewood. It is divided into two parties of Americans, the "moderates" and the "revolutionists." The Cubans are very few and are all employed by the Americans, who own nine-tenths of the Island. Of course, they all want the U. S. to take it, they differ only as to how to persuade the senators to do it. I had to change all my opinions about the situation. I thought it was owned by land speculators who did not live there, nor wish to live there, but instead I found every one I met had built a home and was cultivating the land. We gave each land company a turn at me, and we had to admire orange groves and pineapples, grapefruit and coffee until we cried for help. With all this was the most romantic history of the island before the "gringos" came. It was a famous place for pirates and buried treasures and slave pens. It was a sort of clearing house for slaves where they were fattened. I do not believe people take much interest in or know anything about it, but I am going to try and make an interesting story of it for Collier. It was queer to be so completely cut off from the world. There was a wireless but they would not let me use it. It is not yet opened to the public. I talked to every one I met and saw much that was pathetic and human. It was the first pioneer settlement Cecil had ever seen and the American making the ways straight is very curious. He certainly does not adorn whatever he touches. But never have I met so many enthusiastics and such pride in locality. To-night we reach the Hotel Louvre, thank heaven! where I can get Spanish food again, and not American ginger bread, and, "the pie like mother used to make." We now are on a wretched Spanish tug boat with every one, myself included, very seasick and babies howling and roosters crowing. But soon that will be over, and, after a short ride of thirty miles through a beautiful part of the island, we will be in Havana in time for a fine dinner, with ice. What next we will do I am not sure. After living in that beautiful palace of Morgan's, it just needed five days of the "Pinero's" to make us enjoy life at a hotel— If we can make connections, I think I will go over to Santo Domingo, and study up that subject, too. But, even if we go no where else the trip to the I. of P. was alone well worth our long journey. I don't know when I have seen anything as curious, and as complicated a political existence. Love to all of you dear ones.
DICK.
HAVANA—April 9, 1906.
ARTHUR BARTLETT MAURICE, ESQ.
MY DEAR MAURICE:
I have just read about myself, in the April Bookman, which I would be very ungrateful if I did not write and tell you how much it pleased me. That sounds as though what pleased me was, obviously, that what you said was so kind. But what I really mean, and that for which I thank you, was your picking out things that I myself liked, and that I would like to think others liked. I know that the men make "breaks," and am sorry for it, but, I forget to be sorry when you please me by pointing out the good qualities in "Laquerre," and the bull terrier. Nothing ever hurt me so much as the line used by many reviewers of "Macklin" that "Mr. Davis' hero is a cad, and Mr. Davis cannot see it." Macklin I always thought was the best thing I ever did, and it was the one over which I took the most time and care. Its failure was what as Maggie Cline used to say, "drove me into this business" of play writing. All that ever was said of it was that it was "A book to read on railroad trains and in a hammock." That was the verdict as delivered to me by Romeike from 300 reviewers, and it drove me to farces. So, I was especially glad when you liked "Royal Macklin." I tried to make a "hero" who was vain, theatrical, boasting and selfconscious, but, still likable. But, I did not succeed in making him of interest, and it always has hurt me. Also, your liking the "Derelict" and the "Fever Ship" gave me much pleasure. You see what I mean, it was your selecting the things upon which I had worked, and with which I had made every effort, that has both encouraged and delighted me. Being entirely unprejudiced, I think it is a fine article, and as soon as I stamp this, I will read it over again. So, thank you very much, indeed, for to say what you did seriously, over your own name, took a lot of courage, and for that daring, and for liking the same things I do, I thank you many times.
Sincerely yours,
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.
In reading this over, I find all I seem to have done in it is to complain because no one, but yourself and myself liked "Macklin." What I wanted to say is, that I am very grateful for the article, for the appreciation, although I don't deserve it, and for your temerity in saying so many kind things. Nothing that has been written about what I have written has ever pleased me so much.
R. H. D.
In the spring of 1906 while Richard was on a visit to Providence, R. I., Henry W. Savage produced a play by Jesse Lynch Williams and my brother was asked to assist at rehearsals, a pastime in which he found an enormous amount of pleasure. The "McCloy" mentioned in the following letter was the city editor of The Evening Sun when my brother first joined the staff of that paper as a reporter.
NEW YORK, May 4, 1906.
DEAR NORA:
I left Providence Tuesday night and came on to New York yesterday. Savage and Williams and all were very nice about the help they said I had given them, and I had as much fun as though it had been a success I had made myself, and I didn't have to make a speech, either.
Yesterday I spent in the newspaper offices gathering material from their envelopes on Winston Churchill, M. P. who is to be one of my real Soldiers of Fortune. He will make a splendid one, in four wars, twice made a question; before he was 21 years old, in Parliament, and a leader in BOTH parties before he was 36. In the newspaper offices they had a lot of fun with me. When I came into the city room of The Eve. Sun, McCloy was at his desk in his shirt spiking copy. He just raised his eyes and went on with his blue pencil. I said "There's nothing in that story, sir, the man will get well, and the woman is his wife."
