Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/388

336 more appropriate ones. When he returned the first proofs a belief (but don't name this to any one) prevented my examining them as I should otherwise have done, and, to prevent delay, the proof was sent to the printer.

The second proofs have the most shocking flippancy in notations. I have corrected them, also made fewer of them, which will involve another delay caused by Mr. Wiggin. He has before changed his own marginal references which delayed the printing. Also he took back the word "cannot" throughout the entire proofs which he had before insisted upon using thereby causing another delay. I write this to let you know how things stand.

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In a letter dated three months later Mrs. Eddy again complains that Mr. Wiggin is slow about getting in his proofs, and says: "This is M.A.M. [Malicious Animal Magnetism] and it governs Wiggin as it has done once before to prevent the publishing of my work. . . . I will take the proof-reading out of Wiggin's hands."

On the whole, Mrs. Eddy seems to have got along amicably with Mr. Wiggin. She liked him, greatly respected his scholarship, and was pleased to make use of his versatile talents. He, on the other hand, assisted her with good nature, advised her, and defended her with a sort of playful gallantry that went with his generous make of mind and body. He was often aghast at her makeshifts and amused by her persistence, while he delighted in her ingenuity and admired her shrewdness. He could find lines in his favourite Macbeth applicable even to Mrs. Eddy, and he seems always heartily to have wished her well. In a letter to an old college friend, dated December 14, 1889, Mr. Wiggin made an interesting criticism of Christian Science and gave probably the most trenchant and suggestive