“North Kensington.
“I am sending you a copy of the cottage I have painted from the sketch in the Daily Mail of November 16 last, if you will accept it.
“I must explain that I am only a very poor hand at such work. The fact of the matter is that through much illness and lost trade that I am left very badly off, and seeing the sketch and account of your work, thought perhaps if I could paint a few copies and you would introduce the matter to your many friends I could sell some to them, which would assist me to earn something, my health being bad and getting on to seventy years of age it is not much I can do. You will understand that I do not know anything of the appearance of the country around the cottage. I have not been in that part, so all I have put in is imaginary. Will you please say what you think to it, and how much you think I could sell them for. I have not means to buy canvas so have painted on card. Your kind assistance in this matter will great oblige
“Yours truly.”
I have quoted but three letters from a vast pile of others. “Que vivre est difficile ô mon cœur fatigué!” says the French poet, and nobody knows it better than the English novelist. But with the best will in the world we cannot help everybody. Charity begins at home, its sun rises there and should set abroad, but it is limited by the purse of the giver. Among all the contents of his post-bag such letters are the most distressing to the author, and add enormously to a difficult and often very thankless task.
But such letters as these and all worries ejusdem generis are, after all, only a small portion of my post-bag. During the last year or two I have received hundreds and hundreds of letters from all parts of the world—letters which have given me inexpressible happiness. I think I may be forgiven for quoting some of them here. The real reward of an author’s labours lies in the sympathy and appreciation of his readers, and in that alone. When, moreover, a writer works with a definite object in view, the purpose of leading others to believe what he himself believes, such letters are indeed a strong stay and holdfast which console for any amount of misrepresentation and bring a veritable oil of joy for mourning.
A priest writes:—
“Sir
“I don’t ask you because I know you will pardon a stranger for addressing you, and I shall not say much. And the little I mean to say I hardly know how to express. Some few years ago I was a vicar in——. Now I am sick in body and soul. I had lost all my faith, but I have been reading Made in His Image, and to-day I prayed for the first time for more than a year, and tears came, and I don’t know if you heard my voice calling to you.
“I should like to see you. Can it be?
“Yours,
“De Profundis.”
A gentleman from Hull tells me:—
“Dear Sir,
“You will please pardon the intrusion of this letter. I am a Sunday School teacher, and have been a Christian for three years.
“A month ago, as a result of reading the Clarion and Haeckel, I became disturbed in my mind, and wished to resign my class. I sought the assistance of my minister. Instead of answering my doubts himself he placed a copy of When it was Dark in my hand, telling me to read it prayerfully, and go to him again. The following evening I completed the reading of a book whose influence will live with me. My dear sir, I feel I cannot thank you half enough, and I shall never cease to thank God that the book was written.
“I saw my minister, not with any doubts this time, but with my faith renewed, and with a fixed determination to work harder for my Divine Master.
“I expect you will receive many letters expressing thanks, but I cannot refrain from adding my humble testimony.
“Allow me to remain, sir,
“Yours very faithfully.”
And here is another kind letter from Bridgewater, again from a man:—
“Dear ‘Mr. Thorne,’
“Will you please accept my best thanks for your book, When it was Dark. I started to read it as one distinctly prejudiced against it, but I finished the last page saying, ‘It is wonderful.’ I only wish that those who condemn it would read it for themselves and see the forcible manner in which you have depicted what the world would be if the Resurrection was a myth. Faith cannot but be strengthened by reading it, and the coming Eastertide will be more real to me through having read When it was Dark.
“Wishing you every success and happiness.”
From Brantford in far-away Canada this letter reaches me:—