Peter Roget suffered from depression, disconsolation,
gloom, melancholia, pessimism ...

He lived a life of bitterness, desolation, grief, irritation,
lamentation, misery, pain ...

Not that there weren’t periods of bliss, exuberance,
happiness, joy, light-heartedness ...

Not that he wasn’t awake to the wonders of the world,
to its beauty, brilliance, grace, loveliness, magnificence ...

After a visit to the village of Inverkeithing in the Scottish Highlands,
he recorded in his diary that it was beautiful.

When he first set eyes on the meandering water of the Tay,
he wrote that it, too, was beautiful.

And as for the riverbanks near the village of Dunkeld,
his diary asserts that they were remarkably beautiful.

That his thesaurus was still fifty years away
is perhaps worth mentioning.