Complete Melancholy, Incomplete Joy
By melancholy , I understand a vast ocean of solitude. Perhaps an idealistic man, living in an urban civilization, has no other destiny than to become the bondslave of melancholy. Urban society itself is a kind of illusion-machine. Some of these illusions drag a man forward like the wheel of a treadmill, forever spinning. This horse-race continues through life. Like the midnight summons of a ghostly call, it swallows him whole, devouring him unawares. He does not notice when, in half-sleep, he unlatches the door and wanders outside—only to be discovered near the pond at dawn, half-dead. The intelligent one, however, bolts his door at night in fear of that ghostly call and throws the key out the window. He does not belong to melancholy. Likely he dwells in the crowd—perhaps a government clerk or a paunchy tradesman. His life never wanders beyond the threshold of his house. Most people of the world fall into this group. In my childhood school, there was an old-fashioned teac...