THE YEAR EMOTIONS RULED

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But if female identification explained the mass sadness, why were all the men weeping? And why were Americans weeping--we who could not care less about Britain's monarchy except in quaint memories of the literature of Kings and Queens? It may be simply that people make gods of selected celebrities and that Diana had to die to achieve godhead. Then, like Elvis, she became accessible after death; the public could leave flowers and personal messages at the gate of the Spencers' country estate, her Graceland.

In any case, there seemed to be a strong current of national melancholy seeking to express itself. The economy was way up, the deficit skinny, unemployment and interest rates down; so it would be hard to argue that melancholy was linked to money. But the fin de siecle came at the same time as the "fin" of other things. An odd loss attended winning the cold war, that of a scary enemy (the effort to inflate Saddam Hussein to that stature was seen as nonsense). There was the apparent end of ideology as the two main political parties settled on common and largely commonsensical ground. With all such monumental successes, people may have looked around for failures and things to fix. Toward the end of the year, the President hit on the topic of racism, but there seemed to be little desire to tackle an issue by "dialogue" that might better be solved with jobs and education.

What was missing, in short, was a battleground, a field of overt tension in which mass emotions might rise to an occasion. Instead, there was the presence of absence, which eats at the mind quietly and which can, when touched by one last straw, incite a riot. It may be that the death of Diana came simply as one loss and absence too many. Whatever else Diana was in the world, she effected a lovely presence, and who could not weep for the loss of that? Gone, Diana seemed to emblemize the word; she was everything gone. One grief stood for all. As in any epiphany, many people probably did not even know why they were weeping.

Among 1997's other heartfelt losses was Jimmy Stewart. The year ended in a wistful memory of the man who brought us the irresistible thought that love is forever, honesty wins, and it's a wonderful life.