Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-03-13
c
1-nose Who are Subject to This depressing
InficmitY.

Infirmity.
The prevalence of melancholia, mild
or intense, amongst the cultivated
classes, and especially amongst edu-
Gated and reflective men, in these days,
would, there are, good grounds for be.
lieving, seem portentious could it only
be faithfully set forth. Could the
secrets of some case-books be revealed
it would be found that men in high
| places, professional men in active en-
ployment, business men in prosperous
circumstances, literary men who are
delighting the world with theirwit and
genius, artists who are Illuminating life
with glowing colors, students who are
gaining prizes and distinctions, trades
men who have climbed to- success over
the ruin-heaps of competitors, and oilers
who have only to amuse themselves,
are all visited by melancholy, revealed
only to their doctors and sometimes to
their domestic circle, which darkens
existence as with terrible storm-clouds
now and then, or rob it persistently of
brightness, reducing it to a monot-
onous leaden gloom. Behind many a
shining morningface" therei is a deep,
dull wretchedness; under many a stolid
exterior there is racking mental mis-
cry. A curious yet familiar sight it is
to see the familiar mask suddenly cast
aside in the consulting room, and the
face that but a minute ago was cheer
full or serene, gathering into an express
| sion of suffering or despair as the skel-
eton in the cupboard is disclosed. We
are all meeting in daily life victims of
morbid melancholy, whom we should
as 0 o. suspect of being afflicted with
smallpox or jaundice, but who are
even in ourpresence struggling beneath
a load of it, and who. when we leave
them sink nigh exhausted by the
efforts required for its conceal
ment. Could we in invisible champion
ship follow him home that friend who
has delighted us at the dinner table by
his brilliant conversation, we should
perhaps see him throw himself in his
chair, in his dark study, and sit for
hours, absorbed in vague, dismal
thought Could we thus pursue the
Judge who has won our admiration in
court by the logical precision and
ethical propriety with which he has
distinguished the ofenses of the GRIM
inals brought before him, we should
perhaps find him pacing the floor of
his bedroom and wringing his hands
under the horrible, if fictitious, convic-
ton that he is himself more guilty and
stepped in sin than the wretches he has
sent to penal servitude. Could we
keep watch over that popular preacher
who has stirred us by his fervid words,
and strengthened the foundations of
our faith by his confident dogmatism,
we should observe him perhaps tossing
sleepless and distressed throughout the
livelong night, haunted by doubts and
p~erplexities, and by the incessant whis-
pering of a voice which asks:
- Were it not better not to be,
Than live SO full of misery?
| Could we in disembodiment remain .
little with that good physician who has
just given us such sound advice and
urged us to fight against the despon-
dency for which we have consulted
him, we would perceive him, perhaps,
as soon as he has dismissed his patients,
hurry on 70 the house of a brother
practitioner and pour forth in his ear
with tremulous anxiety, a description
Of the hopeless diseases from which he
%conceives himself to be suffering, and
which exist only in his hypochondriao
fancy.-Medical Times.