"Make two sticks of it," said McCloy, "and then go back to the Jefferson police court."
When I sat down at my old desk, and began to write the copy boy came and stood beside me and when I had finished the first page, snatched it. I had to explain I was only taking notes.
At The Journal, Sam Chamberlain who used to pay me $500 a story, touched me on the shoulder as I was scribbling down notes, and said "Hearst says to take you back at $17 a week." I said "I'm worth $18 and I can't come for less." So he brought up the business manager and had a long wrangle with him as to whether I should get $18. The business manager, a Jew gentleman, didn't know me from Adam, and seriously tried to save the paper a dollar a week. When the reporters and typewriter girls began to laugh, he got very mad. It was very funny how soothing was the noise of the presses, and the bells and typewriters and men yelling "Copy!" and "Damn the boy!" I could write better than if I had been in the silence of the farm. It was like being able to sleep as soon as the screw starts.
DICK.
CHAPTER XVI
THE CONGO
During the winter of 1907 the world rang with the reports of the atrocities in the Congo, and Robert J. Collier, of Collier's Weekly, asked Richard to go to the Congo and make an investigation. I do not believe that my brother was ever in much sympathy with the commission, as he did not feel that he could afford the time that a thorough investigation demanded. However, with his wife he sailed for Liverpool on January 5, 1907, and three weeks later started for Africa. Regarding this trip, in addition to the letters he wrote to his family, I also quote from a diary which he had just started and which he conscientiously continued until his death.
From diary of January 24th, 1907. Last day in London. Margaret Frazer offered me gun from a Captain Jenkins of Nigeria. Instead bought Winchester repeating, hoping, if need it, get one coast. Lunched Savoy-Lynch, Mrs. Lynch, her sister—very beautiful girl. In afternoon Sam Sothern and Margaret came in to say "Good bye." Dined at Anthony Hope's—Barrie and Mrs. Barrie and Jim Whigham. Mrs. Barrie looking very well, Barrie not so well. As silent as ever, only talked once during dinner when he told us about the first of his series of cricket matches between authors and artists. Did not have eleven authors, so going along road picked up utter strangers one a soldier in front of embracing two girls. Said he would come if girls came too—all put in brake. Mrs. Barrie said the Llewellen Davis' were the originals for the Darlings and their children in Peter Pan. They played a strange game of billiards suggested by Barrie who won as no one else knew the rules and they claimed he invented them to suit his case. Sat up until three writing and packing. The dinner was best have had this trip in London.
Compagnie Belge Maritime Du Congo.
S. S. February 11th, 1907.
To-morrow, we will be in Banana, which is the first port in the Congo. When I remember how far away the Congo seemed from New York and London, it is impossible to believe we are less than a day from it. I am so very glad I came. The people who have lived here for years agree about it in no one fact, so, it is a go-as-you-please for any one so far as accurate information is concerned, and I am as likely to be right as any one else. It has been a pleasant trip and for us will not be over until some days, for at Matadi, which is up the river, we will probably live on the steamer as the shore does not sound attractive. Then I shall probably go on up the river and after a month or six weeks come back again. At Boma I am to see the Governor, one of the inspectors on board is to introduce me, and I have an idea they will make me as comfortable as possible, so that I may not see anything. Not that I would be likely to see anything hidden under a year. Yesterday was the crossing of the Equator. The night before Neptune, one of the crew, and his wife, the ship's butcher, and a kroo boy, as black as coal for the heir apparent came over the side and proclaimed that those who never before had crossed the Equator must be baptized. We had crossed but I was perfectly willing to go through it for the fun. The Belgians went at it as seriously as children, and worked up a grand succession of events. First we had gymkana races among the kroo boys. The most remarkable was their placing franc pieces in tubs of white and red flour, for which the boys dived, they then dug for more money into a big basket fitted with feathers and when they came out they were the most awful sights imaginable. You can picture their naked black bodies and faces spotted with white and pink and stuck like chickens with feathers. Then the next day we were all hauled before a court and judged, and having all been found guilty were condemned to be shaved and bathed publicly at four. Meantime the Italians, is it not the picture of them, had organized a revolution against the Tribunal, with the object of ducking them. They went into this as though it were a real conspiracy and had signs and passwords. At four o'clock, in turn they sat us on the edge of the great tank on the well deck and splashed us over with paste and then tilted us in. I tried to carry the Frenchman who was acting as barber, with me but only got him half in. But Milani, one of the Italians, swung him over his head plumb into the water. The Frenchman is a rich elephant hunter who is not very popular. When the revolution broke loose we all yelled "A bas le Tribunal" "Vive la Revolution!" and there was awful rough house. I made for the Frenchman and went in with him and nearly drowned him, and everybody was being thrown into the tank or held in front of a fire cross. After dinner there was a grand ceremony, the fourth, in which certificates were presented by an Inspecteur d'Etat who is on board, and is a Deputy Governor of a district. Then there was much champagne and a concert and Cecil and I sat with the Captain, the Bishop, in his robes and berretta and the two inspectors and they were very charming to both of us.
