Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/91

Rh Mrs. Patterson returned in good health, as she thought, to Sanbornton Bridge. Quimby became the great possession of her life. She talked incessantly of him to all her friends, and sought to persuade the sick to visit him. In 1863 she wrote many times to Quimby. Her letters, now in the possession of George A. Quimby, describe, in the most reverential terms, her indebtedness.

The following extracts illustrate the tone of these communications:

, January 12, 1863.&emsp; . . . I am to all who see me a living wonder, and a living monument of your power. . . . I eat, drink, and am merry, have no laws to fetter my spirit. Am as much an escaped prisoner, as my dear husband was. . . . My explanation of your curative principle surprises people, especially those whose minds are all matter. . . . I mean not again to look mournfully into the past, but wisely to improve the present.

In a letter dated Sanbornton Bridge, January 31, 1863, she asks for "absent treatment." "Please come to me and remove this pain." In this letter she says that her sister, Mrs. Tilton, and her son, Albert Tilton, are going to visit Mr. Quimby. She says that Albert smokes and drinks to excess, and begs Quimby to treat him for these habits, "even when Albert is not there." She explains that she herself has treated Albert to help him overcome the habit of smoking and, while doing so, felt "a constant desire to smoke!" She asks Quimby to treat her for this desire. In other letters Mrs. Patterson repeatedly asks for absent treatments, and occasionally incloses a dollar to pay for them.

In a letter from Saco, Me., September 14, 1863, Mrs. Patterson says that Quimby's "Angel Visits" (absent treatments) are helping her, "I would like to have you in your