d me in charge, I yet looked with abhorrence
upon the system by which I had been treated. But I realized that I
could not successfully advocate reforms in hospital management until I
had first proved to relatives and friends my ability to earn a living.
And I knew that, after securing a position in the business world, I
must first satisfy my employers before I could hope to persuade others
to join me in prosecuting the reforms I had at heart. Consequently,
during the first year of my renewed business activity (the year 1904),
I held my humanitarian project in abeyance and gave all my executive
energy to my business duties. During the first half of that year I gave
but little time to reading and writing, and none at all to drawing. In
a tentative way, however, I did occasionally discuss my project with
intimate friends; but I spoke of its consummation as a thing of the
uncertain future. At that time, though confident of accomplishing my
set purpose, I believed I should be fortunate if my projected book were
published before my fortieth year. That I was able to publish it eight
years earlier was due to one of those unlooked for combinations of
circumstances which sometimes cause a hurried change of plans.

Late in the autumn of 1904, a slight illness detained me for two weeks
in a city several hundred miles from home. The illness itself amounted
to little, and, so far as I know, had no direct bearing on later
results, except that, in giving me an enforced vacation, it afforded me
an opportunity to read several of the world's great books. One of these
was "Les Miserables." It made a deep impression on me, and I am
inclined to believe it started a train of thought which gradually grew
into a purpose so all-absorbing that I might have been overwhelmed by
it, had not my over-active imagination been brought to bay by another's
common sense. Hugo's plea for suffering Humanity--for the world's
miserable--struck a responsive chord within me. Not only did it revive
my latent desire to help the afflicted; it did more. It aroused a
consuming desire to emulate Hugo himself, by writing a book which
should arouse sympathy for and interest in that class of unfortunates
in whose behalf I felt it my peculiar right and duty to speak. I
question whether any one ever read "Les Miserables" with keener
feeling. By day I read the story until my head ached; by night I
dreamed of it.

To resolve to write a book is one thing; to write it--fortuna