DICK.
Compagnie Belge Maritime Du Congo.
S. S. February 13th, 1907.
DEAR MOTHER:
We reached Banana yesterday morning, and the mouth of the Congo, and as the soldier said when he reached the top of San Juan Hill, "Hell! well here we are!" Banana looks like one of the dozen little islands in the West Indies, where we would stop to take on some "brands of bananas," instead of the port to a country as big as Europe. We went ashore and wandered around under the palm trees, and took photos, and watched some men fishing in the lagoons, and we saw a strange fish that leaps on the top of the water just as a frog jumps on land. It is certainly hot. Milani and I went in swimming in the ocean, and got finely cool. Then we paddled the canoe back to the ship to show the blacks how good we were, and got very hot, and the blacks charged us a franc for the voyage. To-morrow we will be in Boma, the capital, which is much of a place with shops and a lawn tennis court.
BOMA, February 15th.
Boma is more or less laid out and contains the official residences of the Government. I walked all over it in an hour, and here you walk very slow. There are three or four big trading stores AND a tennis court. It is, however, a dreary place. We called on the missionary and his wife, but she does not speak English and their point of view of everything was not cheerful or instructive. Cecil plans to remain on board while at Matadi and return with this same boat to Boma. I want her to go home in this boat or in some other, as I believe Boma most unhealthy and I know it to be most uncomfortable. She would have to go to a hotel which is very hot and rough, although it is clean and well run. I am undecided whether to go up the river for ten days, to where it crosses the equator, or to leave the upper Congo and go up the Kasai river. This is off the beaten track, and one may see something of interest. I will know better what I will do in an hour, when I get to Matadi.
MATADI—Feby. 21.
We are now at Matadi. The Captain invited us to stop on board and it is well he did. We dine on deck where the wind blows but the rest of the ship is being cleaned and painted for the trip North. Four hatches are discharging cargo all at once, from four in the morning until midnight. Officers and kroo boys get four hours sleep out of the twenty-four, but I sleep right through it, so does Cecil. Sometimes they take out iron rails and then zinc roofs and steel boats, 6000 cases of gin and 1000 tons of coal. Still, it is much better than in the Hotel Africa on shore. Matadi is a hill of red iron and the heat is grand. Everything in this country is grand. The river is, in places, seven miles wide, the sunsets are like nothing earthly, and the black people are like brooding shadows of lost souls, that is, if souls have shadows. Most of the blacks in this town are "prisoners" with a steel ring around the neck, and chained in long lines. I leave on the 23d to go up the Kasai River, because that is where the atrocities come from and up there there are many missionaries. I don't want you to think I say this to "calm your fears," but I say it because it is as true of this place as of every other one in the world, and that is, that it is as easy to get about here as it is in Rhode Island. It is not half as dangerous as automobiling. I have not even felt feverish, neither has Cecil. I never felt better. Cecil stays on board and goes back to Boma. There she stops a week and then takes another ship back to London. She will not wait at Boma for me, at least, I hope not and cannot imagine her doing so. In any event, after I start, there will be no way for us to communicate, and I will act on the understanding that she has started North.
I have two very good boys and both speak English, and are from Sierra Leone. I take a two-day trip of 200 miles by rail, then four days by boat up the Kasai and then I may come back by boat or walk. It depends on how I like it, how long I stay, for I can hope to see very little, as under a year it would be impossible to write with authority of this country. But I'll see more of it than some at home, and I'll hear what those who have lived here for years have to say. It is awfully interesting, absolutely different and more uncivilized than anything I ever saw. But all the time you are depressed with how little you know and can know of it. I will be here six weeks or two months and then should get up the coast to London about the middle of May or sooner.
DICK.
From diary of February 22nd, 1907.
Spent about the worst night of my life. No mattress, no pillow. Not space enough for my own cot. Every insect in the world ate me. After a bath and coffee felt better. It rained heavily until three P. M. Read Pendennis, and loved it. The picture of life at Clavering and Fairoaks, and Dr. Portman and Foker are wonderful. I do not know when I have enjoyed and admired a work so much. For some reason it is all entirely new again. I will read them all now in turn. After rain cleared took my slaves and went after "supplies." Met a King. I thought he was a witch doctor, and the boys said he was a dancing man. All his suite, wives and subjects followed, singing a song that made your flesh creep. At Hatton and Cookson's bought "plenty chop" for "boys" who were much pleased. Also a sparklet bottle, some whiskey and two pints of champagne at 7 francs the pint. Blush to own it was demi Sec. Also bacon, jam, milk, envelopes, a pillow. Saw some ivory State had seized and returned. 15 Kilo's. Some taken from Gomez across street not returned until he gave up half. No reason given Taylor agent H. & C. why returned Apparently when called will come down on the ivory question. Cuthbert Malet, coffee planter, came call on me. Only Englishman still in Service State. Had much to say which did not want printed until he out of country which will be in month or two. Anstrossi has given me side of cabin where there is room for my cot, so expect to sleep.
