he said that he always lunched off bread and
cheese. "Try a mutton chop," said the doctor. He did so with excellent
results. A year later he was ill again and went to the same doctor, who
put him through the same catechism. "What do you have for luncheon?"
said the doctor. "A chop," said the patient, conscious of virtuous
obedience. "Try bread and cheese," said the doctor. "Why," said the
patient, "that was the very thing you told me to avoid." "Yes," said
the doctor, "and I tell you to avoid a chop now. You, are suffering not
from diet, but from monotony of diet--and you want a change."

The principle holds good of ordinary life; it is humiliating to confess
it, but these depressions and despondencies which beset us are often
best met by very ordinary physical remedies. It is not uncommon for
people who suffer from them to examine their consciences, rake up
forgotten transgressions, and feel themselves to be under the anger of
God. I do not mean that such scrutiny of life is wholly undesirable;
depression, though it exaggerates our sinfulness, has a wonderful way
of laying its finger on what is amiss, but we must not wilfully
continue in sadness; and sadness is often a combination of an old
instinct with the staleness which comes of civilised life; and a return
to nature, as it is called, is often a cure, because civilisation has
this disadvantage, that it often takes from us the necessity of doing
many of the things which it is normal to man by inheritance to
do--fighting, hunting, preparing food, working with the hands. We
combat these old instincts artificially by games and exercises. It is
humiliating again to think that golf is an artificial substitute for
man's need to hunt and plough, but it is undoubtedly true; and thus to
break with the monotony of civilisation, and to delude the mind into
believing that it is occupied with primal needs is often a great
refreshment. Anyone who fishes and shoots knows that the joy of
securing a fish or a partridge is entirely out of proportion to any
advantages resulting. A lawyer could make money enough in a single week
to buy the whole contents of a fishmonger's shop, but this does not
give him half the satisfaction which comes from fishing day after day
for a whole week, and securing perhaps three salmon. The fact is that
the old savage mind, which lies behind the rational and educated mind,
is having its fling; it believes itself to be staving off starvation by
its ingenuit