Page:The Quimby Manuscripts.djvu/157

Rh are not coming there we may try to carry her to Portland if you remain there.

Please write me at your earliest convenience and oblige,
 * Yours truly,
 * Dr. D. Patterson,

&emsp;(Address)

No. 76 Apl. 24th, 1865.&emsp; Dr. P. P. Quimby.

improved in her health, but says she did not settle with you. If you will send your bill by mail, I will send the balance due you by the same conveyance.
 * My wife arrived safely Sat. eve., and is greatly
 * Yours,
 * D. Patterson.

The first of these letters is especially important since it gives the date of the request for Dr. Quimby's treatment. Dr. Quimby's circular deeply interested Mrs. Eddy and as he was unable to leave his practice in Portland to visit Mrs. Eddy in New Hampshire, Mrs. Eddy wrote personal appeals from Rumney, and from a water cure in Hill, N. H., whither she had gone for treatment but without avail. It is plain that Mrs. Eddy had now reached the limit of endurance and the end of her faith in material methods of treatment. No record of Dr. Quimby's answer has been preserved, but doubtless he wrote to her with all the more interest and conviction in view of the fact that she had given up hope in all other directions. For under such conditions he anticipated the best results.

There is no record of the exact date of Mrs. Eddy's arrival in Portland, but one of Dr. Quimby's patients, still living, was present in the office when she came and distinctly remembers seeing the invalid assisted up the steps to his office. In the journal of Mr. Julius A. Dresser, under date of October 17, 1862, mention is made for the first time of this new patient, who manifested special interest in Dr. Quimby's teaching and was eager to converse with the patients who best understood the new theory. Mr.