Mencken vs. Eddy

H.L. Mencken reviewing "Mrs. Eddy: The Biography of a Virginal Mind" by E.F. Dakin in The American Mercury, November, 1929

"Mr. Dakin's sub-title, it seems to me, is rather far-fetched. The peculiar mixture of vapors and sagacities which marked Mrs. Eddy's sayings and doings from end to end of her long life showed few of the characteristics of the virginal mind. Rather it would be more plausible (without throwing the slightest doubt upon her virtue) to compare he peculiar wisdom to that of a bordello keeper, for in it a sharp sense of reality and a weakness for the occult were curiously mingled. She was seldom if ever taken in by concrete human beings, but there was never a time when she did not believe quite incredible things about the powers and principalities of the air.
...Perhaps in grossly bad taste (I liken) this sense of the transcendental to a shaking fear of black cats, opals and cross-eyed men. In Mrs. Eddy it took the form of an incurable dread of malicious animal magnetism. This MAM pursued her during all the years of her prophesying and... brought down upon her the persecution of mesmerists, spiritualists, lawyers, newspaper reporters and other fiends from Hell; it haunted her days and made horrible her nights.
Despite her contention that disease was only an illusion, her ill health continued, and the temptation to blame it on malicious animal magnetism was hard to resist. Her terror was extreme- during her last years she maintained a staff of healers in her house to combat the waves of M.A.M. issuing from (her rival's students). They were on duty in sailor-like watches for the 24 hours of the day but it was all in vain."