Stefan Zweig's writing is truly beautiful but it is also heartbreakingly sad. If you read his autobiography it explains so well why his writing is so sad. He really cared about people and his beloved Europe. Seeing it ripped to pieces by war, economic collapse and the rise of Nazism utterly destroyed him.

Some of W Somerset Maugham's work is just as hard to read. His short story The Unconquered is really hard to get through.