STANLEY POOL, Feb. 22nd, 1907.
DEAR MOTHER:
When you get this, I will be on my way to London. The rest of my stay here will be on board two boats, touching at the banks of the Kasai river. One I now am on takes me up and another takes me down. I will see a great deal that is strange and it is very interesting. Yesterday, for example, only an hour before our train reached Gongolo Station, there were three elephants that wandered across the track. We were very disappointed not to have seen them. At the mission house on the way up, I brought the first ice the mission boys had seen and when I put a piece in the hand of one, he yelled and danced about as though it were a coal. The higher up you go the tougher it gets. Back in the jungle, one can only imagine what it is like. Here all the white men have black wives, and the way the whip is used on the men is very different from the lower congo. The boat is about as large as a touring car, with all the machinery exposed. I am very comfortable though, with my bed and camp chair, and, books to read, when one gets tired of this great, dirty river. I, expect to see hippopotamuses and many crocodiles and to learn something of the "atrocities" by hearsay. To see for oneself, would take months. I return from the Kasai district by a boat like this one, burning wood and with a stern wheel, reaching Leopoldville, this place, about the 12th of March, and sailing on the Albertville for Southampton on the 19th of March. So I should be in London and so very near you by the 8th of April. Of course, if I take a later boat from here, I will be just that much later. I am perfectly well, never better. No fever, no "tired feeling" good appetite, in spite of awful tough food. From this place money cannot be used and I carry a bag of salt and rolls of cloth. For a bottle of salt you get a fowl or a turkey, for a tablespoonful an egg, or a bunch of fruit. When you write be sure and tell me ALL your plans for the summer; that is, after you have been to see us. My dearest love to you all.
DICK.
From diary of February 27th, 1907.
Saw two hippos. Thought Anstrossi said they were buffalo. So was glad when I found out what they were. I did not want to go home without having seen only two dead ones. In a few minutes I saw two more. Anstrossi fired at them but I did not, as thought it not the game when one could not recover them. Before noon saw six in a bunch—and then what I thought was a spit of rock with a hippo lying on the end of it, turned out to be fifteen hippos in a line! Burnham has told he had seen eleven in the Volta in one day. Before one o'clock, I had seen twenty-six, and, later in the day Anstrossi fired at another, and shot a hole in the awning. That made twenty-seven in one day. Also some monkeys. The hippos were delightful. They seemed so aristocratic, like gouty old gentlemen, puffing and blowing and yawning, as though everything bored them.
From diary of February 28th, 1907.
When just going up for coffee, saw what was so big, looking at it against horizon, thought it must be an elephant. Was a young hippo. Captain Jensen brought boat within eighty yards of him, and both Anstrossi and I fired, apparently knocking him off his legs, for he rolled on his side as though his back was broken. I missed him the second shot, which struck the water just in front of him. The other three shots caught him in the head, in the mouth and ear. He lay quite still, and the boys rushed out a gang plank and surrounded him singing and shouting and cutting his tail to make him bleed and weaken him. They don't die for an hour but he seemed dead enough, so I went to my cabin to re-load my gun and my camera. In three minutes I came out, and found the hippo still quiet. Then he began to toss his head and I shot him again, to put him out of pain. In return for which he rolled over into the water and got away. I was mad. Later saw four more. Just at sunset while taking bath another was seen on shore. We got within sixty yards of him and all of us missed him or at least did not hurt him. He then trotted for the river with his head up and again I must have missed, although at one place he was but fifty yards away, when he entered the water, a hundred. I stepped it off later in the sand. I followed him up and hit him or some one of us hit him and he stood up on his hind legs. But he put back to land for the third time. Captain said wait until moon came out. But though we hunted up to our waists saw none. One came quite close at dinner. Seven on the day.
CONGO RIVER—March 1, 1907.
DEAR MOTHER:
I have been up the Congo as far as the Kasai river, and up that to a place called Dima. There I found myself in a sort of cul de sac. I found that the rubber plantations I had come to see, were nine days journey distant. In this land where time and distance are so differently regarded than with us, a man tells you to go to Dima to see rubber. He means after getting to Dima, you must catch a steamer that leaves every two weeks and travel for five days. But he forgets that that fact is important to visitors. As he is under contract to stay here three years, it does not much matter to him how he spends a month, or so. Dima was two hundred yards square, and then the jungle. In half an hour, I saw it all, and met every one in it. They gave me a grand reception, but I could not spend ten days in Dima. The only other thing I could do was to take a canoe to the Jesuit Mission where the Fathers promised me shooting, or, try to catch the boat back to England that stops at interesting ports. Sooner than stop in Boma, I urged Cecil to take that boat. So, if I catch it, we will return together. It is a five weeks journey, and rather long to spend alone. In any event my letters will go by a faster boat. I have had a most wonderfully interesting visit, at least, to me. I hope I can make it readable. But, much of its pleasure was personal.
