"I beg leave to thank you with an intense heartiness for your public
espousal of the cause of the Indian. In your 'Century of Dishonor' you
showed to the country its own disgrace. In 'Ramona' you have dealt most
tenderly with the Indians as men and women. You have shown that their
stoicism is not indifference, that their squalor is not always of their
own choosing. You have shown the tender grandeur of their love, the
endurance of their constancy. While, by 'Ramona,' you have made your
name immortal, you have done something which is far greater. You are but
one: they are many. You have helped those who cannot help themselves. As
a novel, 'Ramona' must stand beside 'Romola,' both as regards literary
excellence and the portrayal of life's deepest, most vital, most solemn
interests. I think nothing in literature since Goldsmith's 'Vicar of
Wakefield' equals your description of the flight of Ramona and
Alessandro. Such delicate pathos and tender joy, such pure conception of
life's realities, and such loftiness of self-abnegating love! How much
richer and happier the world is with 'Ramona' in it!"
* * * * *