FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94  
95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   >>   >|  
ture in Disease?' As if nature, divine nature, were aught but health; as if through nature disease is decreed! But did I not before hint of the tendency of science, that forbidden tree? Sir, if despondency is yours from recalling that title, dismiss it. Trust me, nature is health; for health is good, and nature cannot work ill. As little can she work error. Get nature, and you get well. Now, I repeat, this medicine is nature's own." Again the sick man could not, according to his light, conscientiously disprove what was said. Neither, as before, did he seem over-anxious to do so; the less, as in his sensitiveness it seemed to him, that hardly could he offer so to do without something like the appearance of a kind of implied irreligion; nor in his heart was he ungrateful, that since a spirit opposite to that pervaded all the herb-doctor's hopeful words, therefore, for hopefulness, he (the sick man) had not alone medical warrant, but also doctrinal. "Then you do really think," hectically, "that if I take this medicine," mechanically reaching out for it, "I shall regain my health?" "I will not encourage false hopes," relinquishing to him the box, "I will be frank with you. Though frankness is not always the weakness of the mineral practitioner, yet the herb doctor must be frank, or nothing. Now then, sir, in your case, a radical cure--such a cure, understand, as should make you robust--such a cure, sir, I do not and cannot promise." "Oh, you need not! only restore me the power of being something else to others than a burdensome care, and to myself a droning grief. Only cure me of this misery of weakness; only make me so that I can walk about in the sun and not draw the flies to me, as lured by the coming of decay. Only do that--but that." "You ask not much; you are wise; not in vain have you suffered. That little you ask, I think, can be granted. But remember, not in a day, nor a week, nor perhaps a month, but sooner or later; I say not exactly when, for I am neither prophet nor charlatan. Still, if, according to the directions in your box there, you take my medicine steadily, without assigning an especial day, near or remote, to discontinue it, then may you calmly look for some eventual result of good. But again I say, you must have confidence." Feverishly he replied that he now trusted he had, and hourly should pray for its increase. When suddenly relapsing into one of those strange caprices peculiar to some
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94  
95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

nature

 

health

 

medicine

 
doctor
 
weakness
 

promise

 
robust
 

coming

 

droning

 

burdensome


misery
 

restore

 

result

 

confidence

 

Feverishly

 
replied
 

eventual

 

remote

 

discontinue

 
calmly

trusted

 
suddenly
 

relapsing

 

strange

 

hourly

 

increase

 

especial

 
peculiar
 

sooner

 

remember


suffered

 

granted

 

steadily

 

assigning

 

caprices

 

directions

 

prophet

 

charlatan

 

mechanically

 

conscientiously


repeat

 

disprove

 

sensitiveness

 

anxious

 

Neither

 

disease

 
decreed
 

Disease

 

divine

 

tendency