As soon as you begin to enjoy the fruits of your earthly cares, a hitherto unforeseen source of sorrow reveals itself in your soul, and this sorrow strikes you powerfully, suddenly depriving you of your peace of heart and of the comfort you so longed for. You cease to be interested in anything; nothing seems to exist for you—you feel overburdened by grievous sorrow and deadly anguish. What does this mean? What malicious, envious power falls upon us as soon as we begin to live for our own gratification? Why does our soul begin to grieve and be afflicted at the very time when, in our opinion, it should rejoice? Listen to me, disciple of Christ. You thought to live upon earth in peace and pleasure, when the earthly path must be a most sorrowful and narrow one; you thought to find tranquillity and pleasure in corruptible things and not in Christ, Who alone is the rest and eternal blessedness of our souls; and the Lord—not wishing that we should live here in peace and plenty, and thus forget the one thing needful, the salvation of our soul and our heavenly country, but desiring that we should seek our rest and blessedness in Him alone.
–St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ
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Among writings once attributed to Aristotle, the question was first posed: ‘Why is it that all men who have become outstanding in philosophy, statesmanship, poetry or the arts are melancholic?’ For the Elizabethan gentleman of leisure, to be painted in the pose of the melancholy man – black clothing, a distracted gaze, perhaps reclining alone by a brook, or leaning against a tree – was the height of fashion. It was also a state he could afford to indulge, since melancholy was brought on by idleness and solitude.
My mistress Melancholy -
“[Melancholy is] a most delightsome humour, to be alone, dwell alone, walk alone, meditate, lie in bed whole days, dreaming awake as it were.”
—Robert Burton -
Burton – as Democritus Junior, though with repeated references to his own biography – embeds his own experience within his text, claiming that: ‘I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy.’ Since idleness is the great cause of the condition, there is no better preventative measure than busyness.
My mistress Melancholy
In The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton gave his life to charting a Renaissance disease both alluring and dangerous -
“Melancholy gave life and death”
written on the tomb of Robert Burton
My mistress Melancholy -
What attracts me is elsewhere, and I don’t know where that elsewhere is.
—Emil Cioran -
Man starts over again everyday, in spite of all he knows, against all he knows.
—Emil Cioran -
When we cannot be delivered from ourselves, we delight in devouring ourselves.
—Emil Cioran -
In order to deceive melancholy, you must keep moving. Once you stop, it wakens, if in fact it has ever dozed off.
—Emil Cioran -
You taught me to exist without gratitude.
You ruined my manners toward God:
“We’re here simply to wait for death;
the pleasures of earth are overrated.”…
Coarse, mean, you’ll put your feet
on the coffee table, lean back,
and turn me into someone who can’t
take the trouble to speak; someone
who can’t sleep, or who does nothing
but sleep; can’t read, or call
for an appointment for help.There is nothing I can do
against your coming.
When I awake, I am still with thee.HAVING IT OUT WITH MELANCHOLY
by Jane Kenyon