I have just had to stop writing this, for what when I get back to New York will seem a perfectly good reason for interrupting a letter to even you. A large hippopotamus has just pushed past us with five baby hippos in front of her. She is shoving them up stream, and the papa hippo is in the wake puffing and blowing. They are very plenty here and on the way up stream, I saw a great many, and every morning and evening went hunting for them on shore. I wanted the head of a hippopotamus awfully keenly for the farm. But of the only two I saw on land, both got away from me. I did not shoot at any I saw in the water, although the other idiot on board did, because if you kill them, you cannot recover them, and it seems most unsportsmanlike. Besides, I was so grateful to them for being so proud and pompous, and real aristocrats dating back from the flood. But I was terribly disappointed at losing both of those I saw on land. One I dropped at the first shot, and the other I missed, as he was running, to get back into the water. The one I shot, and that everyone thought was dead, AFTER THE "BOYS" BEGAN TO CUT HIM UP, decided he was not going to stand for that, and to our helpless dismay suddenly rolled himself into the water. If that is not hard luck, I don't know it. All I got was a bad photograph of him, and I had already decided where I would hang his head, and how much I would tip the crew for cutting him up. It was a really wonderful journey. I loved every minute of it and never was I in better health.
If I only could have known that you knew that I was all right, but instead you were worrying. The nights were bright moonlight, and the days were beautiful; full of strange people and animals, birds and views. We three sat in the little bridge of the tinpot boat, and smoked pipes and watched the great muddy river rushing between wonderful banks. There was the Danish Captain, an Italian officer and the engineer was from Finland. The Italian spoke French and the two others English, and I acted as interpreter!! Can you imagine it? I am now really a daring French linguist. People who understand me, get quick promotion. If I only could have been able to tell you all was well and not to be worried. At Kwarmouth I have just received a wire from Cecil saying she expects to leave by the slow boat but will stay if I wish it. So, now we can both go by the slow boat if I can catch it. I hope so. must have found Boma as bad as it looked. God bless you all.
DICK.
On April 13, Richard was back in London and in his diary of that date he writes, "Never so glad to get anywhere. Went to sleep to the music of motorcars. Nothing ever made me feel so content and comfortable and secure as their 'honk, honk.'"
From diary of April 22nd, 1907.
A blackmailer named H—— called, with photos of atrocities and letters and films. He wanted 30 Pounds for the lot. I gave him 3 Pounds for three photos. One letter he showed me signed Bullinger, an Englishman, said he had put the fear of God in their hearts by sticking up the chief's head on a pole, and saying, "Now, make rubber, or you will look like that." Went to lunch with Pearson but it was the wrong day, and so missed getting a free feed. Thinking he would turn up, I ordered a most expensive lunch. I paid for it. Evening went Patience, which liked immensely and then Duchess of Sutherland's party to Premiers. Saw Churchill and each explained his share of the Real Soldiers row.
From diary of April 28th, 1907.
We went down by train to Cliveden going by Taplow to Maidenhead where Astor had sent his car to meet us. It is a wonderful place and the view of the Thames is a beautiful one. They had been making alterations, bathrooms, and putting white enamel tiles throughout the dungeons. If Dukes lived no more comfortably than those who owned Cliveden, I am glad I was not a Duke. What was most amusing was the servant's room which was quite as smart as any library or study, with fine paintings, arm chairs and writing material. Nannie and Astor were exceedingly friendly and we walked all over the place. It was good to get one's feet on turf again. They sent us back by motor, so we arrived most comfortably. I gave a dinner to the Hopes, Wyndham, Miss Mary Moore, Ashmead-Bartlett and Margaret. Websters could not come. Later, came on here, and had a chat, the Websters coming too. I read Thaw trial.
Early in May Richard and his wife returned to Mount Kisco and my brother at once started in to change his farce "The Galloper" into a musical comedy. It was produced on August 12, at the Astor Theatre, under the title of the "Yankee Tourist," with Raymond Hitchcock as the star. The following I quote from Richard's diary of that date:
Monday, August 12th, 1907.
Was to have lunched with Ned Stone but he was in court. Met Whigham in street. Impulsively asked him to lunch. Ethel and Jack turned up at Martin's; asked them to lunch. Ethel and I drove around town doing errands, mine being the purchase of tickets for numerous friends. Called on Miss Trusdale to inquire about Harden-Hickey. She wants her to go to the country. Cecil arrived at six. We had a suite of eighty-nine rooms. We dined at Sherry's with Ethel and Jack, Ethel being host. Taft was there. Hottest night ever. I sat with Jack. In spite of weather, play went well. Bonsals, Ethel, Arthur Brisbane were in Cecil's box. Booth Tarkington in Irwin's. Surprise of performance was "Hello, Bill" which Raymond had learned only that morning. Helen Hale helped him greatly with dance. People came to supper at Waldorf, and things went all wrong. Next time I have a first Night I want no friends during or after. Missed the executive ability of Charles Belmont greatly.
