How can I thank you enough for your beautiful gift? What a gem it is in every detail and how more than sweet it was of you to present me with a copy! I value it next to the Science and HealthEditorial Note: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy you gave me – and that I value above anything else in the world — that is all I can say — adding to it only thanks and thanks and thanks again! I feel I did not utter what all I felt in my letter of yesterday – about this wonderful new BookEditorial Note: Christ and Christmas by Mary Baker Eddy, published on December 2, 1893. you have given us!

You know that years ago when we travelled in Italy I spent an entire winter in studying the "Old Masters" and their great works of Art? I studied all the greatest works of Art thoroughly and so got quite an idea of what constitutes true Art. Then I spent two years in Paris devoting every moment to the study of music and Art. Now the first thing that struck me in the your "Illustrations" was the conscientious application to detail — which is the foundation stone of true Art. From that I went on to study each "Illustration" thoroughly and what is my amazement and joy to find an almost identical resemblance to in many of things to the "oOld Masters"- in other words the Art is perfect. The hands and feet of the figures – how many times have I seen these hands and feet in Angelica'sEditorial Note: Fra Angelico (c. 1400-c. 1455) was an Italian Dominican friar and one of the principal painters of the Early Renaissance in Florence, Italy. His works include the San Marco Altarpiece and the Deposition of Christ. "Jesus"– or Botticelli'sEditorial Note: Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi (c. 1445-1510), better known as Sandro Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance in Florence, Italy. His best-known works are The Birth of Venus and Primavera. "Madonna"! It gave me such a thrill of joy as no words can express to see produced to-dayCorrected:today that Art — tohe only true Art – that we have identified with the "old Masters" and mourned as belonging to them exclusively – a thing of the past impossible of reproduction! All that I can say to you,- as one who gives no mean attention to such matters,– is,– that the Art is perfect - It is the true Art of the oldest, most revered, most authentic, Italian School, revived-

I use the words "most authentic" in the following sense- i., e.Corrected:i.e., the face, figure, and drapery, of Jesus very very closely resemble, in every detail, the face, figure, and drapery of that Jesus portrayed by the oldest of the "old- Masters" and said to have been authentic, the face having been taken by Fra Angelica from Caesar's Cameo— the figure and garments – from a description in the shape of a small sketch handed down from monk to monk - until Fra Angelica was raised to preserve the tradition- This picture, which I saw, on the walls of the Monastery at Florence (Italy) is [?] Unclear or illegible held to be the most authentic extant, by such Art judges as RuskinEditorial Note: John Ruskin (1819-1900) was an English polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, political economy, education, museology, geology, botany, ornithology, literature, history, and myth., and many of the best French critiques- There are many points in your "Jesus"- speaking from an Artists standpoint,- that surpass Angelica and all the old Italian Masters- you make him less of a "wooden man" and more of a living reality - Their productions are expressionless copies of an engraving cut in a stone– yours is as a palpitating living Saviour engraven on the heart - You have given us back our Jesus – our Saviour — and in a much better form! Some few of us know and can appreciate- that thank God!— that at last Hehe has deemed us worthy to reveal himself once again to us–

'Tis the same hand unfolds His power and writes the "page"Editorial Note: This is a line from Christ and Christmas by Mary Baker Eddy.

and our ssouls "give thanks unto the Lord and magnify His name" that it is given to us to see His Glory!