Now, the English of Science and Health is good. In passages to be found in Mrs. Eddy’s Autobiography (on pages 53, 57, 101, and 113), and on page 6 of her squalid preface to Science and Health, first revision, she seems to me to claim the whole and sole authorship of the book. That she wrote the Autobiography, and that preface, and the Poems, and the Plague-spot-Bacilli, we are not permitted to doubt. Indeed, we know she wrote them. But the very certainty that she wrote these things compels a doubt that she wrote Science and Health. She is guilty of little awkwardnesses of expression in the Autobiography which a practiced pen would hardly allow to go uncorrected in even a hasty private letter, and could not dream of passing by uncorrected in passages intended for print. But she passes them placidly by; as placidly as if she did not suspect that they were offenses against third-class English. I think that that placidity was born of that very unawareness, so to speak. I will cite a few instances from the Autobiography. The italics are mine:
“I remember reading in my childhood certain manuscripts containing Scriptural Sonnets, besides other verses and enigmas,” etc. Page 7.
[On page 27.] “Many pale cripples went into the Church leaning on crutches who came out carrying them on their shoulders.”
It is awkward, because at the first glance it seems to say that the cripples went in leaning on crutches which went out carrying the cripples on their shoulders. It would have cost her no trouble to put her “who” after her “cripples.” I blame her a little; I think her proof-reader should have been shot. We may let her capital C pass, but it is another awkwardness, for she is talking about a building, not about a religious society.
“Marriage and Parentage “[Chapter-heading. Page 30]. You imagine that she is going to begin a talk about her marriage and finish with some account of her father and mother. And so you will be deceived. “Marriage” was right, but “Parentage” was not the best word for the rest of the record. It refers to the birth of her own child. After a certain period of time “my babe was born.” Marriage and Motherhood-Marriage and Maternity-Marriage and Product-Marriage and Dividend—either of these would have fitted the facts and made the matter clear.
“Without my knowledge he was appointed a guardian.” Page 32.
She is speaking of her child. She means that a guardian for her child was appointed, but that isn’t what she says.
“If spiritual conclusions are separated from their premises, the nexus is lost, and the argument with its rightful conclusions, becomes correspondingly obscure.” Page 34.
We shall never know why she put the word “correspondingly”
in there. Any fine, large word would have answered
just as well: psychosuperintangibly —electr
oincandescently—oligarcheologically—sanchrosynchro-stereoptically—any
of these would have answered, any of these would have
filled the void.