CHAPTER XVII
A LONDON WINTER
From the fall of 1907 to that of 1908 Richard divided his time between Mount Kisco, Marion, and Cuba. In December of 1908 he sailed for London where he took Turner the artist's old house in Chelsea for the winter.
Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.
December 25. Christmas Day.
DEAR MOTHER:
We are settled here in Darkest Chelsea as though we had been born here. I am thinking of putting in my time of exile by running for Mayor. Meanwhile, it is a wonderful place in which to write the last chapters of "Once Upon a Time." The house is quite wonderful. In Spring and Summer it must be rarely beautiful. It has trees in front and a yard and a garden and a squash court: a sort of tennis you play against the angles of walls covered smooth with cement. Also a studio as large as a theatre. Outside the trees beat on the windows and birds chirp there. The river flows only forty feet away, with great brown barges on it, and gulls whimper and cry, and aeroplane all day. I have a fine room, and about the only one you can keep as warm as toast SHOULD be, and in England never is.
Cecil has engaged a teacher, and a model and he is coming here to work. He is twenty years old, and called the "boy Sargent." So, as soon as the British public gets sober, we will begin life in earnest, and both work hard. I need not tell you how glad I am to be at it. I was with you all in heart last night and recited as much as I could remember of "Twas the Night Before Christmas," which always means Dad to me, as he used to read it to us. How much he made the day mean to us. I wish I could just slip in for a kiss, and a hug. But tonight we will all drink to you, and a few hours later you will drink to us. God bless you all.
DICK.
December 29th.
DEAR MOTHER:
A blizzard has swept over London. The last one cost the City Corporation $25,000!! The last man who contracted to clean New York of snow was cleaned out by two days of it, to the tune of $200,000. Still, in spite of our alleged superiority in all things, one inch of snow in Chelsea can do more to drive one to drink and suicide than a foot of it "on the farm." At the farm we threw a ton of coal against it, and lit log fires and oil lamps, and were warm. Here, they try to fight it with two buckets of soft chocolate cake called Welch coal, and the result is you freeze. Cecil's studio is like one vast summer hotel at Portland Maine in January. You cannot go near it except in rubber boots, fur coats and woolen gloves. My room still is the only one that is livable. It is four feet square, heavily panelled in oak and the coal fire makes it as warm as a stoke hole. So, I am all right and can work nicely. Janet Sothern came to lunch today and Cecil and she in furs went picture gazing. Tomorrow we have Capt. Chule to dinner. He came up the West coast with us and is accustomed to a temperature of 120 degrees.
New Year's eve we spend with Lady Lewis where we dine and keep it up until four in the morning. We will easily be able to get back here but how we can get a hansom from here to the great city, I can't imagine. I have seen none in five days. It is fine to be surrounded by busts of Carlyle, Whistler, Rosetti and Turner's own, but occasionally you wish for a taxicab. Tomorrow I am going on a spree to the great city of London. The novel goes on smoothly, and all is well. I am still running for Mayor of Chelsea.
Love to you all.
DICK.
LONDON—January 1, 1909.
DEAR MOTHER:
I drank your health and Noll's and Charley's last night and so we all came into the New Year together. I hope it will be as good for me as the last. Certainly Chas. is coming on well with another book. It is splendid. I am so very, very glad. Some of the very best stories anybody has written will be in his next book.
We dined at the Lewis's. There were 150 at dinner and as we live in Chelsea now—one might as well be in Brooklyn—we were a half hour late. Fancy feeling you were keeping 150 people hungry. I sat at Lady Lewis's table with some interesting men and one beautiful woman all dressed in glass over pink silk, and pearls, and pearls and then, pearls. She said "Who am I" and I said "You look like a girl in America, who used to stand under a green paper lamp shade up in a farm house in New Hampshire and play a violin." Whereat there was much applause, because it seemed she was that girl, the daughter of a Mrs. Van S——, who wrote short stories. Her daughter was L—— Van S—— now the wife of a baronet and worth five million dollars. The board we paid then was eight dollars a week. Now, we are dining with her next Monday and as I insisted on gold plate she said "Very well, I'll get out the gold plate." But wasn't it dramatic of me to remember her after twenty two years?
DICK.
LONDON-February 23, 1909.
