I wonder whether this used to be as common in
former days as it is now. There was, indeed, the man in Homer who walked
by the seashore in a very gloomy mood; but his case seems to have been
thought remarkable. What is it in our modern mode of life and our
infinity of cares, what little thing is it about the matter of the brain
or the flow of the blood, that makes the difference between buoyant
cheerfulness and deep depression? I begin to think that almost all
educated people, and especially all whose work is mental rather than
physical, suffer more or less from this indescribable gloom. And
although a certain amount of sentimental sadness may possibly help the
poet, or the imaginative writer, to produce material which may be very
attractive to the young and inexperienced, I suppose it will be admitted
by all that cheerfulness and hopefulness are noble and healthful
stimulants to worthy effort, and that depression of spirits does (so to
speak) cut the sinews with which the average man must do the work of
life. You know how lightly the buoyant heart carries people through
entanglements and labors under which the desponding would break down,
or which they never would face. Yet, in thinking of the commonness of
depressed spirits, even where the mind is otherwise very free from
anything morbid, we should remember that there is a strong temptation to
believe that this depression is more common and more prevalent than it
truly is.
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