Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/360

310 one must remember, first, that Boston was then, as it is now, the stronghold of radical religious sects; secondly, that, while fundamentally Mrs. Eddy never changed at all, superficially, she was continually changing for the better, and her shrewdness, astuteness, and tact grew with every year of her life. After her removal to Boston, she constantly learned from her new associates, even to the extent of resolutely breaking herself of certain ungrammatical habits of speech—no mean achievement for a woman above sixty. But the most important thing that Mrs. Eddy learned was to admit—to herself only—her own limitations. She began to submit her editorials, pamphlets, and press communications to certain of her students for grammatical censorship. She now granted interviews to strangers and new students only when she felt at her best. She withdrew herself from her followers somewhat, and built up a ceremonial barrier which was not without its effect. In writing, she acquired more and more facility as time went on. Her style of expression remained vague, but that suited her purpose, and her excessive floridity delighted many of her readers, and was condoned by others as a survival of the old-fashioned flowery manner of writing. Her letters of this date are better spelled and punctuated, and are written in a firmer and more vigorous hand, than those written when she was forty.

Mrs. Eddy now began to limit the number of her public addresses, and she delivered her Sunday sermon before her congregation at the Hawthorne rooms only when she felt that she could rouse herself to that state of emotional exaltation which it was her aim to produce in her hearers. Often as late as Sunday morning, she would notify one of her students to