Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/149

Rh rubbed her head vigorously and told her his spirit would accompany her home. In describing him she says he was a “natural healer.”

It was the custom of the patients to take their treatment in the morning and the afternoon hours were largely spent in disentangling each other’s hair from the mesmerist’s snarling and their ideas from his confusing statements. Mrs. Patterson did not linger long with this feminine seminar. Quimby frequently invited her to return to his office after he was through practising to continue those interviews which he had had with her on her previous visits, remembering the absorbing discussions of the topic of spiritual healing which she had introduced at the time. On these occasions she sometimes argued long and earnestly with him, endeavoring to lead him to accept her ideas and to group his thoughts into a logical syllogism. Her evenings were almost entirely spent in the attempt to harmonize his notions with her own spiritual ideas. Mrs. Crosby has said that Mrs. Patterson labored long into the night at her writings. These are some of the writings which supposedly form the basis of the copybook literature.

In the spring of 1864 Mrs. Patterson spent two months at Warren, Maine, with Miss Jarvis and her consumptive sister, striving to further the work Quimby had begun and to complete the cure of the consumptive. She had traveled home with the invalids from Portland and they clung to her for healing. She was able to help them but little, for now she was trying to believe in “Quimbyism” with all