DEAR MOTHER:
George Washington's health was celebrated by drinking it at dinner. I had been asked to speak at a banquet but for some strange reason could not see myself in the part. The great Frohman arrived last night and we are all agitated until he speaks. If he would only like my plays as some of the actors do, I would be passing rich. Barrie asked himself to lunch yesterday and was very entertaining. He told us of a letter he received from Guy DuMaurier who wrote "An Englishman's Home" which has made a sensation second to nothing in ten years. He is an officer stationed at a small post in South Africa. He wrote Barrie he was at home, very blue and homesick, and outside it was raining. Then came Barrie's long cable, at 75 cents a word, saying his play was the success of the year. He did not know even it had been ACCEPTED. He shouted to his wife, and they tried to dance but the hut was too small, so they ran out into the compound and danced in the rain. Then he sent the Kaffir boys to the mess to bring all the officers and all the champagne and they did not go to bed at all. The next day cables, still at three shillings a word came from papers and magazines and publishers, managers, syndicates. And, in his letter he says, still not appreciating what a fuss it has made, "I suppose all it needs now is to be made a question in the House," when already it has been the text of half a dozen speeches by Cabinet Ministers, and three companies are playing it in the provinces. What fun to have a success come in such a way, not even to know it was being rehearsed. Today Sargent is here to see what is wrong with Cecil's picture of Janet. He came early and said he couldn't tell until he saw Janet, so now he is back again, and both Janet and Cecil are shaking with excitement. He is the most simple, kindly genius I ever met. He says the head is very fine and I guess Cecil suspected that, before she called him in. He says she must send it to the Royal Academy. I am now going out to hear more words fall from the great man, and so farewell. Seymour and I began work yesterday on the Dictator. It went very smooth. All my love to Noll and to you.
DICK.
Read the other letter first and then, let me tell you that when I went out to see Sargent, I found Cecil complaining that she could not understand just how it was he wanted Janet to pose. Whereat she handed him a piece of chalk and he made a sketch of Janet as exquisite as the morning and rubbed his hands of the charcoal and left it there! It's only worth a hundred pounds! Can you imagine the nerve of Cecil. I was so shocked I could only gasp. But, he was quite charming and begged her to call him next time she got in a scrape, and gave her his private telephone number.
Fancy having Sargent waiting to be called up to make sketches for you. I left Janet and Cecil giggling with happiness. Janet because she had been sketched by him and Cecil because she has the sketch. It's a three fourths length three feet high, and he did it in ten minutes. I am now going to ask her to invite the chef of the Ritz in, to give us a sketch of cooking a dinner.
DICK.
CHAPTER XVIII
MILITARY MANOEUVRES
In August, 1909, Richard and his wife left Mount Kisco for a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Clark at Marion. While there my brother attended and later on wrote an article on the war manoeuvres held at Middleboro, Massachusetts.
MARION, MASSACHUSETTS.
August 16th, 1909.
DEAR MOTHER:
We had a splendid day to day. I arranged to have Cecil meet me at eleven at Headquarters in the woods below Middleboro, and I spent the morning locating different regiments. Then, after I "met up" with her, I took her in my car. Both she and Hiller were awfully keen over it, so, we got on splendidly. And, of course, Hiller's knowledge of the country was wonderfully convenient. We had great luck in seeing the only fight of the day, the first one of the war. Indeed, I think we caused it. There was a troop of cavalry with a Captain who was afraid to advance. I chided him into doing something, the umpire having confided to me, he would mark him, if he did not. But, he did it wrong. Anyway, he charged a barn with 36 troopers and lost every fourth man. In real warfare he would have lost all his men and all his horses. Cecil and Hiller pursued in the car at the very heels of the cavalry, and I ran ahead with the bicycle scouts. It was most exciting. I am going out again to-morrow. Lots of Love to you all.
DICK.
MARION, MASSACHUSETTS.
August 19th, 1909.
DEAR MOTHER:
I got in last night too late to write and I am sorry. To-day, the war came to an end with our army, the Red one, with the road to Boston open before it. Indeed, when the end came, they were fighting with their backs to that City, and could have entered it to-night. I begged both Bliss and Wood to send in the cavalry just for the moral effect, but they were afraid of the feeling, that was quite strong. I had much fun, never more, and saw all that was worth seeing. I was glad to see I am in such good shape physically, but with the tramping I do over the farm, it is no wonder. I could take all the stone walls at a jump, while the others were tearing them down. I also met hundreds of men I knew and every one was most friendly, especially the correspondents. Just as I liked to be on a story with a "star" man when I was a reporter, they liked having a real "war" correspondent, take it seriously. They were always wanting to know if it were like the Real Thing, and as I assured them it was, they were satisfied. Some incidents were very funny. I met a troop of cavalry this morning, riding away from the battle, down a crossroad, and thinking it was a flanking manoeuvre, started to follow them with the car. "Where are you going?" I asked the Captain. "Nowhere," he said, "We are dead." An Umpire was charging in advance of two troops of the 10th down a state road, when one trooper of the enemy who were flying, turned back and alone charged the two troops. "You idiot"! yelled the Umpire, "don't you know you and your horse are shot to pieces?" "Sure, I know it," yelled the trooper "but, this —— horse don't know it."
