The Recreations of a Country ParsonBoyd, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison
General
The Recreations of a Country Parson
Boyd, Andrew Kennedy Hutchison
Clergy -- Anecdotes; Country life -- England; Rural clergy -- England
But it was not merely present cheerfulness that Mr. Lane experienced:
day by day his ailments were melting away. When he reached Malvern
he limped painfully, and found it impossible to straighten his
right leg, from a strain in the knee. In a week he 'did not know
that he had a knee.' We are not going to follow the detail of his
symptoms: suffice it to say that the distressing circumstances
already mentioned gradually disappeared; every day he felt stronger
and better; the half-paralysed side got all right again; mind and
body alike recovered their tone: the 'month at Malvern' was followed
up by a course of hydropathic treatment at home, such as the
exigencies of home-life will permit; and the upshot of the whole
was, lhat from being a wretched invalid, incapable of the least
exertion, mental or physical, Mr. Lane was permanently brought to
a state of health and strength, activity and cheerfulness. All this
improvement he has not the least hesitation in ascribing to the
virtue of the Water Cure; and after eight or ten years' experience
of the system and its results, his faith in it is stronger than
ever.
In quitting Malvern, the following is his review of the sensations
of the past month:--
I look back with astonishment at the temper of mind which has
prevailed over the great anxieties that, heavier than my illness,
had been bearing their weight upon me. Weakness of body had been
chiefly oppressive, because by it I was deprived of the power of
alleviating those anxieties; and now, with all that accumulation
of mental pressure, with my burden in full cry, and even gaining
upon me during the space thus occupied, I have to reflect upon time
passed in merriment, and attended by never-failing joyous spirits.
To the distress of mind occasioned by gathering ailments, was added
the pain of banishment from home; and yet I have been translated
to a life of careless ease. Any one whose knowledge of the solid
weight that I carried to this place would qualify him to estimate
the state of mind in which I left my home, might well be at a
loss to appreciate the influences which had suddenly soothed and
exhilarated my whole nature, until alacrity of mind and healthful
gaiety became expansive, and the buoyant spirit on the surface was
stretched to unbecoming mirth and lightness of heart.
So much for Mr. Lane's experience of the Water Cure. As to its
power in acute disease we shall speak hereafter; but its great
recommendations in all cases where the system has been broken down
by overwork, are (if we are to credit its advocates) two: first, it
braces up body and mind, and restores their healthy tone, in a way
that nothing else can; and next, the entire operation by which all
this is accomplished, is a course of physical and mental enjoyment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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