Adventures and Letters [16]
and mailing of the copies sent to their extremely limited list of subscribers. During this time, however, Richard was establishing himself as a star reporter on The Press, and was already known as a clever news-gatherer and interviewer. It was in reply to a letter that Richard wrote to Robert Louis Stevenson enclosing an interview he had had with Walt Whitman, that Stevenson wrote the following letter--which my brother always regarded as one of his greatest treasures:
Why, thank you so much for your frank, agreeable and natural letter. It is certainly very pleasant that all you young fellows should enjoy my work and get some good out of it and it was very kind in you to write and tell me so. The tale of the suicide is excellently droll, and your letter, you may be sure, will be preserved. If you are to escape unhurt out of your present business you must be very careful, and you must find in your heart much constancy. The swiftly done work of the journalist and the cheap finish and ready made methods to which it leads, you must try to counteract in private by writing with the most considerate slowness and on the most ambitious models. And when I say "writing"--O, believe me, it is rewriting that I have chiefly in mind. If you will do this I hope to hear of you some day.
Please excuse this sermon from
Your obliged
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
In the spring of 1889 Richard as the correspondent of the Philadelphia Telegraph, accompanied a team of Philadelphia cricketers on a tour of Ireland and England, but as it was necessary for him to spend most of his time reporting the matches played in small university towns, he saw only enough of London to give him a great longing to return as soon as the chance offered. Late that summer he resumed his work on The Press, but Richard was not at all satisfied with his journalistic progress, and for long his eyes had been turned toward New York. There he knew that there was not only a broader field for such talent as he might possess, but that the chance for adventure was much greater, and it was this hope and love of adventure that kept Richard moving on all of his life.
On a morning late in September, 1889, he started for New York to look for a position as reporter on one of the metropolitan newspapers. I do not know whether he carried with him any letters or that he had any acquaintances in the journalistic world on whose influence he counted, but, in any case, he visited a number of offices without any success whatever. Indeed, he had given up the day as wasted, and was on his way to take the train back to Philadelphia. Tired and discouraged, he sat down on a bench in City Hall Park, and mentally shook his fist at the newspaper offices on Park Row that had given him so cold a reception. At this all-important moment along came Arthur Brisbane, whom Richard had met in London when the former was the English correspondent of The Sun. Brisbane had recently been appointed editor of The Evening Sun, and had already met with a rather spectacular success. On hearing the object of Richard's visit to New York, he promptly offered him a position on his staff and Richard as promptly accepted. I remember that the joyous telegram he sent to my mother, telling of his success, and demanding that the fatted calf be killed for dinner that night was not received with unalloyed happiness. To my mother and father it meant that their first-born was leaving home to seek his fortune, and that without Richard's love and sympathy the home could never be quite the same. But the fatted calf was killed, every one pretended to be just as elated as Richard was over his good fortune, and in two days he left us for his first adventure.
The following note to his mother Richard scribbled off in pencil at the railway-station on his way to New York:
I am not surprised that you were sad if you thought I was going away for good. I could not think of it myself. I am only going to make a little reputation and to learn enough of the business to enable me to live at home in the centre
Why, thank you so much for your frank, agreeable and natural letter. It is certainly very pleasant that all you young fellows should enjoy my work and get some good out of it and it was very kind in you to write and tell me so. The tale of the suicide is excellently droll, and your letter, you may be sure, will be preserved. If you are to escape unhurt out of your present business you must be very careful, and you must find in your heart much constancy. The swiftly done work of the journalist and the cheap finish and ready made methods to which it leads, you must try to counteract in private by writing with the most considerate slowness and on the most ambitious models. And when I say "writing"--O, believe me, it is rewriting that I have chiefly in mind. If you will do this I hope to hear of you some day.
Please excuse this sermon from
Your obliged
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
In the spring of 1889 Richard as the correspondent of the Philadelphia Telegraph, accompanied a team of Philadelphia cricketers on a tour of Ireland and England, but as it was necessary for him to spend most of his time reporting the matches played in small university towns, he saw only enough of London to give him a great longing to return as soon as the chance offered. Late that summer he resumed his work on The Press, but Richard was not at all satisfied with his journalistic progress, and for long his eyes had been turned toward New York. There he knew that there was not only a broader field for such talent as he might possess, but that the chance for adventure was much greater, and it was this hope and love of adventure that kept Richard moving on all of his life.
On a morning late in September, 1889, he started for New York to look for a position as reporter on one of the metropolitan newspapers. I do not know whether he carried with him any letters or that he had any acquaintances in the journalistic world on whose influence he counted, but, in any case, he visited a number of offices without any success whatever. Indeed, he had given up the day as wasted, and was on his way to take the train back to Philadelphia. Tired and discouraged, he sat down on a bench in City Hall Park, and mentally shook his fist at the newspaper offices on Park Row that had given him so cold a reception. At this all-important moment along came Arthur Brisbane, whom Richard had met in London when the former was the English correspondent of The Sun. Brisbane had recently been appointed editor of The Evening Sun, and had already met with a rather spectacular success. On hearing the object of Richard's visit to New York, he promptly offered him a position on his staff and Richard as promptly accepted. I remember that the joyous telegram he sent to my mother, telling of his success, and demanding that the fatted calf be killed for dinner that night was not received with unalloyed happiness. To my mother and father it meant that their first-born was leaving home to seek his fortune, and that without Richard's love and sympathy the home could never be quite the same. But the fatted calf was killed, every one pretended to be just as elated as Richard was over his good fortune, and in two days he left us for his first adventure.
The following note to his mother Richard scribbled off in pencil at the railway-station on his way to New York:
I am not surprised that you were sad if you thought I was going away for good. I could not think of it myself. I am only going to make a little reputation and to learn enough of the business to enable me to live at home in the centre