Such melancholy is fitted to the fact that life offers causes for regret, that happiness is not always the point, and that there is enough hardship and struggle to go round, but not enough of the good things; and reflection on these useful insights is a check on thoughtlessness and self-satisfaction - what the Russians expressively call poshlost - which threaten to make one live in banal fashion. So a little depression is good at times, in any season.