wotiwrote

My bedside book for the last month or so (I don't read as much at night as I used to) has been Peter Martin's A Life of James Boswell. In my opnion Boswell was certainly a more interesting human being than the more famous subject of his famous biography - Samuel Johnson - but that may be just my customary pro-Scottish bias. However, the facet of Boswell that most intrigues me is hois relationship with what he termed 'hypochondria' and what was more commonly described as 'melancholy' in the 18th Century.

Another aspect of Boswell's suffering was the abrupt alternation of unnatural depression and very high spirits, This frenzy or mania typically showed itself in extravagant conduct and drunkenness, a 'conflagration' of the spirits.

There is something decidedly modern in Boswell's self-analysis of his condition. Martin continues:

Boswell knew at first-hand that the fire might easily burn out of control. He constantly had to be on guard against too much 'wildness of fancy and ludicrous imagination', 'a load of huge imagination'. This manic exuberance more often than not resulted in dissipation, and then expired suddenly, leaving little behind in the cold and ashen aftermath except a painful sense of guilt over his excesses - 'a grief without a pang'.

As a long time resident of cold and ashen aftermaths, it is no wonder that I feel attracted to Boswell's penetrating self analysis.