“The city is of night but not of sleep;
There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain. 
The pitiless hours like years and ages creep —
A night seems termless hell.  This dreadful strain
Of thought and consciousness which never ceases,
Or which some moment’s stupor but increases.”

* * *

“This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake, Wounded and slow and very venomous.”

* * *

’Lo, as thus prostrate in the dust I write
My heart’s deep languor and my soul’s sad tears —
But why evoke the spectres of black night
To blot the sunshine of exultant years!

“Because a cold rage seizes one at times
To show the bitter, old and wrinkled truth,
Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles
False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth.”

All this, alas, is the inevitable physical outcome of the attempt to —

“Divorce old, barren Reason from my house
To take the daughter of the vine to spouse.”

All subjective happiness due to nerve stimulation is of the nature of mania.  In proportion to its intensity is the certainty that it will be followed by its subjective reaction, the “Nuit Blanche,” the “dark brown taste,” by the experience of “the difference in the morning.”  The only melancholy drugs can drive away is that which they themselves produce.  It is folly to use as a source of pleasure that which lessens activity and vitiates life.

There are many other causes which induce depression of mind and disorder of nerve.  Where nerve decay is associated with genius and culture, we shall find some phase of the philosophy of Pessimism.  In fact, cheerfulness is not primarily a result of right thinking, but rather the expression of sound nerves and normal vegetative processes.  Most of the philosophy of despair, the longing to know the meaning of the unattainable, vanishes with active out-of-door life and the consequent flow of good health.  Even a dose of quinine may convert to hopefulness when both sermons and arguments fail.

For a degree of optimism is a necessary accompaniment of health.  It is as natural as animal heat, and is the mental reflex of it.  Pessimism arises from depression or irritation or failure of the nerves.  It is a symptom of lowered vitality expressed in terms of the mind.

There is a philosophical Pessimism, as I have already said, over and above all merely physical conditions, and not dependent on them.  But the melancholy Jacques of our ordinary experience either uses some narcotic or stimulant to excess, or else has trouble with his liver or kidneys.  “Liver complaint,” says Zangwill, “is the Prometheus myth done into modern English.”  Already historical criticism has shown that the Bloody Assizes had its origin in disease of the bladder, and most forms of vice and cruelty resolve themselves into decay of the nerves.  It is natural that degeneration should bring discouragement and disgust.  But whatever the causes of Pessimism, whether arising in speculative philosophy in nervous disease or in personal failure, it can never be wrought into sound and helpful life.  To live effectively implies the belief that life is worth living, and no one who leads a worthy life has ever for a moment doubted this.