Dr. Johnson pointed out how comparatively rare it
was for people who had manual labour to perform, and whose work lay
in the open air, to suffer from hypochondriacal terrors. The truth
is that we are made for labour, and we have by no means got rid of
the necessity for it. We have to pay a price for the comforts of
civilisation, and above all for the pleasures of inactivity. It is
astonishing how quickly a definite task which one has to perform,
whether one likes it or not, draws off a cloud of anxiety from
one's spirit. I am myself liable to attacks of depression, not
causeless depression, but a despondent exaggeration of small
troubles. Yet in times of full work, when meetings have to be
attended, papers tackled, engagements kept, I seldom find myself
suffering from vague anxieties. It is simply astonishing that one
cannot learn more common sense! I suppose that all people of
anxious minds tend to find the waking hour a trying one. The mind,
refreshed by sleep, turns sorrowfully to the task of surveying the
difficulties which lie before it.
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