RICHARD.
Early in the fall of 1909 Richard returned from Marion to New York and went to Crossroads, where for the next three years he remained a greater part of the time. They were years of great and serious changes for him. An estrangement of long standing between him and his wife had ended in their separation early in 1910, to be followed later by their divorce. In September of that year my mother died while on a visit to Crossroads.
After my father's death life to her became only a period of waiting until the moment came when she would rejoin him—because her faith was implicit and infinite. She could not well set about preparing herself because all of her life she had done that and, so, smiling and with a splendid bravery and patience she lived on, finding her happiness in bringing cheer and hope and happiness to all who came into the presence of her wonderful personality. The old home in Philadelphia was just the same as it had been through her long married life—that is with one great difference, but on account of this difference I knew that she was glad to spend her last days with Richard at Crossroads. And surely nothing that could be done for a mother by a son had been left undone by him. Through these last long summer days she sat on the terrace surrounded by the flowers and the sunshine that she so loved. Little children came to play at her knee, and old friends travelled from afar to pay her court.
In the winter of 1910-11 my brother visited Aiken, where he spent several months. The following June he went to London at the time of King George's coronation, but did not write about it. Again, in November, 1911, he visited my sister in London, but returned to New York in January, 1912, and spent a part of the winter in Aiken and Cuba. At Aiken he found at least peace and the devotion of loving friends that he so craved, but in London and Cuba, which once had meant so much to him, he seemed to have lost interest entirely. But not once during these years did he cease working, and working hard. On almost every page of his diary at this period I find such expressions as "wrote 500 words for discipline." And again "Satisfaction in work of last years when writing for existence, has been up to any I ever wrote."
And in spite of all of the trouble of these days, he not only wrote incessantly but did some of his very finest work. Personally I have never seen a man make a more courageous fight. To quote again from his diary of this time: "Early going to my room saw red sunrise and gold moon. I seemed to stop worrying about money. With such free pleasures I found I could not worry. Every day God gives me greater delight in good things, in beauty, and in every simple exercise and amusement."
Twice during these difficult days he went to visit Gouverneur Morris and his wife at Aiken, and after Richard's death his old friend wrote of the first of these visits:
"It was in our little house at Aiken, in South Carolina, that he was with us most and we learned to know him best, and that he and I became dependent upon each other in many ways. "Events, into which I shall not go, had made his life very difficult and complicated. And he who had given so much friendship to so many people needed a little friendship in return, and perhaps, too, he needed for a time to live in a house whose master and mistress loved each other, and where there were children. Before he came that first year our house had no name. Now it is called 'Let's Pretend.'
"Now the chimney in the living-room draws, but in those first days of the built-over house it didn't. At least, it didn't draw all the time, but we pretended that it did, and with much pretense came faith. From the fireplace that smoked to the serious things of life we extended our pretendings, until real troubles went down before them—down and out.
"It was one of Aiken's very best winters, and the earliest spring I ever lived anywhere. R. H. D. came shortly after Christmas. The spiraeas were in bloom, and the monthly roses; you could always find a sweet violet or two somewhere in the yard; here and there splotches of deep pink against gray cabin walls proved that precocious peach-trees were in bloom. It never rained. At night it was cold enough for fires. In the middle of the day it was hot. The wind never blew, and every morning we had a four for tennis and every afternoon we rode in the woods. And every night we sat in front of the fire (that didn't smoke because of pretending) and talked until the next morning.
"He was one of those rarely gifted men who find their chiefest pleasure not in looking backward or forward, but in what is going on at the moment. Weeks did not have to pass before it was forced upon his knowledge that Tuesday, the fourteenth (let us say), had been a good Tuesday. He knew it the moment he waked at 7 A. M., and perceived the Tuesday sunshine making patterns of bright light upon the floor. The sunshine rejoiced him and the knowledge that even before breakfast there was vouchsafed to him a whole hour of life. That day began with attentions to his physical well-being. There were exercises conducted with great vigor and rejoicing, followed by a tub, artesian cold, and a loud and joyous singing of ballads.
"The singing over, silence reigned. But if you had listened at his door you must have heard a pen going, swiftly and boldly. He was hard at work, doing unto others what others had done unto him. You were a stranger to him; some magazine had accepted a story that you had written and published it. R. H. D. had found something to like and admire in that story (very little perhaps), and it was his duty and pleasure to tell you so. If he had liked the story very much he would send you instead of a note a telegram. Or it might be that you had drawn a picture, or, as a cub reporter, had shown golden promise in a half column of unsigned print, R. H. D. would find you out, and find time to praise you and help you. So it was that when he emerged from his room at sharp eight o'clock, he was wide-awake and happy and hungry, and whistled and double-shuffled with his feet, out of excessive energy, and carried in his hands a whole sheaf of notes and letters and telegrams. |
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