Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/81

Rh conviction, which he has never lost, that Quimby was a strong and original thinker. Julius A. Dresser, whose name figures largely in the history of mental healing, early became absorbed in Quimby. For several years he was associated with him, receiving patients and explaining, as a preliminary to their meeting with the doctor, his ideas and methods. In 1863 Dr. Warren F. Evans, a Swedenborgian clergyman, visited Quimby twice professionally. He became a convert, and, in several books well known among students of mental healing, developed the Quimby doctrine. "Quimby," he said, "seemed to reproduce the wonders of Gospel history."

About 1859 Quimby began to put his ideas into permanent form. George A. Quimby thus describes his father's literary methods:

Among his earlier patients in Portland were the Misses Ware, daughters of the late Judge Ashur Ware, of the United States Admiralty Court; and they became much interested in "the Truth," as he called it. But the ideas were so new, and his reasoning was so divergent from the popular conceptions, that they found it difficult to follow him or remember all he said; and they suggested to him the propriety of putting into writing the body of his thoughts.

From that time he began to write out his ideas, which practice he continued until his death, the articles now being in the possession of the writer of this sketch. The original copy he would give to the Misses Ware; and it would be read to him by them, and, if he suggested any alteration, it would be made, after which it would be copied either by the Misses Ware or the writer of this, and then re-read to him, that he might see that all was just as he intended it. Not even the most trivial word or the construction of a sentence would be changed without consulting him. He was given to repetition; and it was with difficulty that he could be induced to have a repeated sentence or phrase stricken out, as he would say, "If that idea is a good one, and true, it will do no harm to have it in two or three times." He believed in the hammering process, and in throwing an idea or truth at the reader till it would be firmly fixed in his mind.