Dana

“ If a writer could not keep on without aping the literary fashion of another, then he was not for the Sun. Dana wanted good English always, but a constant spice of variety in the treatment of a subject, and in the style itself; therefore he chose a variety of men.
If he believed that the best report of a ship-launching could be written by a longshoreman, he would have hired the hard-handed toiler and assigned him to the job. He wanted men who would look at the world with open eyes and find the new things that were going on. Dana knew that they were going on. ”

“ The common sailor lapses from consciousness, becomes elemental like a seal, a creature. Tiny and alone, Dana watches the great seas mount round his own small body. If he is swept away, some other man will have to take up what he has begun. For the sea must be mastered by the human consciousness, in the great night of the human soul for mastery over life and death, in KNOWLEDGE. It is the last bitter necessity of the Tree. The Cross. Impartial, Dana beholds himself among the elements, calm and fatal. ”

“ At a certain point, human life becomes uninteresting to men. What then? They turn to some universal.
The greatest material mother of us all is the sea.
Dana's eyes failed him when he was studying at Harvard. And suddenly, he turned to the sea, the naked Mother. He went to sea as a common sailor before the mast.
You can't idealize brute labour. Yet you can. You can go through with brute labour, and know what it means. You can even meet and match the sea, and KNOW her.
This is what Dana wanted: a naked fighting experience with the sea. ”

“ Tiverton had been very considerate in never repeating that speech to Dana; and his wife, in all their five years of married life, had not fulfilled her threat. As we were making ready to leave the grounds, that day, and those who had horses were "tacklin up," we became aware that Dana, a handsome, solid, fresh-colored fellow, sat in his wagon with pretty Mary beside him, and that they evidently had no intention of moving on. Of course we approached, to find out what the trouble might be. ”

“ By this time Dana had framed a newspaper organisation more nearly perfect than any other in America. Grouping about him men suited to the Sun, to himself, and to one another, he had created a literary world of his own—a seeing, thinking, writing world of keen objective326 vision. Men of a hundred various minds, each with his own style, his own ambition, his own manner of life, the Sun staff focused their abilities into the one flood of light that came out every morning. ”

“ Before eleven o'clock, the next morning, the news had spread all over joyful Tiverton. Dana had spoken at last! But Mary! Within a week, she took to her bed, quite overmastered by a lingering fever. She "came out all right," as we say among ourselves, though after Dana had suffered such agonies of tenderness over her as few save mothers can know, or those who have injured their beloved. But she has never since been quite so dauntless, quite so full of the joy of life. As Hiram Cole again remarked, it is a serious thing to draw too heavily on the nerve-juice. ”

“ But we set back and cackled, 'nd bed a power uv fun
With our man who'd worked with Dana on the Noo York Sun.
It made our eyes hang on our cheeks 'nd lower jaws ter drop,
Ter hear that feller tellin' how ol' Dana run his shop:
It seems that Dana wuz the biggest man you ever saw,—
He lived on human bein's, 'nd preferred to eat 'em raw!
If he hed Democratic drugs ter take, before he took 'em,
As good old allopathic laws prescribe, he allus shook 'em.
The man that could set down 'nd write like Dany never grew,
And the sum of human knowledge wuzn't half what Dana knew ”

“ Dana's face glowed with excitement, alive with new vitality, new hope. "Ravdin, can't you see? They might have changed. They might not be the same. Things can happen. Look at us, how we've grown since the wars with the Hunters. Think how our philosophy and culture have matured! Oh, Ravdin, you were to be master at a concert next month. Think how the concerts have changed! Even my grandmother can remember when the concerts were just a few performers playing, and everyone else just sitting and listening! Can you imagine anything more silly? ”

“ He died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 25th of April 1811.
His son, Richard Henry Dana (1787–1879) , was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 15th of November 1787. He was educated at Harvard in the class of 1808. Subsequently he studied law and in 1811 was admitted to practice. But all other interests were early subordinated to his love of literature, to which the greater part of his long life was devoted. He became in 1814 a member of a literary society in Cambridge, known as the Anthology Club. ”

