Adventures and Letters [49]
and old villages. Tonight I shall be in "Paris, France" as Morton used to say and I shall get clean and put on my dress clothes but whether I shall go see Yvette Guilbert or Rusticana again I do not know. Perhaps I shall just paddle around the fountain in the Place de la Concorde and make myself thoroughly at home. With a great deal of love to Dad and Nora and Chas and all.
DICK.
At the time that Richard's first travel articles appeared some of his critics took umbrage at the fact that he was evidently under the delusion that he had discovered London, Gibraltar, Athens, Paris, and the other cities he had visited, and that no one else had ever written about them. As a matter of fact no one could have been more keenly conscious of what an oft-told tale were the places that he had chosen to describe. If Richard took it for granted that the reader was totally unacquainted with the peoples of these cities and their ways, it was because he believed that that was the best way to write a descriptive article, always had believed it, and believed it so long as he wrote. And whatever difference of opinion may have existed among the critics and the public as to Richard's fiction, I think it is safe to say that as a reporter his work of nearly thirty years stood at least as high as that of any of his contemporaries or perhaps as that of the reporters of all time. As an editor, when he gave out an assignment to a reporter to write an article on some well-worn subject and the reporter protested, Richard's answer was the same: "You must always remember that that story hasn't been written until YOU write it." And when he suggested to an editor that he would like to write an article on Broadway, or the Panama Canal, or the ruins of Rome and the editor disapproved, Richard's argument was: "It hasn't been done until _I_ do it." And it was not because he believed for a moment that he could do it better or as well as it had been done. It was simply because he knew the old story was always a good story, that is, if it was seen with new eyes and from a new standpoint. At twenty-eight he had written a book about England and her people, and the book had met with much success both in America and England. At twenty-nine, equally unafraid, he had "covered" the ancient cities that border the Mediterranean, and now Paris lay before him! This thought--indeed few thoughts--troubled Richard very much in those days of his early successes. He had youth, friends, a marvellous spirit of adventure, and besides there are many worse fates than being consigned to spending a few months in Paris, having a thoroughly joyous time, taking a few mental notes, and a little later on transferring them to paper in the quiet of a peaceful summer home at Marion.
Chief among his friends in Paris at this time was Charles Dana Gibson, who was living in a charming old house in the Latin Quarter, and where the artist did some of his best work and made himself extremely popular with both the Parisians and the American colony. In addition to Gibson there were Kenneth Frazier, the portrait-painter, and Tina, Newton, and James Eustis, the daughter and sons of James B. Eustis, who at that time was our ambassador to France, a most genial and kindly host, who made much of Richard and his young friends.
PARIS, May 5, 1893. DEAR MOTHER:
It is a narrow street with apartment houses of gray stone and iron balconies along either side of it. The sun sets at one end of the street at different times during the day and we all lean out on the balconies to look. On the house, one below mine, on the other side of our street, is a square sign that says:
ALFRED DE MUSSET
EST MORT DANS CETTE MAISON
A great many beautiful ladies with the fashionable red shade of hair still call there, as they used to do when the proper color was black and it was worn in a chignon and the Second Empire had but just begun. While they wait they stretch out in their carriages and gaze up at the balconies until they see me, and as I wear a gold and pink silk wrapper and not
DICK.
At the time that Richard's first travel articles appeared some of his critics took umbrage at the fact that he was evidently under the delusion that he had discovered London, Gibraltar, Athens, Paris, and the other cities he had visited, and that no one else had ever written about them. As a matter of fact no one could have been more keenly conscious of what an oft-told tale were the places that he had chosen to describe. If Richard took it for granted that the reader was totally unacquainted with the peoples of these cities and their ways, it was because he believed that that was the best way to write a descriptive article, always had believed it, and believed it so long as he wrote. And whatever difference of opinion may have existed among the critics and the public as to Richard's fiction, I think it is safe to say that as a reporter his work of nearly thirty years stood at least as high as that of any of his contemporaries or perhaps as that of the reporters of all time. As an editor, when he gave out an assignment to a reporter to write an article on some well-worn subject and the reporter protested, Richard's answer was the same: "You must always remember that that story hasn't been written until YOU write it." And when he suggested to an editor that he would like to write an article on Broadway, or the Panama Canal, or the ruins of Rome and the editor disapproved, Richard's argument was: "It hasn't been done until _I_ do it." And it was not because he believed for a moment that he could do it better or as well as it had been done. It was simply because he knew the old story was always a good story, that is, if it was seen with new eyes and from a new standpoint. At twenty-eight he had written a book about England and her people, and the book had met with much success both in America and England. At twenty-nine, equally unafraid, he had "covered" the ancient cities that border the Mediterranean, and now Paris lay before him! This thought--indeed few thoughts--troubled Richard very much in those days of his early successes. He had youth, friends, a marvellous spirit of adventure, and besides there are many worse fates than being consigned to spending a few months in Paris, having a thoroughly joyous time, taking a few mental notes, and a little later on transferring them to paper in the quiet of a peaceful summer home at Marion.
Chief among his friends in Paris at this time was Charles Dana Gibson, who was living in a charming old house in the Latin Quarter, and where the artist did some of his best work and made himself extremely popular with both the Parisians and the American colony. In addition to Gibson there were Kenneth Frazier, the portrait-painter, and Tina, Newton, and James Eustis, the daughter and sons of James B. Eustis, who at that time was our ambassador to France, a most genial and kindly host, who made much of Richard and his young friends.
PARIS, May 5, 1893. DEAR MOTHER:
It is a narrow street with apartment houses of gray stone and iron balconies along either side of it. The sun sets at one end of the street at different times during the day and we all lean out on the balconies to look. On the house, one below mine, on the other side of our street, is a square sign that says:
ALFRED DE MUSSET
EST MORT DANS CETTE MAISON
A great many beautiful ladies with the fashionable red shade of hair still call there, as they used to do when the proper color was black and it was worn in a chignon and the Second Empire had but just begun. While they wait they stretch out in their carriages and gaze up at the balconies until they see me, and as I wear a gold and pink silk wrapper and not