gave up his position as Superintendent of Public Charities, and started at once for Boston. When he arrived at 569 Columbus Avenue, he found Mr. Eddy dead in the house, and Mrs. Eddy surrounded by half a dozen faithful students, and almost frantic from fear. She declared that mesmerism had broken down her every defence, that her students were powerless to treat against it, and that she herself was at last prostrated. Twice, she said, she had resuscitated her husband from the power which was strangling him, but the third time her strength was exhausted. Mesmerism was submerging them, and she felt that she was barely keeping her own head above water. She was afraid to go out of the house, and afraid to stay in it. This was the end, she told her faithful women; undoubtedly she would speedily follow her husband. The light of truth was to be put out, and the world would begin again its dreary vigil of centuries.
But, although beset by grief and fear, Mrs. Eddy did not abandon herself to lamentation. On the contrary, she sat almost constantly at her desk, writing press notices and newspaper interviews upon the subject of her husband's death. Mrs. Eddy, indeed, is never so commanding a figure as when she bestirs herself in the face of calamity. She gave way to fear and dread only in the short intervals when she laid aside her driven pen for rest, and her best energies were concentrated upon how she should present to the public this misfortune which, if wrongly understood, might be used as an effective argument against Christian Science, and might retard her advancement in a new field.
Soon after her husband's death, Mrs. Eddy, attended by
