{"id":"01KG8AKB7P6HT7PQWB1N4MQR6Q","cid":"bafkreigcxiqyhiz55chhv5zxplh4u4tyf3ko4yn3u3llhd2kmliqeohyxe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3693,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":3627,"text":"Disease?' As if nature, divine nature, were aught but health; as if\r\nthrough nature disease is decreed! But did I not before hint of the\r\ntendency of science, that forbidden tree? Sir, if despondency is yours\r\nfrom recalling that title, dismiss it. Trust me, nature is health; for\r\nhealth is good, and nature cannot work ill. As little can she work\r\nerror. Get nature, and you get well. Now, I repeat, this medicine is\r\nnature's own.\"\r\n\r\nAgain the sick man could not, according to his light, conscientiously\r\ndisprove what was said. Neither, as before, did he seem over-anxious to\r\ndo so; the less, as in his sensitiveness it seemed to him, that hardly\r\ncould he offer so to do without something like the appearance of a kind\r\nof implied irreligion; nor in his heart was he ungrateful, that since a\r\nspirit opposite to that pervaded all the herb-doctor's hopeful words,\r\ntherefore, for hopefulness, he (the sick man) had not alone medical\r\nwarrant, but also doctrinal.\r\n\r\n\"Then you do really think,\" hectically, \"that if I take this medicine,\"\r\nmechanically reaching out for it, \"I shall regain my health?\"\r\n\r\n\"I will not encourage false hopes,\" relinquishing to him the box, \"I\r\nwill be frank with you. Though frankness is not always the weakness of\r\nthe mineral practitioner, yet the herb doctor must be frank, or nothing.\r\nNow then, sir, in your case, a radical cure--such a cure, understand, as\r\nshould make you robust--such a cure, sir, I do not and cannot promise.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, you need not! only restore me the power of being something else to\r\nothers than a burdensome care, and to myself a droning grief. Only cure\r\nme of this misery of weakness; only make me so that I can walk about in\r\nthe sun and not draw the flies to me, as lured by the coming of decay.\r\nOnly do that--but that.\"\r\n\r\n\"You ask not much; you are wise; not in vain have you suffered. That\r\nlittle you ask, I think, can be granted. But remember, not in a day, nor\r\na week, nor perhaps a month, but sooner or later; I say not exactly\r\nwhen, for I am neither prophet nor charlatan. Still, if, according to\r\nthe directions in your box there, you take my medicine steadily, without\r\nassigning an especial day, near or remote, to discontinue it, then may\r\nyou calmly look for some eventual result of good. But again I say, you\r\nmust have confidence.\"\r\n\r\nFeverishly he replied that he now trusted he had, and hourly should pray\r\nfor its increase. When suddenly relapsing into one of those strange\r\ncaprices peculiar to some invalids, he added: \"But to one like me, it is\r\nso hard, so hard. The most confident hopes so often have failed me, and\r\nas often have I vowed never, no, never, to trust them again. Oh,\" feebly\r\nwringing his hands, \"you do not know, you do not know.\"\r\n\r\n\"I know this, that never did a right confidence, come to naught. But\r\ntime is short; you hold your cure, to retain or reject.\"\r\n\r\n\"I retain,\" with a clinch, \"and now how much?\"\r\n\r\n\"As much as you can evoke from your heart and heaven.\"\r\n\r\n\"How?--the price of this medicine?\"\r\n\r\n\"I thought it was confidence you meant; how much confidence you should\r\nhave. The medicine,--that is half a dollar a vial. Your box holds six.\"\r\n\r\nThe money was paid.\r\n\r\n\"Now, sir,\" said the herb-doctor, \"my business calls me away, and it may\r\nso be that I shall never see you again; if then----\"\r\n\r\nHe paused, for the sick man's countenance fell blank.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJKFNSEMZR9R73KH4K4N9","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKB7PWN0T7NEGN7AGKKY1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKB8E6ZPYMNXQZAA0XDQ2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:01.270Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:08.737Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}