But Mary Dear, I have scrawled my sheet nearly all over, and have not written a sentence that will pleas you, I have only wasted the time—146
It is proper that you should know me thoroughly, so that when we are married . . . you may not look for either a Philosophic, or a Poetical letter from your husband . . . and say O! that I had only had sense enough to have married a man of genius, an intellectual, literary man, who could write me something readable, that I would be proud to shew my friends or, at least not ashamed to, but my Dear you will never find me better in this respect than I have exhibited myself. I probably never wrote any better letters in my life than those I have to you.147
One thing the letters do show: there was genuine affection in this marriage. In her autobiography Mrs. Eddy wrote that her dominant thought in marrying again was to get back her child, but it is to her credit that she did not use Patterson simply as a convenience toward this end. He was hardly all she could have hoped for, but she took him seriously as a man, a husband, and a possible father to her son. That he would fail in all three respects was almost inevitable in the circumstances.
146 Daniel Patterson to Mary Baker Glover, n.d. [Peel’s estimate: May 1853], L16245, MBEL.
147 Daniel Patterson to Mary Baker Glover, n.d. [Peel’s estimate: May 1853], L16244, MBEL.