The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [80]
In Kay Redfield Jamison’s 2004 book about manic depression, Exuberance, Roosevelt is exhibit A for this condition. His set of symptoms—propulsive behavior, deep grief, chronic insomnia, and an all-around hyperactive disposition—demonstrate both the manic and the depressive phases of bipolar disorder. Too often, Dr. Jamison argued, people mistakenly thought manic depression meant despondence and withdrawal from human endeavors. Usually it does. But those afflicted with exuberance, she argued, go in the opposite direction; behaving as relentless human blowtorches they’re unable to turn down their own flame. Diagnosing Roosevelt’s medical condition more than eighty years after his death, Jamison claimed that the highs of the exuberance phase brought many wonderful gifts; but, she warned, there was also a sharp-edged downside. Living by throwing up skyrockets—as P. T. Barnum once put it—wore one down to nothing. No sleep, for example, wasn’t good for the heart or other vital organs. Only by exhausting oneself in physical activity—like climbing Mount Katahdin or ice-skating on the Charles River in a winter storm—could an exuberant manic like Roosevelt turn himself off.9
Essentially, Roosevelt’s exuberance syndrome was both a source of power and a sometimes curse. The poet Robert Lowell once described manics like T.R. as harboring “pathological enthusiasm;”10 Jamison tended to agree. What Jamison admired about Roosevelt, however, was that he channeled his manic-depressive energies in constructive ways, taking what could have been a terrible handicap and using it as an asset. A friend of Roosevelt once colorfully explained T.R.’s ceaseless zest as the “unpacking of endless Christmas stockings,” a description Roosevelt wouldn’t have minded.11 Constantly calling life “The Great Adventure,” Roosevelt derived “literally delirious joy” from Christmas, never wanting the holiday season to end. The more candles lit and carols sung, the happier he was.12
Unfortunately, even though Roosevelt felt fit as a fiddle operating on intermittent sleep, his exultancy was taking a physical toll. On March 26, 1880, Roosevelt went to see Dr. Dudley A. Sargeant, the university physician. On the preexamination form, Roosevelt noted that asthma had bothered him since childhood. As of late, however, he was feeling well and expected a clean bill of health. After thoroughly examining Roosevelt from head to toe, however, Dr. Sargeant pulled his patient aside with troublesome news. There was something wrong with Roosevelt’s heart—it was terribly weak. If he kept exerting himself, he would die young. Sternly Dr. Sargeant told Roosevelt to cease all activity that would make his heart rate go up. Mountaineering, twenty-mile hikes, and even climbing staircases would have to stop. All exertion was unhealthy.
Such a bleak diagnosis didn’t go over well with Roosevelt. He didn’t want to live gently. If he had only a few seasons left to breathe, so be it. Instead of pampering himself or living like a baby he would fight with both fists against the tide of gloomy fatalism. Going back to being a weakling, a runt in the litter of life, was unacceptable to him. Dismissing Dr. Sargeant’s verdict out of hand, Roosevelt started planning a six-week hunting trip with his younger brother, Elliott, to the Midwest heartland. They would start from Chicago, go northwest to Iowa, and eventually wind up on the western edge of Minnesota. Inspired by an earful of Elliott’s Texas bird-hunting triumphs in Galveston and the Big Thicket, eager to learn more about grouse and prairie chickens, Theodore read Coues’s pioneering Birds of the Colorado in preparation.
Later in life, as a politician, Roosevelt downplayed his Harvard years, recognizing them as a liability in a country more impressed with log cabins and cowboy mythology. Furthermore, only one in every 5,000 Americans graduated from college in 1880; merely receiving a diploma meant that one was part of an elite.13 Roosevelt’s diaries, however, show that he was elated at finishing twenty-first