"My Dear Mr. Kildare: I have read your story, and I have been deeply
touched by it. Nothing more true or human has come my way for many a
day. It is a real transcript from life, and that part of it which deals
with the little lady who was so great and so ennobling an influence in
your life, brought tears to my eyes and the thrill to my heart. I am
not using the language of flattery when I say that no great writer would
be ashamed of the true delicacy and reserve with which you have dealt
with the more solemn and sacred passages of your life.
"It was a true pleasure to me to meet you personally, and no
conversation I have had on this side of the ocean has moved me to more
sympathy. I wish you every proper success, and I feel sure that such a
life as yours has been, and such a memory as brightens and solemnizes
your past, can only lead you from strength to strength, from good to
better.
"That this may be so will be my earnest wish for you long after I have
left your American shores.
"With kindest greetings, HALL CAINE."
The story was published in the February number of Success, and the
response was--I do not know how to describe it--astounding, amazing,
yes, almost embarrassing. Over four thousand letters reached me from
all parts of the country, and the editor received letters from ministers
informing him that the story had been read by them from the pulpit in
place of the regular sermon. My heart throbbed when I saw how the
miracle performed by my Mamie Rose in the name of God had moved the
many, and again had I cause to thank my Maker for having sent her to
me--if even for so short a time.
Through Mr. Powlison I was invited to speak before several branches of
the Y.M.C.A., and, though my delivery and elocution are very much at
variance with oratorical methods, the story of the miracle proved again
that our God is the same God, the God of old and of new.
I believe that I can see my path before me. I shall write. Brilliancy,
elegance of diction and a choice vocabulary will not be found in my
stories and articles, but the truth is there, as I have seen it, as I
have lived it, and that is something.
This is the direction in which my ambition lies. I want to be a writer
with a clearly defined purpose. I want to tell the plain truth about men
and things as I know them and see them every day in the homes of the
tenements, in those abodes of friendless, hopeless men, many of whom
were once as good and respectable as any of you. I want to dedicate my
pen, no matter how ungifted, to their service, that others may know, as
I know, of the places and conditions where fellow-beings begin to rail
against their God and men because they deem themselves forgotten. I
want to show that often their hearts hunger most and not their stomachs,
and want to ask you to believe that they, as well as others, cannot only
feel hunger and cold, but can also love and despair.
I feel that there is work in this field for me, and it is my ambition to
become successful in it and worthy of it, as a living testimony that one
of God's sweetest daughters has not lived and died in vain.
This is the story of the miracle wrought by my Mamie Rose.