"Poetry," writes the brilliant Thomas Carlyle, ". . . we will call musical Thought. The Poet is he who thinks in that manner." How well this describes the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy! From early childhood this remarkable author and religious Leader was conspicuous for her highly original poetic style in speech and writing. In Sibyl Wilbur's biography is told an amusing but amazing utterance of the little Mary Baker, scarcely more than a baby, who when overhearing a none-toofriendly argument between two men, said to one of the disputants, "Mr. Bartlett, why do you articulate so vociferously?"
Later, when the child was able to write letters to her brother in college, he said that he could account for her unusual diction only through her constant reading of the Bible and her desire to write in emulation of the Psalmist David. Apparently Mrs. Eddy's earliest literary activity found its utterance in verse. If one is in doubt as to the unworldly consciousness of this remarkable woman, he can trace in her childhood rhymes the unmistakable buddings of a rare spiritual sense. Take, for example, one of her earliest known poems, written in her tender years. It is called "Upward" (Poems, pp. 18, 19). The first verse reads:
"I've watched in the azure the eagle's proud wing,
His soaring majestic, and feathersome fling—
Careening in liberty higher and higher—
Like genius unfolding a quenchless desire."
