In this showery weather, the moods of men and women are as changeable as the sky. An educated and quite sensible friend of mine said yesterday: “I’m not at ease with myself; as soon as I’m no longer occupied by my business or by bridge, I turn over a thousand tiny concerns in my head which lead me from joy to sadness and from sadness to joy, through a thousand shades, faster than the changes of a pigeon’s breast. These concerns, like a letter to write, or a missed bus, or a raincoat that’s too heavy, take on an extraordinary importance, as if they were real misfortunes. I apply my reason to prove that all this should be a matter of indifference, but it’s in vain; my reasoning sounds no more loudly than a wet drum. In a word, I have a touch of neurasthenia.”
Put those big words aside, I said to him, and try to understand things. Everyone is in the same position, except that you have the misfortune to be intelligent, to think too much about yourself and to want to understand why you are sometimes happy, sometimes sad. And you become irritated with yourself, because you can’t explain the reasons for your happiness and sadness.
In reality, our reasons for being happy or unhappy carry no weight; it all depends on the body and its functions, and even the most robust organism passes from stress to depression every day, and from depression to stress, and several times too, according to meals, walks, efforts of concentration, whatever you’re reading and the weather; your mood rises and falls like a boat on the waves. Usually these are shades of grey; as long as we are occupied, we don’t think about it; but as soon as we do have the time, and we do think about it with concentration, the little reasons come crowding in; you think they are causes, but they are in fact effects. A subtle mind always finds reasons enough to be sad, if it is sad, reasons enough to be happy, if it is happy; the same reason often serves both ends. Pascal, whose body was prone to illness, was frightened by the multitude of stars; and the noble shiver he experienced while looking at them came no doubt from feeling cold at his window, without him realising it. Another poet, if his body is healthy, will address the stars as friends. And both will say very beautiful things about the starry sky; very beautiful things beside the point.”
Spinoza says that there cannot be a human being without passions, and that a wise man forms such a range of happy thoughts in his soul that his passions are very small in comparison. Without following him along these difficult paths, we can, nevertheless, imitate him and gather a large amount of deliberate happiness for ourselves, like music, painting, conversation, which will make our own melancholy look very small. A sociable man forgets the state of his liver in his little duties; we should blush at not drawing a still greater benefit from our own serious and useful employment, from our books, from our friends. But this is perhaps a common error, and one of great consequence, to make a rule of not taking an interest in things of value. We count upon them. It is sometimes a great art to wish for what we are bound to desire.
22 février 1908
22/2/08 Pleiade I, p.29, P. d’un Normand no 718
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English translation copyright © Michel Petheram
To read the French version on this website.
