Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/349

Rh have you heard her lecture, have you been to her college?” And to Mrs. Eddy’s home came many distinguished persons during the years from 1884 to 1887. It was not then so difficult a matter to meet the founder of Christian Science as it became later. One had only to ring her bell and state his purpose of inquiry to a student on duty, and as soon as Mrs. Eddy could lay aside the work of the moment she would come to the reception-room, a kindly and sympathetic hostess with the rare charm of perfect composure through which shone a radiant readiness to believe the highest and best and noblest of whomsoever presented himself. Among such callers and inquirers into her teaching were Frances Hodgson Burnett and Louisa M. Alcott. These two women, since crowned with literary laurels and embalmed for the future with a fame all their own, went together, one day, as was related by a literary woman of Boston, to meet Mrs. Eddy and acquaint themselves with her doctrine from her own lips.

“Mrs. Burnett appeared to receive Christian Science like a birdling fed,” said this literary lady, herself the editor of a journal. “But Miss Alcott, though her father was a transcendentalist and some years before had more than half avowed a faith in the new system of metaphysics, did not take to it. She was of a very practical, matter-of-fact mind. She had had enough of idealism and was determined to keep her feet upon terra firma. But she was impressed with Mrs. Eddy’s personality.”

If Miss Alcott was impressed with her personality,