BY WINSTON CHURCHHILL
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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'âme." 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.
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[Description: The signature of Winston Churchill]