Read "The Book of Months" by E.F. Benson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I wonder if any of those who perchance read this know of any formula, Christian, pagan, even Christian Scientist, which insures, or has any chance of insuring, decent habit of body or mind during an attack of lumbago. I have been trying my best in all three; that is to say, as a Christian I have tried to be cheerful, to wear a helpful sort of smile, and have said to myself, ‘Think of the early Christian martyrs, the boiling oil, and the lions, and those horrors. ' But myself has said to me, ‘That was for a good cause; besides, they soon died. ' Now, lumbago does not kill anybody, and, as far as I am aware, it is an invention of the devil. Thus Christianity failed to help me.
Then I tried paganism. In other words, I swore. It did not do the slightest good.