The book was called "Science and Health." More utter piffle and balderdash I have never heard. There were whole sentences without meaning, and many calling themselves sentences were without verbs. I swallowed yawn after yawn. Then she left off reading and asked my opinion. I suggested the stuff might have emanated from Earlswood. She made me a dreadful scene. It seemed she had already consulted a prophetess of this new religion and had been promised she should be made whole if only she had sufficient faith! Now I was trying to "shake her faith and so retard her cure"; she sobbed. Poor woman! I tried reasoning with her, went over a few passages and asked her to note inconsistency after inconsistency, stupidity after stupidity, blasphemy and irrelevance. She cried more. Then my own unkindness struck me. She too had had a vision, seen the marvellous sun rise. To be made whole! She who had been thirty years a cripple and in pain always. I tried to withdraw all I had said, to find a strange and mystic sense and meaning in the stuff. I think I comforted her a little. I insisted she should go on with her induction, or initiation, or whatever they call it. There are paid healers; the prophets play the game for cash. I gave her money. I could not bear her thanks or to remember I had been unkind, I, with my own overwhelming happiness. If I were able I would make happiness for all the world. When at last I was alone I sat a long time with your letter in my hand, your dear, dear letter. I don't know what I wrote; dare not recall my words. Forgive me, whatever it was. If there was a word in my letter that should not have been there forgive me.
