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 much else, they concentrate all their attention on the wrapper and forget to drop a sigh for the poet.