“ Was not Dana the name of a certain captain, a stepson of Congressman Peaslee, of New Hampshire, who had lived with us at Willard's Hotel--and were there not two children, Charley and Mamie, and a dear little mother, and--I had been listening to the talk of the newcomer. He was a licensed cotton buyer with a pass to come and go at will through the lines, and was returning next day.
"I want to get into Memphis--I am a nephew of Mrs. General Dana. Can you take me in?" I said to this person. ”

“ With a quick eye for the beauties of landscape, a keen and lively perception of what is droll and amusing in human nature, a warm heart, sympathizing readily where sympathy is required, the various culture of the scholar, and the training of the lawyer and politician, all well mixed with manly, straightforward, Anglo-Saxon pluck, Mr. Dana has, in an eminent degree, all the best qualities that should mark the traveller who undertakes to tell his story to the world. ”

“ If this were possible, he notified his willingness to give Dana Da ten rupees for the job.
'I am not what I was once,' said Dana Da, 'and I must take the money because I am poor. To what Englishman shall I send it?'
'Send a Sending to Lone Sahib,' said the Englishman, naming a man who had been most bitter in rebuking him for his apostasy from the Tea-cup Creed. Dana Da laughed and nodded.
'I could have chosen no better man myself,' said he. ”

“ Under Dana the Sun’s interest in literature became broader, more intense. Dana’s knowledge that the most avid appetite of the public was for the short story and the novel, led him to encourage his men to adopt, when feasible, the fiction form in news writing. In his four-page daily there was not much room for romance proper, but when the Sunday Sun was under way, its eight pages afforded space for tales of fancy.
In the first few years of Dana’s ownership the walks of American literature were not crowded. As late as 1875 the Sun lamented:
For younger rising men we look almost in vain. ”

“ Dana’s curiosity was all-embracing. After the Sun’s financial success was assured he went abroad frequently, and saw not only western Europe, but Russia and the Levant. Of these he wrote in his “Eastern Journeys.” He knew a dozen languages. He conversed with the Pope about Dante and with Russian peasants about Tolstoy. His knowledge of Spanish, acquired early in life, made easy his travels in Mexico and Cuba. Everywhere he went he talked of freedom with its friends, and encouraged them. He knew Kossuth, Mazzini, Garibaldi, Clémenceau, Marti, and Parnell. ”

“ And maybe it wouldn't work, the way things are arranged here."
"Thanks, Eudalia," said Tennant. "I think I can defend myself. But she's right, Dana. We're as helpless as—laboratory animals. They have the means to make us do whatever they want."
"Rog," said Dana, looking suddenly scared, "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I know it's not your fault. I'm—changing."
He shook his head. "No, Dana, you're not changing. You're adapting. We all are. We seem to be in a universe of different properties as well as different dimensions. We're adjusting. ”

“ Olga had been a waitress in a mining town hash-house near Scranton.
Tennant wanted to put an encouraging hand on her shoulder, to say something that might cheer her up, for she was by far the youngest of the three female captives, barely nineteen. But with the eyes of the other two, especially Dana, upon him, he could not.
"I guess I wasn't cut out to be a Turk," he said. "I don't feel at ease in a harem, even when it's supposedly my own."
"You're not doing so badly," Dana replied acidly.
"Lay off—he can't help it," said Eudalia unexpectedly. "He doesn't like it any better than we do." ”

“ Death, in striking him down at the threshold of his fame, not only extinguished a brilliant light in science—one which gave the highest promise of future distinction—but the suddenness of the stroke put to peril the just credit due him for discoveries he had already made. Dana had not only mastered all of the science of electro-magnetism then given to the world, a science in which he was an enthusiast, but, standing on the confines that separate the known from the unknown, was at the time of his decease preparing for new explorations and new discoveries. ”

