Dr. Patterson had been inclined to take a favorable view of him and defend him against derision. Being himself unable to cure his wife as he had confidently expected to do, he felt much interest in the accounts of Quimby’s cures. It did not matter if Quimby were a mesmerist, or a Spiritualist, or if he transmitted magnetic currents. The thing was he cured. People went to him and got well. It was very much in this matter with Dr. Patterson as in all the affairs of life, a case of “lo here, lo there!”
So the doctor had written Quimby in the fall of 1861, telling him that his wife had been for many years an invalid from a spinal disease, and that having heard of his wonderful cures, he desired to have him visit her; or if Quimby intended to journey to Concord, he would carry his wife to him. Quimby replied that he had no intention of making a trip to Concord, that he had all the business he could attend to in Portland, but that he had no doubt whatever he could effect Mrs. Patterson’s cure if she would come to him.
Dr. Patterson, however, had, as has been related, projects of his own which more and more took possession of him as he read the news of Lincoln’s inauguration and the call for troops to defend the Union. He was full of his proposed trip to Washington, and the preliminary visit which must be made to Concord. These plans required all the funds and energy he had to bestow.
Mrs. Patterson read the Quimby letter with its closing assurance many times. She asked herself often if it were not possible that this man withheld
