Review or Reviews, 1/8/06. 



The Book of the Month. 



197 



THE MYSTERIES OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 



Next morning, breakfastless, she called on Laura 

 Belton, the gem engraver, who, seeing her forloni 

 condition, introduced her to the mysteries of Chris- 

 tian Science or New Thought. " You've been think- 

 ing ill-luck," says Laura, " for weeks, and you've got 

 it. Think good luck and you will get it, if you think 

 it first, last, and all the time.'' Prue, fascinated, 

 mastered the new gospel, and acted upon it, with 

 good results. The following, one of the best pas- 

 sages in the book, describes this latest birth of the 

 American spirit : — 



It was the whole American spirit in ita deification of the 

 hnman will, to the end of having a good time in all the 

 worlda. Everything was derived from tliat — the outlook 

 of a race which had never known defeat, and which had 

 adopted " 'Tis my pleasure" as its law of lite. Its supreme 

 power was no imperial Jehovah thundering wrath and 

 judgments, but only a president of a bustling democracy 

 of the spirit shaping its own destinies, and perfectly con- 

 fident that all was going to turn out lor the best. In 

 the light of this new declaration of independence, the 

 whole company of the suppliants, with their sanctities of 

 poverty, meekness, and obedience, seemed but a spadeful 

 of writhing worms. Tour relations with your Maker were 

 perfectly sociable. He was the chief executive of&cer for 

 the distribution of all good things, wisdom and happiness, 

 money, lands, and luxuries. He helped you in your " busi- 

 ness," as well as in the most delicate intuitions of the 

 mystery of the universe. He was money as well as love. 

 This newest version of His Gospel was sold at the very 

 highest prices obtainable, and every chapter bore a signi- 

 ficant intimation of the penalties attending, not so much 

 the mutilations of the text, as the infringement of copy- 

 right. 



There was nothing to be afraid of in the heaven above, 

 in the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. 

 Whatever you thought with sufficient intensity and deter- 

 mination, that thing you made I Everything desirable came 

 to you by calm repetition of the demand for it. Every- 

 thing undesirable might be put away by an equally calm 

 denial of its existence. It repelled her at first, yet still 

 she had to read on. It was irresistible, if only as a study 

 of race types. Here was tin American still working in 

 the medium of his own characteristic inventions, the man 

 who first thought of firing at the skies for rain, instead 

 of praying at them, and who was now ready to bluff them 

 for all the blessings of life. 



Prue was reduced to her last shilling, but she was 

 resolute to act upon the new gospel. She repeated 

 the formula of affirmation, exalted in her difficulties, 

 rejoiced in her poverty, and triumphed over her 

 fears. It was hysteria if you like, but a hysteria of 

 happiness, positive, radiant, the delight of battle: — 



To change the figure, it was a sort of new American pick- 

 me-up, with the American sense of boom as the base of 

 the compound. Every good thing was in it from evcry- 

 wliere, mostly without acknowledgment, to make a mixture 

 that would go down, the dogged endurance of the stoic, 

 the mystic's contemplative trance, the proud humility of 

 A"Kempis, tlie raptures of Theresa, with here and there a 

 little flower of St. Francis floating on the surface, less for 

 flavour than for the delight of the eye. 



Strong meat of faith — whatever else it was not. 



As she read the books of the New Thought she 



found in them the courage to stand up to life in full 



measure. It was a literature of power worthy of the 



people who had set Niagara to work. Prue, on the 



brink of destitution, felt no fear. And she had her 



reward. At the eleventh hour the Hon. Mrs. Dart, 



who had heard of her through Mr. George Leonard. 



oflfered her a post as stenographer and serretan- at 



a pound a week. She was in haven at last. 



PEUE ENTERS UPON A NEW LIFE. 



This is one half of the book. The rest of the 



story describes how, under the tutelage of George 

 Leonard, she learned to enter into her share in the 

 inheritance of the common people — learned, too, to 

 love the masses, to sympathise with them, and tc 

 share their life. She is introduced to Dr. Fumivall's 

 boat club, where she finds her charwoman acting 

 as stroke, and is taken by the editor of T/ie Brand 

 ing Iron to the National Gallery and the British 

 Museum, which he teaches her to regard as her own. 

 Standing in the Museum, he says: — 



Now you know why I felt so sorry tor the man who had 

 wasted a fortune on a private collection. He had his 

 money's worth, no doubt — but what a paltry affair was his 

 gallery at £150,000 beside mine! How can you do anything 

 worth talking of in pictures at a sum like that? My gal- 

 lery has run into at least a million and .i-half, and I seem 

 to want something to liinish it off every time I take a 

 turn in the place. What are his little snippets of private 

 treasure to these I own as a citizen of no mean state.'' I 

 wouldn't swap my Bacchus and Ariadne against his whole 

 show. The root idea of ownership is finally use. All these 

 things are mine as fully, as absolutely aa if I had won 

 tliem by gambling for a fortune with other people's savings, 

 or inherited them from an Elizabethan Buccaneer. 



Whenever I walk in such places 1 tell myself sad stories 

 of the death of kings who tried to keep their booty all 

 to themselves. One day they'll come and implore us to 

 relieve them of the whole weary load of parks and palaces, 

 and all the rest of the rotting gear of personal use. 



T/ie Branding Iron, that midge of journalism, was 

 now a great success. Prue having now an assured 

 20s. a week and comparative leisure, began to 



study : — 



The little workgirl was again very much alone, but she 

 had begun to live at least, if living is to be measured by 

 the intensity of sensations. She was entering into the 

 great inheritance of the Londoner who has a shilling to 

 spend, or only half of it at a pinch; nav. in the last re- 

 sort, nothing but the '^ love " of the i>ennile88. She hur- 

 ried wildly to Polytechnic classes. County Council lectures, 

 with the University " Extensions " as the promised crown 

 of her course. 



Amazing portent of our time these universities of the 

 poor scholar trying to win his way to the light. The stu- 

 dents arfe all aglow with the new desire to be something, 

 to do sometlung, in rebuke of a spite of Fortune that has 

 brought them to the banquet of life witliout the silver 

 spoon, and with the hope of picking up new learning of 

 Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere, which is part of the old, old 

 story of the world. It is their chance: and they are readv 

 to tramp for miles to the classes, after their day's work- 

 Their generous curiosity for knowledge is born of tlie 

 derided " rags," ha'penny and other. The newspaper, with 

 all its faults, has made them athirst. The endless chatter 

 about: tilings, places, people, present and past, in the 

 popular issues is, say what you will, a first stage. It is 

 the little learning tliat ever leads to the wish for more, 

 with the finer sort. Tlie County Council lecture is an ap- 

 proach to the Pierian spring. 



A strange and a suggestive sight one of these lecture- 

 rooms with the faces, eager and questioning, the strained 

 and deep-set eyes that have just begun to peer into the 

 peopled gloom of history still appreciably limitless in time 

 and space, and stirring with the majestic figures of the 

 past. 



In this eager thirst for learning George Leonard 

 saw the promise of the victors of Labour at the 

 General Election. Prue extends her studies, attends 

 the Fabian Society, listens to Mr. Wells' pro- 

 gramme for restoring that notable association to its 

 [iristine glory, and listens to Bernard Shaw — " the 

 last of the great Shakespearean fools rending the 

 author of his being." Then, in company with Mary 

 Lane, she sees all the sights of London, and dis- 

 covers that Rome from the Pincian is only a second 

 best, at any rate for thoughts, to the view of London 

 from Primrose Hill. 



