Читать книгу Doctor Hudson's Secret Journal - Lloyd C. Douglas - Страница 3
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AUTHOR'S FOREWORD
SHORTLY after the quiet appearance of Magnificent Obsession, eleven years ago, the author became aware that he had not completed his task.
The letters which began to pour in were not of the sort usually referred to as "fan mail." Nobody wanted an autograph, a photograph, or a lock of hair. Not many bothered to remark that they had been entertained by the story. But they all asked questions and most of the questions were serious, wistful, and challenging.
The theme of the novel had derived from a little handful of verses midway of the Sermon on the Mount, but all references to the enchanted passage were purposely vague, the author feeling that a treasure hunt in Holy Writ would probably do his customers no harm. Within the first twelve months after publication, more than two thousand people had written to inquire, "What page of the Bible did the sculptor carry in his wallet?" We left off counting these queries, but they have continued to come, all through these intervening years.
Second in importance to this inquiry was a very searching question, phrased in terms ranging all the way from polite hinting to forthright impudence: "Do you honestly believe in this thing—or were you just writing a story?" After a while, letters began to arrive from persons who said they had tried it, and it worked; though they were careful not to be too specific in reporting their adventures, aware that if they told they would be sorry. A few lamented the cost of unrewarded experiments and denounced the whole idea as a lot of hooey.
The task of dealing sympathetically with this strange correspondence became a grave responsibility. No stock letter, done on a mimeograph, would serve the purpose. It was necessary that individual replies be sent to all earnest inquirers. One dared not risk the accusation that, having advocated an expensive and venturesome technique for generating personal power, the author was thereafter too busy or lazy to care whether anybody benefited by such investments. It was interesting to observe how wide a variety of people came forward with questions. A single post might contain inquiries from a high school boy, a college professor, a farmer's wife, a physician, a pious old lady, an actress, a postman, a preacher, and a sailor. Some of the questions were practically unanswerable, but it wasn't quite fair to limit one's reply to a laconic "I don't know." Frequently one's counsel was pitiably inadequate, but not because it was coolly casual or thoughtlessly composed. I suppose that if all of these letters were compiled and printed they would fill several volumes as large as the novel which evoked them.
A third question, which began to show up promptly, inquired, "Is the complete text of Doctor Hudson's journal available in print?" The correct answer to that was "No." It not only wasn't in print; it had not been written. Occasionally someone would counter, "How were you able to quote from Doctor Hudson's journal, if there never was any such thing?"—an amusingly artless question, to be sure; but an obviously honest tribute to the realism of a document which had no existence in fact.
Readers of Magnificent Obsession will recall that, early in the story, an eminent brain surgeon. Doctor Wayne Hudson, lost his life by drowning. Among his effects there was found a journal containing some amazing memoirs. Because of the singular nature of these experiences. Doctor Hudson had concealed his story in a baffling code, hoping by this means to insure it against a hasty perusal by persons who might view it with careless indifference or a half-contemptuous incredulity.
Throughout the novel, "quotations" from and adversions to this laboriously decoded journal provided the explanation of young Merrick's belief and behaviour as he endeavoured to follow in his mentor's footsteps. And perhaps it is not an unreasonable request if the people who have found a measure of inspiration in those brief and detached fragments from the Hudson journal should want to see the whole of it.
This book is related to Magnificent Obsession as an overture rather than a sequel. Therefore it may be read without any bewilderment by persons unacquainted with the novel.
But it is only natural if, during the belated composition of this journal, the author should have visualized an audience largely composed of those to whom Doctor Hudson is no stranger. I find myself surveying this audience—however widely scattered over the earth—as an assembly of people friendly to one another—and to me. I feel that we are somehow related in a common cause, a common quest. In this audience there are many hundreds of gracious souls to whom I am indebted for confidences and comradeships which have enriched my life and emphasized for me the significance of spiritual forces.
I am particularly hopeful that this book may be approved by my friends of the clergy who were primarily responsible for the wide distribution of the novel. Too frequently one hears discrediting criticism of the ministers on the ground that they are too much occupied with the material success of their own denominations; that they are inhospitable to new evaluations of enduring verities; that they are more concerned with "churchianity" than Christianity. This indictment is, for the most part, unfair.
In Magnificent Obsession there was no talk about the importance of attending religious services or supporting religious institutions in any manner whatsoever. Nobody in the book ever put his nose inside a church, except on one occasion when Bobby Merrick went to hear his friend. Doctor McLaren, by special and urgent invitation.
This attitude was not intended to convey a feeling of disregard for religious organizations on the part of the author. The Church was conspicuously and wilfully omitted from the story for the reason that in almost all of the "religious" novels the Church serves as the axis on which the plot spins. It was my hope to interest not only the people who rely upon the Church for their moral and spiritual instruction but to suggest a way of life to many others—seldom approached in this manner—who have never looked to the Church for answers to their riddles.
It was with some trepidation that the author adopted this course, for he had spent most of his life in the service of the Church; his closest friends were church people; he hoped they would take no offence; he wondered if they would understand. And they understood.
In spite of the fact that Magnificent Obsession had almost nothing to do with the Church, plus the fact that most of the people in the novel were distinctly worldly, and some were addicted to debatable habits, and a few were shockingly profane, it was the clergy of America and the British Empire who carried that novel to success. They may have wished that it contained fewer cuss-words and cocktails, but they had the sportsmanship to overlook the frailties it admitted and approve the faith it upheld. It was well worth the bother of writing a novel—just to find that out.
TRANSLATION:
Reader I consider you my friend and commend your perseverance. Having achieved the ability to read this book, you have also the right to possess it. My reasons for doing this in cipher will be made plain as you proceed.
