Richard Ely Danielson: 1885-1957

On November 24, 1939, Richard Danielson became the president of The Atlantic Monthly Company and the associate editor of the magazine. He had been our neighbor; for as co-editor of The Independent and editor of The Sportsman his headquarters at 10 Arlington Street were close and inviting. He moved in with us as friend and proprietor.

His presence in the office was regarded by the staff not as a visitation of authority but as a stimulus. His courtesy and good humor were inexhaustible; his standards were high and measurably affected each of us. His regard for the intelligence of Atlantic readers caused him to worry about boring them. Returning after some weeks in a hospital, he found us still involved in an extended biography. “Is this the last installment?” he asked. “I’m not sure anyone wants to know that much about anybody.” His half-diffident chuckle brought sanity to our round table. In the big questions he gave us our latitude and his reassurance.

He had great catholicity of taste and seldom left the office without a clutch of new books. In his own writing, which was infrequent because of his modesty, two themes are dominant: his love for the nation, as expressed in his stories “Corporal Hardy” and “Laylocks,” now in anthologies, and his love for New England, which speaks again and again in his book Martha Doyle and Other Sporting Memories. Injustice infuriated him, and his article “The Right to Strike” is a milestone in the long controversy over labor relations. The Revolution and the Civil War were his favorite epics, and Washington, Lee, and young Will Cushing his heroes. He responded to valor, and his patriotism was as natural as sunlight.

His service in the Second World War, especially the months in Dakar, took a heavy toll physically, and for the last ten years he lived by a miracle of surgery and in constant pain. Having to surrender the things he loved — his riding, his fishing, all the activities which had come so easily to him as an athlete — brought out in a poignant way the sweetness and gallantry that were in him. By so braving life he made it more meaningful to others.