Melancholy

“ Thine haunting voice borne over the waste sea.
Was it thy melancholy spirit moved
Mine, with those gray dreams, that invested thee?
Or was it, that thy beauty first reproved
The imperfect fancies, that looked fair to me?
Thou hast both secrets: for to thee are known
The fatal sorrows binding life and death:
And thou hast found, on winds of passage blown,
That music, which is sorrow's perfect breath:
So, all thy beauty takes a solemn tone,
And art, is all thy melancholy saith. ”

“ I had now gone so far as the conception of a Raven—the bird of ill omen—monotonously repeating the one word, "Nevermore," at the conclusion of each stanza, in a poem of melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred lines. Now, never losing sight of the object supremeness, or perfection, at all points, I asked myself—"Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?" Death—was the obvious reply. ”

“ There was infinite melancholy in his tone, the melancholy of a man who sees the shadows of a great despair darkening round him, the melancholy of a man who gives up the contest of life, and feels that he is beaten. ”

“ The true passional melancholy is that reflex, profound, painful feeling of the imperfections of our nature, and of the nothingness of human life, which seizes on certain minds, torturing them, disheartening them, and making their life one long sigh. ”

“ What is the source of that tender solemn melancholy that comes on us all as we feel the glad year dying? It is melancholy that is not painful, and we can nurse it without tempting one stab of real suffering. ”

“ We compare the past with the present, and the sad contrast affects the heart, and awakens the tenderest emotions. The unconscious tear stands trembling in the eye, as we behold the melancholy scene. But there is nothing so affecting, so much to be lamented, as the perverse obstinacy, and rebellious course of impenitent sinners. ”

“ And it is this preponderance of rude shock over smooth, agreeable stimulation—of a sense of dissonance in things over the joyous consciousness of harmony—which seems to supply one of the most powerful incitants to the life of imagination. Hence the dark streak of melancholy which one so often detects in the early years of the great man. ”

“ Even in the common æsthetic emotion excited by the spectacle of any fine sunset, there are elements of feeling ancient as the race,—dim melancholy, dim fear, inherited from ages when the dying of the day was ever watched with sadness and foreboding. ”

“ Lives there, whose soul experiences no degree of delight, is susceptible of no gradations of feelings, at change of scenery? Lives there, who can listen to the cadence of the evening zephyr, and not acknowledge, in his mind, the sensations of celestial melancholy which it awakens? ”

“ All those imperceptible regrets, which never individually reach the consciousness, accumulate at last into a definite result; they become the voice of a feeling of emptiness and aspiration; their tone is melancholy itself. In youth the tone of these Aeolian vibrations of the heart is all hope—a proof that these thousands of indistinguishable accents make up indeed the fundamental note of our being, and reveal the tone of our whole situation. ”

“ But, if there are things in one's past, if we have lived before, dear, then there is always a certain melancholy and we all have our share of it . . . just because we feel deeply, very deeply perhaps, under our dark skies . . . and because our feeling always remains . . . and our melancholy too. ”

“ When we are assailed by regrets in the evening, and filled with anxieties for the morrow, how can our heart rebound with joy, or our lips wear the smile of confidence and tranquility? Behold some of the many sources from which the fatal fiend of melancholy is fed and strengthened. ”

“ And not only does the face reveal the transitory feelings, the changes of mental state, as from joy to sorrow, but it registers with fidelity those states which have become fixed and abiding. Let a person harbor for any considerable time melancholy thoughts and dark forebodings; let him indulge in poignant grief, in anxious fears or bitter repinings; let him encourage by indulgence the growth of an inordinate love of the world, a mean and miserly spirit, or a sour and misanthropic temper, and how surely will this confirmed habit of his soul imprint itself upon his countenance! ”

“ To be melancholy is to have the mind chained down to one painful idea; there is therefore great propriety in exhorting Glo'ster to free thoughts, to an emancipation of his soul from grief and despair. ”

“ Still slowly pass'd the melancholy day,
And still the stranger wist not where to stray,—
The world was sad! — the garden was a wild!—
And Man, the hermit, sigh'd—till Woman smil'd!
True! the sad power to generous hearts may bring
Delirious anguish on his fiery wing!
Barr'd from delight by Fate's untimely hand,
By wealthless lot, or pitiless command;
Or doom''d to gaze on beauties that adorn
The smile of triumph or the frown of scorn ”

“ and, for the air of youth, Hopeful and cheerful, in thy blood will reign A melancholy damp of cold and dry To weigh thy spirits down, and last consume The balm of life. ”

“ It seems to me nevertheless that my melancholy would be supportable and mild enough if it depended solely on my temperament, but it comes so much from outside causes, and what so comes fills my imagination to such a degree, and occupies my thoughts so exclusively, that most of the time I move as in a dream, and scarce listen to what I myself am saying. ”

“ and if there be a hell upon earth, it is to be found in a melancholy man's heart. ”

“ There is an abominably vivid example of the kind of melancholy I have in my mind, which, although obviously less common to normal human experience than the forms of it I have so far attempted to suggest, is as a rule even more crushing in its cruelty. ”

“ For, from an inexplicable defect of harmony in the constitution of human nature, the pain of the inferior is frequently connected with the pleasures of the superior portions of our being. Sorrow, terror, anguish, despair itself, are often the chosen expressions of an approximation to the highest good. Our sympathy in tragic fiction depends on this principle; tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain. This is the source also of the melancholy which is inseparable from the sweetest melody. ”

“ When the first emotions of despair have subsided, and sorrow has softened into melancholy, she amuses with a retrospect of innocent pleasures, and inspires that noble confidence which results from the consciousness of having acted well. ”

