GLOOM DISPELLERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18396, 11 May 1923, Page 12

GLOOM DISPELLERS.

'-'There are as many folk affected by ; dull "weather as there are by indigestion— the result is invariably the same, • a hopeJess and undiluted gloom—the species of depression which is so frequently, and admirably described in dismal detail by all vendors of patent medicines. ■-■Dyspeptic gloom is perhaps the most difficult to dispel, and its unhappy ; vie-, j tims usually require a doctors advice or assistance. .■.•••:■•'■■:"■ - . ' , r.'UTo advise the dyspeptic one to cheer up is to invite scowls, black looks, and uncomplimentary language. -His cheerful friends annoy him to distraction. >. , To confine our attention to those who a™ merely suffering from that depression which comes either from i dullness of occupation or from the lack of it—or most common of ■ all, - from ' damp . miserable ■ weather— are many sources of relief. Cheerful company of . course comes first. But somehow, when we :; are = sunk van gioom, -one's, friends : aro;, all either distorting themselves some sunnier clime, or aro otherwise '~ employed, and... not ft home. Nobody ever is "at ( home" \to the pessimist, when you com© to think of it.-. 5: Having rung up all his cheery acquaintances only to find . them out, the gloomful on© surrenders himself to litter de- • spair, or invokes the silent,companionship of the bookshelf. 1 - • ' '• ' '.. The latter course is naturally ; the more '■ . sensible. . * ; '. .-"'..But what countless volumes seem to be written with the sole purpose and doubling arid trebling the misanthropic outlook \-. ;>■ , . Such titles as "Dark," "the Strangeness of Bruce Baxter," "Double. Lives," "The House of .Unrest,"^spring., out : to greet him as he scans the library shelves. And somehow in this particular frame, of mind they make .a. morbid appeal to-his burdened spirit. ■;.■■ • ■;;.; ..;.■".■"• • :' : '■'•' ■-' ■"'•'■■ Iwver let yourself .be -.misguided , into reading problem novels on a rainy day! There': are/- even in s these ? intense; J psychoanalytical days, books written by happy souls who have somehow escaped the universal epidemic of introspectiveness, and who tumble eaily through a world of their own, 'peopled, not with unhealthy, inhuman pas-bags, but with absurdly funny and lovable mortals. ;. .-■•.. ' Books and play's by these thrice-blessed authors are a godsend to the gloomy,.and - an infallible cure for depression.