Quimby had ever seen Mrs. Eddy. From this manuscript Mrs. Eddy taught for several years after Quimby's death, and she sold copies of it to her early students for $300 each.[1] Its history will be given in detail and its contents analysed in the next chapter.
In refutation of Mrs. Eddy's general assertion that she herself taught Quimby what he knew about mental science, and that she corrected and so largely contributed to the Quimby manuscripts, Quimby's defenders again quote Mrs. Eddy herself. They once more draw upon her early letter to the Portland Courier. This, they say, does not read like a letter written by master to pupil. If Mrs. Eddy were the teacher and Quimby the student, would she, they ask, speak of him in this wise? "Now, then, his works are but the result of superior wisdom, which can demonstrate a science not understood. . . . But now I can see dimly at first, and only as trees walking, the great principle which underlies Dr. Quimby's faith and works; and just in proportion to my right perception of truth is my recovery." If Mrs. Eddy, they add, were at that time writing Quimby's manuscripts, would she, in this same letter, have expressed herself thus:—"At present I am too much in error to elucidate the truth, and can touch only the keynote for the master hand to wake the harmony. . . . To many a poor sufferer may it be found, as by me, 'the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.' "
Mrs. Eddy's poem on Quimby's death, already quoted, is apparently the grateful tribute of pupil to teacher. Its concluding lines ill sustain Mrs. Eddy's present position:
- ↑ For the $300 Mrs. Eddy's students also obtained twelve lessons in the Quimby cure.
