Evening star., 1927-10-09

! L,
crapes. nor could he bear to face the
! fact that it was in himself ard not in
his stars. as Cassius could have told
him. He might have Crawled away
with his tail.between his legs, thinking
! how impotent and how worthless he
was not to he able to set those grapes.
/ shedding tears and meditating suicide
! He might, on the other hand. have
made various other more satisfactory
solutions He could have got a Ger
/ tain amount of satisfaction from smell
ing the grapes. if grapes il must he: or
/ he might have jumped just bit
harder. or hunted up a box to stand
on However. a little intelligent ref1ec-
ton would have reminded him that
grapes are poor diet for r Carnivorous
boas; like a fox and Il heefsteak not
only more palatable but more easily
obtained, and finding himself baffied
in what must nave been rather
ludlCrOuS spectacle-that of n fox
jumping up at cluster Of grapes-he
might have accepted the situation with
sense of hnmor and had a good
laugh over the f1ips of fate in a puz
zlng but lovahle old world as he
trotted down the road looking for new
worlds 10 conquer.
OF course. these rules don't work for
all temperaments. Some people
can reason themselves out of the blues
by looking the cause squarely in the
face and realiZinc that nothing is final.
Others gain relief by talking over their
troubles with understanding friends:
still others can read themselves out of
their depressionS. Many of the Wild
West and detective story magazines
would have to suspend publication if
1t weren't for the Wall Street readers.
All Of these cures apply to the
blues the mild depression with Wis.
! ihle cause. They do not, in general.
apply To those episodes of pervadins
hopelesSness that overlook Lincoln
and King Saul and others great and
near-Great and not at all great. Such
depressions are definitely recognized
forms of mental illness. with which
psychiatry is intimately familiar and
in the early stages they cannot be
distinguished from the milder form.
These depressions need not be. and
often are not. so severe as to be
recognized by friends and relatives as
mental illnesses. Unfortunately. they
any one of dozen false origins, and
misinterpreted as to cause, nature
and consequence. "Oh. he is just
worried about business affairs" is Il
common comment: or. He probably
has some family trouble" or. Some
love affair, l suppose" None of these
adequately explains a serious depres-
sion of the type under consideration.
In fact, a Chara acteristic feature OF
the depressions regarded as patho-
logical is that they are misinterpret-
ed. The victims Of the suffering land
it is terrible suffering) usually recog-
nize this, and hence early assume
that it is useless to expect help from
friends and family who so totally
misunderstood the situation.
Yet. it is no wonder they misunder-
stand it. because not even the suf
ferer himself understands it. He
knows only that the world seems to
grow darker and darker. until the
path before him is scarcely discern
ible and each step is slow and pain
full. He may. and often does. aScribe
it to this or that cause. but his expla-
nations are as inadequate and inap-
propriate as those of his sympathetic
but puzzled friends. Often he recog-
nizes that his anguish is a recurrent
phase of what he has learned to re-
gard as a constitutional tendency. !
but as to its real causes or basis he
is always ignorant.
This, in theory, distinguiGhes the
"depressions" of the morbid type
from grief of what may be called a
normal type. such as that of the
man who suffers sorrow and has a
definite external cause for it. OF
this cause and it's relationship he is
clearly conspicuous, and time rapidly
heals the wound. Grief rarely, IL
ever. produces failure.
But the melancholic suffers sorrow
from which the cause is internal
rather than external; it is indefinite
rather than definite; its causes are
unconscious rather than conscious.
and the suffering up to certain
point grows greater rather than less
with time. Environmental factors
may contribute, may precipitate it.
but the real causes are deeply buried
and hidden, even from the sufferer.
Such morbid depressions, or states
Of melancholy, are frequently the
cause of inexplicable but preyentable
failure in the lives of our best citi-
zens. failures in business, in school, in
home life, in love affairs, in all the
activities of human endeavor. Such
failures are capable of better under
standing. better handling. and fire.
quent averting, granted more
widespread familiarity with the ma
ture Of tne foe.
X II X
THESE depressions begin insidiously.
Ir the extreme states which some
of them reach. patients are too over
whelned to speak or eat, and others
are acitated by the terror of their
thov~hts.
Af.or some weeks or months the
cloud passes. Little by little the false
ideas disappear. the ordinary ways OF
life and the customary attitudes to-
ward things and persons return. The
old pep comes back and the patient
becomes Just as we'll as he ever was
in his life, He realizes that he has
passed through a morbid period. re-
calls much of his suffering, but is
loath to discJss ii and is glad to go