she wrote Patterson a few days later the medical picture had changed completely. Another cousin, Dr. Alpheus Morrill, the homeopathist, had entered the scene:
I have not called a Physician but received counsel of Dr. Morrill; the practice has been all my own, and considering the severe attack, my previous debility, and chronic complaints, I think we managed a little wisely for me to be on the list of recovery today. Cold water and homeopathic remedies have been the Hygeine only. . . . Yea, hope and despondency are the twin sisters of earth, and the smile and tear follow each other in quick succession.145
Patterson, too, had his moods. Looking on Mrs. Glover as a superior being far beyond his deserving, he strained to reach an intellectual and aesthetic level which he thought would be pleasing to her and, exhausted by the effort, fell back on a simple frankness which was undoubtedly more winning than all his gaudy rhetoric:
I had to go out and get this paper to write you this unreadable matter on, and returned in a heavy Thunder Shower, I then sat down by the window, (not a window) to see the terrible God hurl his formidable Shafts of Lightning through the humid atmosphere, with such dreadful velocity, as made even the darkness turn pale, and shrink away, in a vain attempt to hide itself behind the “Rocks and Mountains” from the august presence of Deity when he came forth to tread on the clouds as a pavement for his feet. . . . “The Thunder of his power” who can withstand, and my Soul said O! God how great, and terrable art thou!!!
There was one time in my ride in this place, when I said to myself—“now I wish Mary was with me”—it was on attaining the summit of a hill, the first view of the Lake burst on my vision with its smooth face scarified, and lacerated by numerous Islets, and points, and yet it was beautiful; then I really wished you by my side—
145 Mary Baker Glover to Daniel Patterson, 2 May 1853, L08899, MBEL.