particulars; or, to change the figure, you seem to be listening to a
vigorous instrument which is making a noise which it thinks is a tune,
but which, to persons not members of the band, is only the martial
tooting of a trombone, and merrily stirs the soul through the noise, but
does not convey a meaning.

The book's serenities of self-satisfaction do almost seem to smack of a
heavenly origin--they have no blood-kin in the earth. It is more than
human to be so placidly certain about things, and so finely superior, and
so airily content with one's performance. Without ever presenting
anything which may rightfully be called by the strong name of Evidence,
and sometimes without even mentioning a reason for a deduction at all, it
thunders out the startling words, "I have Proved" so and so. It takes
the Pope and all the great guns of his Church in battery assembled to
authoritatively settle and establish the meaning of a sole and single
unclarified passage of Scripture, and this at vast cost of time and study
and reflection, but the author of this work is superior to all that: she
finds the whole Bible in an unclarified audition, and at small expense of
time and no expense of mental effort she clarifies it from lid to lid,
reorganizes and improves the meanings, then authoritatively settles and
establishes them with formulas which you cannot tell from "Let there be
light!" and "Here you have it!" It is the first time since the dawn-days
of Creation that a Voice has gone crashing through space with such placid
and complacent confidence and command.

[January, 1903. The first reading of any book whose terminology is
new and strange is nearly sure to leave the reader in a bewildered and
sarcastic state of mind. But now that, during the past two months, I
have, by diligence gained a fair acquaintanceship with Science and Health
technicalities, I no longer find the bulk of that work hard to