Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.
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| me he has always seemed as tender as a woman. Perhaps they had been on the hunting-trail together; or on one of his long Washington walks that were the terror of his friends. I am told they lay awake nights, some of them, trembling for fear he might pick them out next. |
| By contrast there comes to me the recollection of a walk we took together in the woods out at Oyster Bay. It was after I had been sick, and some one had told him that I could not walk very fast, and must not, any more. So I infer; for we had not gone five furlongs at the old clipping gait, he a little ahead, thrashing through the bushes, when he suddenly came back and, taking my arm, walked very slowly, telling me something with great earnestness, to cover up his remorse. I have never anywhere met a man so anxiously considerate of a friend’s weakness as he ever was and is, though happily in this instance there was no need of it. I have been learning to ride these days, and ride hard, to show him, and also to have the fun of going out with him again. I cannot think of anything finer. |
| It seems to me, when I think back now, that |