n the "City of the Dreadful Night":

"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
melan