It is, I believe, an established fact that most people
cannot eat a pigeon a day for fourteen days in succession; a pigeon
is not unwholesome, but the digestion cannot stand iteration. There
is an old and homely story of a man who went to a great doctor
suffering from dyspepsia. The doctor asked him what he ate, and 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.
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