The strange melancholy often haunting inhabitants of democracies

Alexis de Tocqueville In a chapter of Democracy in Ameica (1835)entitled 'Why the Americans are Often so Restless in the Midst of Their Prosperity'; 'When all the prerogatives of birth and fortune have been abolished, when every profession is open to everyone, an ambitious man may think it is easy to launch himself on a great career and feel that he has been called to no common destiny. But this is a delusion which experience quickly corrects. When inequality is the general rule in society, the greatest inequalities attract no attention. But when everything is more or less level, the slightest variation is noticed...That is the reason for the strange melancholy often haunting inhabitants of democracies in the midst of abundance and for that disgust with life sometimes gripping them even in calm and easy circumstances. In France, we are worried about the increasing rate of suicides. In America, suicide is rare, but I am told that madness is commoner than anywhere else.'