"Are you blue?"
"Blue, true blue, red white and blue, one flag and one nation, one kingdom, one king, no not one king, one president, we are going to have a president first, cursed, the worst."
Who does not recognize the modest prototype of this elaborate rigmarole chasing itself through his mind as he walks the street in jaunty mood, and who of us would not surprise and alarm his friends if he should suddenly let go his habitual control, express his every thought and materialize his every passing impulse to action? Who can doubt that the person who has trained himself for years to repress his obsessions is less likely to give way to this form of insanity than one who has never practiced such training? Let us then endeavor to pursue "the even tenor of our way" without giving way to the obsession that we must inflict our feelings upon our associates. We may in this way maintain a mental balance that shall stand us in good stead in time of stress.
The autumnal tendency to melancholy is recognized by Thoreau. The characteristic suggestion of this nature-lover is that the melancholic go to the woods and study the symplocarpus foetidus (skunk cabbage), whose English name savors of contempt, but whose courage is such that it is already in the autumn jauntily thrusting forth its buds for the coming year.
An admirable reflection for the victim of moods, as for many another, is the old saying in which Abraham Lincoln is said to have taken peculiar comfort, namely, "This also will pass."
XV. RECAPITULATORY
And found no end in wandering mazes lost.
Paradise Lost.