If the story were set just a few years later, I would use the term neurasthenia, but unfortunately it wasn't popularized until the 1870s so that's right out. Probably melancholia will work just as well - actually it might be more accessible to a general reader, now that I think about it.
I've also thought about having the characters discuss it in terms of a loss of faith, because that seems to be the other big language that people in the nineteenth century used to discuss mental/spiritual crisis. But I'm a bit chary of having a romance novel suddenly get bogged down in "Well I was brought up a Unitarian but then the war happened and I realized Jonathan Edwards was right, we are sinners in the hand of an angry God and there is no reason on earth why he shouldn't let all our worthless souls burn, and then I fell into the slough of despond."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2016-06-20 03:45 am (UTC)I've also thought about having the characters discuss it in terms of a loss of faith, because that seems to be the other big language that people in the nineteenth century used to discuss mental/spiritual crisis. But I'm a bit chary of having a romance novel suddenly get bogged down in "Well I was brought up a Unitarian but then the war happened and I realized Jonathan Edwards was right, we are sinners in the hand of an angry God and there is no reason on earth why he shouldn't let all our worthless souls burn, and then I fell into the slough of despond."