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.
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