Eddy

“ Eddy suspected a wasp, or a dragon-fly.
“No; a lovely little fairy, with gossamer wings, all spangled with silver and gold; and she held in her hand a fine glittering wand, not half so big as the tiniest needle!
“‘Oh, foolish children!’ she cried, in a soft, sweet voice, which sounded like the tinkling of a bell, ‘do you think life was made only for a plaything, and time given to be thrown away in folly! There is work in this world for every one to do, and everything is created for some use. ”

“ All this that I say of you, is true of me as well, Eddy. Unless it was, I might not be bold enough to say it. Only, the difference between us was, that by little and little there crept into my mind a habit of thinking about it, instead of dismissing it. My life is not so busy as yours, you see, and I have not so many things to think of. So I thought about it very much, and I cried about it very much too (though that was not your fault, poor boy) ; when all at once my guardian came down, to prepare for my leaving the Nuns' House. ”

“ Eddy he had, at least, learned obedience in a hard and manly school. The story of his life at sea, which he contributed in several articles to the Christian Science Journal, is a vigorous and sturdy piece of narrative-writing, full of wrecks and typhoons and adventures with cannibal tribes, which make his subsequent career seem all the more remarkable. Concerning his first meeting with Mrs. Eddy in 1884, and his conversion to Christian Science, he writes at length. His last voyage, from Peru home to Boston, was made for the purpose of joining his invalid wife. ”

“ But Eddy had then to deal with his sister. She towered over him, pinker than her pink muslin. The ruffles seemed agitated all over her slender, girlish figure, like the plumage of an angry bird. She caught her small brother by the shoulders, and shook him violently, until the dark hair which he wore rather long waved and his whole head wagged.
“Eddy Carroll,” she cried, “aren't you ashamed of yourself? Oh, aren't you ashamed of yourself? Begging, yes, begging for candy! If you want candy, you will buy it. You will not beg it nor take it without permission. ”

“ The saddle was slowly removed. Master Eddy, red up to the roots of his black hair, retired silently with his basin of oats into the stable behind Slipper. Even had I not seen his cuff go to his eyes I should have realised that life would probably never hold for him a bitterer moment.
The hounds were already surging out of the yard with a following wave, composed of every living thing in sight. ”

“ Eddy suddenly left Boston, driven from home, so she declared, by malicious mesmerism. The fear of it had for a long time completely dominated her, and it was now interfering seriously with her work in the college and church. She spent her time in talking about it; in treating and fighting against it, and in discovering and thwarting imaginary plots. She felt it reaching out to her, not only from her enemies, but from her most trusted students and friends. ”

“ Eddy is not dictating servilities from her throne in the clouds to her official domestics in Boston or to her far-spread subjects round about the planet, but is down on the ground, she is kin to us and one of us: sentimental as a girl, garrulous, ungrammatical, incomprehensible, affected, vain of her little human ancestry, unstable, inconsistent, unreliable in statement, and naively and everlastingly self-contradictory-oh, trivial and common and commonplace as the commonest of us! ”

“ Eddy were related by the students which show her never to have forgotten those sterling habits gained from the guidance of a mother remarkable throughout her life for housewifely virtue.
Though occasionally entertaining her students at table and serving them with the food she prepared with her own hands, she was ever the teacher, writer, lecturer, organizer. If she sometimes walked on a pleasant evening with them to her favorite retreat on the beach, she never relaxed into the idleness of mere diversion. Spiritual realization was the constant theme of her conversation. ”

“ Eddy soon made it known to him, however, that he was to be a teacher in her college, and she duly installed him as professor of obstetrics. [1] She took great comfort in Dr. Foster's presence in the house and began to feel that from him she might hope for the unquestioning obedience and perpetual adoration she was always seeking. She loved to amaze and astonish; when her students ceased to "wonder," she was usually through with them. Each of her favourites gave her, as it were, a new lease of life; with each one her interest in everything quickened. ”

