The North American Review for December (1902) contained an instalment
of the Christian Science series which Mark Twain had written in Vienna
several years before. He had renewed his interest in the doctrine, and
his admiration for Mrs. Eddy's peculiar abilities and his antagonism
toward her had augmented in the mean time. Howells refers to the “mighty
moment when Clemens was building his engines of war for the destruction
of Christian Science, which superstition nobody, and he least of all,
expected to destroy”:
He believed that as a religious machine the Christian Science Church
was as perfect as the Roman Church, and destined to be more
formidable in its control of the minds of men....
An interesting phase of his psychology in this business was not.
only his admiration for the masterly policy of the Christian Science
hierarchy, but his willingness to allow the miracles of its healers
to be tried on his friends and family if they wished it. He had a
tender heart for the whole generation of empirics, as well as the
newer sorts of scienticians, but he seemed to base his faith in them
largely upon the failure of the regulars, rather than upon their own
successes, which also he believed in. He was recurrently, but not
insistently, desirous that you should try their strange magics when
you were going to try the familiar medicines.
Clemens never had any quarrel with the theory of Christian Science or
mental healing, or with any of the empiric practices. He acknowledged
good in all of them, and he welcomed most of them in preference to
materia medica. It is true that his animosity for the founder of the
Christian Science cult sometimes seems to lap over and fringe the
religion itself; but this is apparent rather than real. Furthermore,
he frequently expressed a deep obligation which humanity owed to the
founder of the faith, in that she had organized a healing element
ignorantly and indifferently employed hitherto. His quarrel with Mrs.
Eddy lay in the belief that she herself, as he expressed it, was “a very
unsound Christian Scientist.”
I believe she has a serious malady--self-edification--and that it
will be well to have one of the experts demonstrate over her. [But
he added]: Closely examined, painstakingly studied, she is easily
the most interesting person on the planet, and in several ways as
easily the most extraordinary woman that was ever born upon it.
Necessarily, the forces of Christian Science were aroused by these
articles, and there were various replies, among them, one by the founder
herself, a moderate rejoinder in her usual literary form.
“Mrs. Eddy in Error,” in the North American Review for April, 1903,
completed what Clemens had to say on the matter for this time.
He was putting together a book on the subject, comprised of his various
published papers and some added chapters. It would not be a large
volume, and he offered to let his Christian Science opponents share it
with him, stating their side of the case. Mr. William D. McCrackan, one
of the church's chief advocates, was among those invited to participate.
McCrackan and Clemens, from having begun as enemies, had become
quite friendly, and had discussed their differences face to face at
considerable length. Early in the controversy Clemens one night wrote
McCrackan a pretty savage letter. He threw it on the hall table for
mailing, but later got out of bed and slipped down-stairs to get it. It
was too late--the letters had been gathered up and mailed. Next evening
a truly Christian note came from McCrackan, returning the hasty letter,
which he said he was sure the writer would wish to recall. Their
friendship began there. For some reason, however, the collaborated
volume did not materialize. In the end, publication was delayed a
number of years, by which time Clemens's active interest was a good
deal modified, though the practice itself never failed to invite his
attention.
Howells refers to his anti-Christian Science rages, which began with
the postponement of the book, and these Clemens vented at the time
in another manuscript entitled, “Eddypus,” an imaginary history of a
thousand years hence, when Eddyism should rule the world. By that day
its founder would have become a deity, and the calendar would be changed
to accord with her birth. It was not publishable matter, and really
never intended as such. It was just one of the things which Mark Twain
wrote to relieve mental pressure.