On that day when I read of Mr. Davis's sudden death there came back to
me a vivid memory of another day, some eighteen years ago, when I first
met him, shortly after the publication of my first novel. I was paying
an over-Sunday visit to Marion, that quaint waterside resort where Mr.
Davis lived for many years, and with which his name is associated. On
the Monday morning, as the stage started out for the station, a young
man came running after it, caught it, and sat down in the only empty
place--beside me. He was Richard Harding Davis. I recognized him, nor
shall I forget that peculiar thrill I experienced at finding myself in
actual, physical contact with an author. And that this author should
be none other than the creator of Gallegher, prepossessing, vigorous,
rather than a dry and elderly recluse, made my excitement the keener.
It happened also, after entering the smoking-car, that the remaining
vacant seat was at my side, and here Mr. Davis established himself. He
looked at me, he asked if my name was Winston Churchill, he said he had
read my book. How he guessed my identity I did not discover. But the
recollection of our talk, the strong impression I then received of Mr.
Davis's vitality and personality, the liking I conceived for him--these
have neither changed nor faded with the years, and I recall with
gratitude to-day the kindliness, the sense of fellowship always so
strong in him that impelled him to speak as he did. A month before he
died, when I met him on the train going to Mt. Kisco, he had not
changed. His enthusiasms, his vigor, his fine passions, his fondness
for his friends, these, nor the joy he found in the pursuit of his
profession, had not faded. And there come to me now, as I think of him
filled with life, flashes from his writings that have moved me, and
move me indescribably still. "Le Style," as Rolland remarks, "c'est
l'ame." It was so in Mr. Davis's case. He had the rare faculty of
stirring by a phrase the imaginations of men, of including in a phrase
a picture, an event--a cataclysm. Such a phrase was that in which he
described the entry of German hosts into Brussels. He was not a man,
when enlisted in a cause, to count the cost to himself. Many causes
will miss him, and many friends, and many admirers, yet his personality
remains with us forever, in his work.