“ I dared not allow the monster to get outside the restricted circle of the eddy, for if he should reach the current, which was sweeping downward at the rate of ten miles an hour, I would be utterly powerless to check him, because it would be impossible to prevent him from rushing over the boiling rapids, which were thundering within fifty feet of the lower edge of the eddy. My only hope of fish or canoe was to hold both under the shelter of the rock which caused the eddy. To do this required a shorter line than it is ever wise to retain at the opening of a fight with a thirty-pound salmon. ”

“ Eddy was weaving her spell about a new favourite that she was at her best, and it was then that she most believed in herself. But she could never stop with enchanting, merely. She must altogether absorb the new candidate; he must have nothing left in him which was not from her. If she came upon one insoluble atom hidden away anywhere in the marrow of his bones, she experienced a revulsion and flung him contemptuously aside.
Dr. Foster had been in the house but a little while when Mrs. Eddy told him she foresaw that the relation between them must be a very close one. ”

“ Eddy’s standpoint, the less mind, the better; the less mind, the more Christian Scientists; the more Christian Scientists, the more revenue; the more revenue, the greater glory for impostors and charlatans. And, oh, wonder of wonders! God here informs us, if Mrs. Eddy speak the truth, that the loss of a human leg will be but a temporary inconvenience when man has advanced to the high stage attained by the wholly mindless lobster! ”

“ Ross saw, then, that Eddy was trying to put the child’s socks on, and getting no intelligent coöperation from her.
“What are you doing that for?” he asked.
Eddy sprang to his feet like a cat. He looked at Ross, and Ross looked at him, and the little girl lay back on the bed and began jouncing up and down.
“Well,” Eddy replied, slowly, “if you really want to know, it was me brought her here, and now I’m goin’ to take her away again; that’s all.”
Once more Ross was conscious of a disarming pity for the boy. He thought he had never seen a human creature who looked so unhappy. ”

“ By this time they were in the hall, and Eddy, still full of grievances, was picking up the scattered roses. “I suppose there won't be enough salad for my friend and his mother when they come,” said he, further.
“Who are your friend and his mother, darling?”
“Mr. Anderson and his mother,” declared Eddy, promptly. “He is the best man in this town, and so is his mother.”
“Mr. Anderson, dear?”
“Yes. You know who I mean. You ought to know. He always lets us have all we want out of his store. He and his mother are the nicest people in this town except us.” ”

“ On the contrary, she sat almost constantly at her desk, writing press notices and newspaper interviews upon the subject of her husband's death. Mrs. Eddy, indeed, is never so commanding a figure as when she bestirs herself in the face of calamity. She gave way to fear and dread only in the short intervals when she laid aside her driven pen for rest, and her best energies were concentrated upon how she should present to the public this misfortune which, if wrongly understood, might be used as an effective argument against Christian Science, and might retard her advancement in a new field. ”

“ They sat down on the ottoman together, just as Lizzie and Lily had sat, and Eddy crept up close to his brother. This time no one sent him away.
“A book! what a beauty!” cried Lily; but on turning over some of the pages, she added, 76with a look of disappointment, “But what a stupid book it must be! all about metals, and things no one cares for!”
“Well, I’ve been reading a little in the train, and I do not find it stupid at all. It tells one so much that is curious and new. Did you ever hear, Eddy, of metal spoons that would melt in hot tea like sugar?” ”

“ Eddy from Washington early in the spring of 1882. Through the efforts of a student who had a large social acquaintance the parlors were filled with fashionable Bostonians. Mrs. Eddy was simply garbed in a quiet gray silk with a black lace shawl draped over her shoulders. ”

“ Tell me the truth, Eddy Carroll.”
Eddy scraped.
“I see they did not,” said Charlotte, severely.
“Eddy, I don't know what papa will say.”
“I know,” said Eddy, simply, with a curious mixture of ruefulness and defiance. Then he added: “If you want to be mean enough to tell on a feller, after he's been the means of your having such a supper as that (and you were hungry, too; you needn't say you wasn't; you ate an awful lot yourself) , you can.” ”

