Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/382

338 pass. Land was bought uniting two estates and the old house encumbering the spot where she stood when she made her determination was moved back and under the direction of her student, Mr. Ira O. Knapp, rebuilt into a modest, modern country home. This place Mrs. Eddy named Pleasant View, and there she resided from 1892 until 1908, a period of about fifteen years. Those who have never seen this charming, idyllic spot can picture it by imagining a broad sweep of green acres, sloping gently to a little lake, a ribbon of river, and a line of hills away to the East. The house standing back from the road, surrounded by a well kept lawn, was given the picturesque addition of a small tower and broad Eastern veranda, with an unpretentious portico over the front entrance. Within the soft gray-green walls of the simple frame dwelling a shining order, peace, and dignity came to prevail. Mrs. Laura Sargent, a student of Mrs. Eddy’s first class in Chicago, came from her home in Wisconsin to reside with Mrs. Eddy as companion, and remained with her continuously. And to her loving attendance much of the quiet order of that home may be attributed. A gentle veil of seclusion descended over Pleasant View, securing to it a quiet and dignity necessary to the detached life of contemplation, a life wherein things temporal may stand forth in their relation to things eternal as types of spiritual significance. It was the life of brooding love, a life of the highest rarity in human experience, wherein heaven leans and kisses earth. Here Mrs. Eddy spent the years of perfecting