“ There are few more melancholy sensations than those with which we regard scenes of past pleasure when altered and deserted. ”

“ They now entered upon a scene of desolation not to be witnessed without deep emotion, which naturally follows wherever the melancholy consciousness arises that a vast addition has been made to the sum of human misery. ”

“ Melancholy, the subject of our present discourse, is either in disposition or habit. In disposition, is that transitory melancholy which goes and comes upon every small occasion of sorrow, need, sickness, trouble, fear, grief, passion, or perturbation of the mind, any manner of care, discontent, or thought, which causeth anguish, dullness, heaviness and vexation of spirit, any ways opposite to pleasure, mirth, joy, delight, causing frowardness in us, or a dislike. ”

“ I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy. ”

“ All my griefs to this are jolly,
Naught so damn'd as melancholy. ”

“ Melancholy and an awe-stricken sense of the vast and vague are the emotions which he communicates with the greatest power; though the melancholy is too dreamy to deserve the name of passion, and the terror of the infinite is not explicitly connected with any religious emotion. ”

“ The melancholy awakened by the sight of a beautiful face cannot be identical with that awakened by the sight of a landscape, by the hearing of music, or by the reading of a poem. Yet there should be some one emotional element common to æsthetic sadness,—one general kind of feeling [214] which would help us to solve the riddle of the melancholy inspired by the sight of beauty in Nature. Such a common element, I believe, is inherited longing,—inherited dim sense of loss, shadowed and qualified variously by interrelated feelings. ”

“ On the other hand, if the features are drawn, even by force of will, into the state that ordinarily expresses joy or lightness of heart, we shall be tempted more and more to feel that way, until at last even internal melancholy may be dissipated. ”

“ But melancholy and despair, though often, do not always concur; there is much difference: melancholy fears without a cause, this upon great occasion; melancholy is caused by fear and grief, but this torment procures them and all extremity of bitterness; ”

“ I leave to your pencil the care of expressing that touching state in which the last impressions of abated pain still tinge the serenity of purest joy; where the melancholy, caused by sufferings now terminating, is not yet effaced by the most delightful sentiments which can animate the soul; where the dread of losing life, natural enough in suffering, gives place to the delicious pleasure of [Pg 81] having presented it to a new being. ”

“ The idea of that dreary and endless melancholy, which the fancy naturally ascribes to their condition, arises altogether from our joining to the change which has been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that change, from our putting ourselves in their situation, and from our lodging, if I may be allowed to say so, our own living souls in their inanimated bodies, and thence conceiving what would be our emotions in this case. ”

“ "Most musical, most melancholy" [1] Bird!
A melancholy Bird? O idle thought!
In nature there is nothing melancholy.
—But some night-wandering Man, whose heart was pierc'd
With the remembrance of a grievous wrong,
Or slow distemper or neglected love,
(And so, poor Wretch! fill'd all things with himself
And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale
Of his own sorrows) he and such as he
First nam'd these notes a melancholy strain; ”

“ How far our melancholy may be deeper and wider than theirs, in its roots and view, and therefore nobler, we shall consider presently; but at all events, they had the advantage of us in being entirety free from all those dim and feverish sensations which result from unhealthy state of the body. ”

“ The four and twenty letters make no more variety of words in diverse languages, than melancholy conceits produce diversity of symptoms in several persons. They are irregular, obscure, various, so infinite, Proteus himself is not so diverse, you may as well make the moon a new coat, as a true character of a melancholy man; as soon find the motion of a bird in the air, as the heart of man, a melancholy man. ”

“ Youth, however, can afford to enjoy even its melancholy; for the ultimate fact of which that melancholy is a prophecy is a long way off. ”

“ There is a strong tendency to melancholy, which is often carried to the point of morbidness and often expresses itself in meditation and moralizing on the tragedies of life and the mystery of death. This inclination is common enough in many romantic-spirited persons of all times, and it is always a symptom of immaturity or lack of perfect balance. ”

“ I can't help always falling upon it, and cry out with particular loudness and wailing, and become especially melancholy, when I see a dead love tied to a live love. ”

“ Now, my dear little girl, you have come to an age when the inward life develops and when some people (and on the whole those who have most of a destiny) find that all is not a bed of roses. Among other things there will be waves of terrible sadness, which last sometimes for days; and dissatisfaction with one's self, and irritation at others, and anger at circumstances and stony insensibility, etc., etc., which taken together form a melancholy. Now, painful as it is, this is sent to us for an enlightenment. ”

“ These sudden alternatives of joy and sadness, divine transports and grand melancholies, exquisite tenderness and womanly depressions, depict the poet, extreme in emotions, ceaselessly troubled with grief or merriment, feeling the slightest shock, more strong, more dainty in enjoyment and suffering than other men, capable of more intense and sweeter dreams, within whom is stirred an imaginary world of graceful or terrible beings, all impassioned like their author. ”

“ With horror in his wide strained eyes, and pallor on his quivering lips, he gazed at the prostrate form before him, the lifeless eyes staring now blankly at the sky,—the hue of life and exuberant health still glowing on the full cheeks adorned with every grace of youth and beauty. ”

“ One rash judgement,—a suspicion unguardedly expressed,—and a character is blasted—it may be a soul lost. A cold look—a frown—and a heart is brighter. A loving glance—a smile—and the destiny of two hearts is fixed for ever. A tear—"One touch of nature makes the world a Kin." ”

“ How can such joy be not merely clouded but utterly destroyed? A moment, and from the body everything is expelled; light from the eyes, speech from the lips, movement from the limbs, joy, passion from the heart. ”