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The Red Cross Girl By: Richard Harding Davis (1864-1916) |
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The Novels And Stories Of Richard Harding Davis By Richard Harding Davis With An Introduction By Gouverneur Morris
CONTENTS: Introduction by Gouverneur Morris 1. THE RED CROSS GIRL 2. THE GRAND CROSS OF THE CRESCENT 3. THE INVASION OF ENGLAND 4. BLOOD WILL TELL 5. THE SAILORMAN 6. THE MIND READER 7. THE NAKED MAN 8. THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF 9. THE CARD SHARP
INTRODUCTION
R. H. D. "And they rise to their feet as he passes, gentlemen
unafraid." He was almost too good to be true. In addition, the gods loved him, and
so he had to die young. Some people think that a man of fifty two is
middle aged. But if R. H. D. had lived to be a hundred, he would never
have grown old. It is not generally known that the name of his other
brother was Peter Pan. Within the year we have played at pirates together, at the taking of
sperm whales; and we have ransacked the Westchester Hills for gunsites
against the Mexican invasion. And we have made lists of guns, and
medicines, and tinned things, in case we should ever happen to go
elephant shooting in Africa. But we weren't going to hurt the elephants.
Once R. H. D. shot a hippopotamus and he was always ashamed and sorry. I
think he never killed anything else. He wasn't that kind of a sportsman.
Of hunting, as of many other things, he has said the last word. Do you
remember the Happy Hunting Ground in "The Bar Sinister"? "Where nobody
hunts us, and there is nothing to hunt." Experienced persons tell us that a man hunt is the most exciting of all
sports. R. H. D. hunted men in Cuba. He hunted for wounded men who were
out in front of the trenches and still under fire, and found some of
them and brought them in. The Rough Riders didn't make him an honorary
member of their regiment just because he was charming and a faithful
friend, but largely because they were a lot of daredevils and he was
another. To hear him talk you wouldn't have thought that he had ever done a brave
thing in his life. He talked a great deal, and he talked even better
than he wrote (at his best he wrote like an angel), but I have dusted
every corner of my memory and cannot recall any story of his in which he
played a heroic or successful part. Always he was running at top speed,
or hiding behind a tree, or lying face down in a foot of water (for
hours!) so as not to be seen. Always he was getting the worst of it. But
about the other fellows he told the whole truth with lightning flashes
of wit and character building and admiration or contempt. Until the
invention of moving pictures the world had nothing in the least like his
talk. His eye had photographed, his mind had developed and prepared the
slides, his words sent the light through them, and lo and behold, they
were reproduced on the screen of your own mind, exact in drawing and
color. With the written word or the spoken word he was the greatest
recorder and reporter of things that he had seen of any man, perhaps,
that ever lived. The history of the last thirty years, its manners
and customs and its leading events and inventions, cannot be written
truthfully without reference to the records which he has left, to
his special articles and to his letters. Read over again the Queen's
Jubilee, the Czar's Coronation, the March of the Germans through
Brussels, and see for yourself if I speak too zealously, even for a
friend, to whom, now that R. H. D. is dead, the world can never be the
same again. But I did not set out to estimate his genius. That matter will come in
due time before the unerring tribunal of posterity. One secret of Mr. Roosevelt's hold upon those who come into contact
with him is his energy. Retaining enough for his own use (he uses a
good deal, because every day he does the work of five or six men), he
distributes the inexhaustible remainder among those who most need it.
Men go to him tired and discouraged, he sends them away glad to be
alive, still gladder that he is alive, and ready to fight the devil
himself in a good cause... Continue reading book >>
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