“ When he had eaten, Dana Da professed gratitude, and asked if there were anything he could do for his host—in the esoteric line.
"Is there anyone that you love?" said Dana Da. The Englishman loved his wife, but had no desire to drag her name into the conversation. He therefore shook his head.
"Is there anyone that you hate?" said Dana Da. The Englishman said that there were several men whom he hated deeply.
"Very good," said Dana Da, upon whom the whisky and the opium were beginning to tell. "Only give me their names, and I will dispatch a Sending to them and kill them." ”

“ Six hours, Dana thought as Killian's image disappeared. That meant she might live seven or eight, depending on how badly the beating had weakened her.
"Do you understand?" Arden asked.
Dana turned to the w'woman, fear growing as her shock faded. "What's in the text-tapes, yes. Not the details of the ... execution."
"Those can vary; they depend on the clan-chief." Arden looked almost sympathetic, Dana thought. "You know, then, that you will receive no more pain medication, that no one will speak to you unnecessarily, and that when your escort arrives you will be placed under restraint." ”

“ Every little while the roystering Indians send a rattling fusillade in among the timbers, but do no great damage beyond making people uncomfortable. Some of them crawl close to the lines of sentries, but find nothing to encourage further inspection or advance. But Dana begs to be lifted in his blanket and carried some distance up-stream, where he can lie on the sand and get away from the sound of others' suffering, and Wayne and Hunter, with two or three men, bear him thither, and there, under the starlight and the waning moon, they lie at full length and softly talk over the situation. ”

“ If we are not strong enough to fight, and it comes to the worst, we are equipped to run. It's getting late, and I want to get down to the Rappahannock by daylight. I think I'll start."
"Well, now, Dana," said the President, with a little twinkle in his eyes, "if you feel that way, I rather wish you would. Good night, and God bless you."
By seven o'clock on the morning of May 7th I was at the Rappahannock, where I found a rear guard of the army. I stopped there for breakfast, and then hurried on to Grant's headquarters, which were at Piney Branch Meeting House. ”

“ Dana, who knew better than any editor of his time what the public wanted, could have produced a perfect yellow Sun; but he chose to print a golden one. He wrought more genuine journalistic advance than any other man in history. As Mr. Mitchell wrote of him in McClure’s Magazine in October, 1894, three years before Mr. Dana’s death:
The revolution which his genius and invention have wrought in the methods of practical journalism in America during the past twenty-five years can be estimated only by newspaper-makers. ”

“ Very few natives care to irritate chamars for this reason.
'Let me despatch a Sending,' said Dana Da; 'I am nearly dead now with want, and drink, and opium, but I should like to kill a man before I die. I can send a Sending anywhere you choose, and in any form except in the shape of a man.'
The Englishman had no friends that he wished to kill, but partly to soothe Dana Da, whose eyes were rolling, and partly to see what would be done, he asked whether a modified Sending could not be arranged for—such a Sending as should make a man's life a burden to him, and yet do him no harm. ”

“ The Elder Dana.—Richard Henry Dana (1787–1879) , lawyer, politician, poet, critic, and novelist, was one of the group of Boston writers that laid the foundations of New England literature. His tales, “Tom Thornton” and “Paul Felton,” are romantic stories of villainy and insanity, and give evidence of the influence of Brockden Brown. The narrative has at times an impetuous sweep that hurries the reader along in spite of himself; and the characterisation is wrought with powerful strokes. A collective edition of his “Poems and Prose Writings” appeared in 1833. ”

“ Dana inclined her head in the closest she could come to a bow.
"Good afternoon, Dana," the w'woman said. "I am Mona, a warriors'-woman of Clan Lewies and your doctor. How do you feel?"
"Better than I would've thought possible when the warrior Garvey found me," Dana said. "Thanks for everything you've done for me."
"My pleasure," the w'woman said. "Fortunately you were found before your attackers did anything life-threatening to you, though some of your injuries could be classified as moderately serious for a Terran. I do have you on rapid-heal, since there was no infection. ”