Posted on 06/01/2020 7:05:04 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
The Weeping philosopher of the Tribune refuses to be comforted. He is obstinately and incurably unhappy. His mood is that of the Frenchman who declared that he "would drown -- nobody should help him." GREELEY'S grief, however, is as fantastic as it is profound. It springs from a hallucination, which has already lasted six or seven years, and which bids fair to attend him to his grave. He nurses it, as women nurse pet sorrows; -- and derives a sad but solid satisfaction from seeing it thrive and grow under his affectionate care. There are many men who go through life under the conviction that somebody is trying to poison them -- that there is a secret conspiracy dogging their footsteps -- that Providence himself is against them, and that they are doomed to eternal perdition. As a general thing, such people find their proper place inside the walls of an asylum; but now and then, their delusion proving wholly innocent, they are left at large to vent their woes upon their personal friends, or sometimes upon the public, through the columns of tolerant newspapers. Nothing offends them like an attempt to dispel the illusion which so pleasantly torments them; and any disavowal on the part of suspected parties, of the diabolical designs laid to their charge, is regarded as only an immense aggravation of the imputed offence.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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