● ● ● in them a stubborn conviction that life was meant for love and joy. It was all very well to submit to God’s will, but was death God’s will ?114
For many years Mary Baker would pay lip service, and perhaps something more than lip service, to the traditional concept of death as the gateway to heaven, but the eagerness with which she clung to life was in effect a denial of the doctrine. Even when in moments of near despair she would express a longing to join those she loved in a heavenly beyond, one feels beneath the words that resilient love of life which kept her determined to find heaven in the here and now. She was always one who felt that things mattered as they happened.
And they did happen, at least to other people. Martha married Luther Pilsbury a year later and moved to Concord. Augusta Holmes shortly before had married Samuel Swasey, a young Democratic politician who was a close friend of Albert’s and speaker of the New Hampshire Legislature, and they had settled farther north in Haverhill.
Fortunately George Sullivan Baker had returned to Sanbornton in 1838 to go into partnership with Abigail’s husband, Alexander Tilton, in the manufacture of cassimeres and tweeds. He was a warm-hearted, popular young man of whom old Governor Pierce had written Mark at the time of his return: “I Sir have had the pleasure of the company of your son Sullivan for two Days I think him a young gentleman of fine tallents wellinformd & of Much promise.”115 It was George who had the task of settling Albert’s affairs after his death, auctioning off his law library, and incidentally saving his private papers for future biographers of his sister Mary.
There were several young men in Mary’s life at this time. John Bartlett of Hill, a student at Sanbornton Academy, was an admirer and would reappear in her life a few years later in a more important role. Then there was her cousin Hildreth Smith, who “discussed philosophy” and “recited poetry” with her and then fell deeply in love with her.116 Because consanguinity seemed to him an insuperable obstacle to his ● ● ●
114 It might be hard to support this generalization by letter and verse, but I record honestly the strong impression conveyed to me by her early writings as a whole.
115 Benjamin Pierce to Mark Baker, 5 April 1838, 1919.001.0036, LMC.
116 Mary Brent Whiteside (Hildreth Smith’s granddaughter) to Clifford P. Smith, 28 September 1933, Reminiscence, MBEL; see also Hoke McAshan (Hildreth Smith’s grandson) to The Christian Science Board of Directors, 2 June 1930, Subject File, Mary Baker Eddy - Family - Smiths, MBEL.