E. P. Roe: Reminiscences of his LifeRoe, Mary A. (Mary Abigail)
History
E. P. Roe: Reminiscences of his Life
Roe, Mary A. (Mary Abigail)
Roe, Edward Payson, 1838-1888
"You will probably be asked to find room in your columns for many
letters from the friends of E. P. Roe. I apply for admission with
the others, on the ground that none of them could have loved him
more than I did. The telegram which to-day told me of his death has
made my own life less interesting to me. He was so good a man that
no one can take his place with those who knew him. It is the simple
truth that he cared for his friends more than for himself; that his
greatest happiness was to see others happy; that he would have more
rejoiced in the literary fame of one of his friends than in any
such fame of his own winning. All his leisure was spent in making
plans for the pleasure and profit of other people. I have seen him
laugh with delight at the success of these plans. As I write, so
many generous, sweet, noble deeds of his throng in my
memory,--deeds done so unobtrusively, delicately and
heartily,--that I feel the uselessness of trying to express his
value and our loss. He was at once manly and childlike: manly in
honor, truth, and tenderness; childlike in the simplicity that
suspects no guile and practises none. He had in him that rare
quality of loving sympathy that prompted sinners to bring their
confessions to him, and ask help and counsel of him,--which he
gave, and human love into thebargain. Among his million readers,
thousands wrote to thank him for the good that his books had
awakened in their souls and stimulated in their lives. He knew the
human heart, his own was so human and so great; and the vast
success of his stories, however technical critics may have
questioned it, was within his deserts, because it was based on this
fact. No one could have had a humbler opinion of Roe's 'art' than
he had: but an author who believes that good is stronger than evil,
and that a sinner may turn from his wickedness and live, and who
embodies these convictions in his stories, without a trace of cant
or taint of insincerity,--such an author and man deserves a success
infinitely wider and more permanent than that of the skilfulest
literary mechanic: and it is to the credit of our nation that he
has it."
Authors' Club, 19 West 24th Street, New York.
January 19, 1889.
MRS. E. P. ROE,
DEAR MADAM--I am instructed by the General Meeting of the Authors'
Club to communicate to you the following minute of a resolution
that was then adopted. It runs as follows:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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