The Blues.
How it rains! Patter, patter, patter! Well, let it pour! I love the rumble of the drops upon the roof, like the prolonged roll of a distant drum. Let it rain; I am secure. I shall not go out to-day, nor shall any one intrude upon my privacy. This day is mine!
A wet day is often considered a lost day. To me it is otherwise. I can shut the door upon the world—turn the key upon life’s cares, and give myself up freely to the reins of a vagrant fancy, without reproach of conscience. Providence has stepped in, and, arresting my tasks and my duties, gives me a sort of Sabbath of leisure and mental recreation. To me a wet day brings no blues, or, if it does, they are those which come on the wings of reverie, and are such as I am sometimes willing to entertain. Your reasonable blue is a communicative, suggestive thing, and I always court its society.
And, after all—what are “the Blues?” Everything else has been classified, analyzed, and reduced to scientific system; and why not these beings which figure so largely in the history of the human mind? This is a subject of profound inquiry, and I wonder it has not attracted the attention of the philosophical. Let us look at it.
To get firm hold of the subject, we must suppose a case. I sit in my room alone. Alone, did I say? As nature abhors a vacuum, the mind instinctively shrinks from solitude. If fleshy forms are not present, a host of imps press in from crack and crevice, to gambol around us. The mind is like the room in which the body is held, and these shadowy elves issue forth from the plastering of the walls, or peep out from the dark arras that hangs betwixt the visible and invisible world. Could we break through the plastering, or lift the arras, and see what these seeming imps are—whether they are things, or only images of things; whether they are substantial spirits, which, like invisible eels in water, are ever playing their pranks behind the curtain of vision; could we do this, our task would easily be done; and for our discovery we should expect to be made a member of some philosophical society. But, alas! there is no bridge that crosses the gulf between life and death—none, at least, upon which a being of flesh and blood can return. It is therefore impossible to follow “the blues” to their retreats—to the recesses from which, unbidden, they come, and to which, pursued, they fly.
What, then, are “the Blues?” In natural history, there is nothing like dissection. But, before dissection, we must have a subject. How, then, shall we catch a blue?—that is the first question. The easiest way is to take one by supposition, and, while we are supposing, we may as well include the whole race. These can be arranged as follows:
Order I. The Blues.
These have no head, no heart, no ears, no breathing organs; body, invisible; food, the human heart.
| Order I. The Blues. | Class I. Blues of reverie: pleasing, but not to be too much indulged. |
| Class II. Rum blues: pestiferous. | |
| Class III. Blues of indigestion: horrible. | |
| Class IV. Blues of bad conscience: frightful. |
We might now proceed to give the several kinds into which each class is divided, and then the numerous species of each kind. But this must be reserved for some future work on the subject; and if we should publish such an one, let no person laugh at our labors, nor sneer at our philosophy. “The Blues” constitute a great subject of scientific research, and are by no means unworthy of the moral philosopher. We have only time to make a few observations, to show the force of this latter remark.
In the first place, it may be noted that those persons who live temperately, rise early, and go to bed early; those who fulfil their duties toward God and man; those who have good digestion, and a good conscience—are never visited by any other blues than Order I., Class I. If any others ever do come to such persons, they usually depart as speedily as a rattlesnake from an ash stick. Of course, these people are not supposed to be particularly interested in our subject.
But that numerous class, who are in the habit of neglecting some daily duty, or violating some moral or physical law; those who eat too much; those who take strong drinks; those who follow pleasure rather than peace; those, in short, who keep the mind like an ill-swept garret, decorated with dust, cobwebs and confusion—those persons are doubtless particularly interested in our subject. For these, the little blues of the pestiferous classes have a strong affinity. Around the hearts of these persons they are ever to be found. Upon their lifeblood these elves live.
Of all classes of blues, the Rum Blue is, perhaps, the worst. Whether the insect called “blue bottle” took its name from it, or not, is a question for the learned. The class is pretty numerous, and includes a variety of genera, among which are the following.
| Class II. Rum Blues; or, The Horrors. | Genus 1. The gin blue. |
| Genus 2. The whiskey blue. (In London called “blue ruin.”) | |
| Genus 3. The wine blue. | |
| Genus 4. The toddy blue. | |
| Genus 5. The brandy blue. | |
| Genus 6. The Santa Croix blue. |
This class of blues is particularly pestiferous. There is no great difference between them, and none but a nice observer can distinguish them: they are, however, a most destructive race. They often assemble in crowds around the mind, and are then called “low spirits,” or “the horrors,” terms which are descriptive of their character. They not unfrequently sting the soul and body with such agony, as to bring on what is called the delirium tremens—the most frightful of mortal maladies. Under the agony of the rum blue, a man will sometimes murder his wife and children. This subject is almost too frightful to dwell upon; but there is one source of consolation, and that is, that no one ever need be afflicted with the rum blue. If a person will only abstain from alcoholic liquors, he will never be infested with any species of this kind of vermin.
The class of blues belonging to bad conscience, as well as that of indigestion, is numerous, and includes a variety of genera. We will not now enter into a detail of them, as our present observations are intended to be rather practical than scientific. We may therefore close this article with the observation, that whoever is afflicted with the blues, has it in his own power to get rid of them.
And now, gentle reader, the moral of all this is as follows. Many people are subject to pain of mind—which they express by the terms, blue devils, the horrors, low spirits, &c. &c. Now, this pain of mind almost always proceeds from some misconduct; from the neglect of duty; from improper eating or drinking; from wrong doing of some kind or other. Therefore, if you would avoid pain of mind—if you would keep away the blues—adopt good habits, and stick to them.
Chinese notion of Dancing.—When Commodore Anson was at Canton, the officers of the ship Centurion had a ball upon some holiday. While they were dancing, a Chinese, who very quietly surveyed the operation, said softly, to one of the party, “Why don’t you let your servants do this for you?”