“ Eddy explained, sitting down on the edge of the bed, and watching Ross shave with cold water, a very dull razor, and the minute fragment of a shaving stick. “Most of our shovers get tempted and fall—hard. Miss Amy ’ll ask ’em to take her some place where the boss don’t want her to go, and not to mention it at home. ”

“ Her students send her a watch at Christmastide, and she thanks, them for their "timely" gift. They give her a fish-pond, and she asks them to pond-er.
During the early years Mrs. Eddy opened each number of the Journal with a crashing editorial, and, in addition to this, she conducted, under her own name, a "Questions and Answers" column, in which she met and settled queries like the following:
Has Mrs. Eddy lost her power to heal?
Has the sun forgotten to shine and the planets to revolve around it? Who was it discovered, demonstrated and teaches Christian Science? etc. ”

“ Eddy's early days, she treated in precisely the same way. As will be described in the next chapter, she lived in several Massachusetts towns, teaching and practising the Quimby cure. She always instructed her students, after treating their patients mentally, to rub their heads. ”

“ Eddy is a member of the above organization, having been made such by the special request of the late Mrs. Harrison, wife of the ex-President, who was at that time the President thereof. — Ed.
Angels
When angels visit us, we do not hear the rustle of wings, nor feel the feathery touch of the breast of a dove; but we know their presence by the love they create in our hearts. Oh, may you feel this touch, — it is not the clasping of hands, nor a loved person present; it is more than this: it is a spiritual idea that lights your path! ”

“ The pen-wiper was replaced in the box, and I felt myself hastily run into the dress.
“I will sit beside you while you work,” said George, “and tell you a story to amuse you.”
87“A story! a story!” exclaimed Eddy, running up to his brother in high glee at the word.
“Oh, Eddy! what have you been about?—pulling the horse-hair out of the chair!”
“He is always at some mischief,” said Lily.
“I think,” observed George, “that it must be because he is idle, and cannot keep those little fingers still. Now, Eddy, would you not rather be a comfort to mamma, and help her?”
“I do help mamma!” ”

“ Before he turned around he looked across to my window, and as he did so, he said: ‘You can’t help yourself. You’re in it as deep as I am. You gave me the information and shared the profits. If I get into trouble, I take you with me.’ Then both remained away for some minutes. Eddy was the next to show himself, with tears running down his cheeks, and his chin jerking with sobs, so that it was hard to follow the motion of his lips. Apparently he said nothing for a minute, but just leaned his forehead against the frame of the lower sash, which was raised high. ”

“ Eddy never turned one of them away, or refused an audience to any inquirer. To doctors, clergymen, and philosophers she gave intellectual attention and while she lived in the world of affairs, she lived in it broadly, deeply, generously, acting her own part as a leader wisely, but yielding courteous consideration to all other leaders in whatever movement and without regard to sex. ”

“ Any warm water in that kettle, Eddy?”
“Yep. But I got to hurry, before the rest of ’em get up. Go on and eat, kid!” He turned to Ross. “Tell you what I thought. I know a place where I can take her and keep her till you come and get her after dark. It’s a cottage where there’s nobody living just now. You go up the Post Road about eight miles, till you come to a church that’s being built on the left side of the road. Then you turn—”
“Yes,” said Ross. “I—” He stopped, and Eddy sat staring blankly at him. ”

“ Eddy had kept in her house a dangerous maniac or some horrible physical monstrosity which was always breaking from confinement and stealing about the chambers and hallways, it could scarcely have cast a more depressing anxiety over her household. Those of her students who believed in mesmerism were always on their guard with each other, filled with suspicion and distrust. ”

“ Eddy had been very fond of Mrs. Southworth's novels, but now she discouraged the reading of fiction, and Science and Health was the only book she kept in her room. When she lectured before her classes, Mrs. Eddy usually had a vase of flowers upon the table at her side, and, to illustrate the non-existence of matter, she often explained that there were really no flowers there at all, and that the bouquet was merely a belief of mortal mind. ”