es in a moment from the wild, and passes as swiftly into the
sea. It has the evanescence of a dream and yet all the force of reality.
It consists of air and rain, and yet the lighter substance, driven with
the force of a panic passion, can uproot the solid materials, as the
tornado the tall trees and the stone dwellings of humanity, and turn the
secular lives of men into desolation and despair. When it has passed,
all seems calm, and only the human wreckage remains to show the power of
the storm that has swept by.

To face these sudden blows which seem to come out of the void, men must
have their reserves of character and mentality well in hand. The first
reserve is that of intellect.

Never let mere pride or obstinacy stand in the way of bowing to the
storm. Firmness of character should on these terrible occasions be
turned inside out, and be formed into a plasticity of intellect which
finds at once its inspiration and its courage in the adoption of novel
expedients. The courage of the heart will let no expedient of the
ingenuity be left untried. But both ingenuity and courage will find
their real source in a health which has not yet exhausted the resources
of the body. Firmness which is not obstinacy, health which is not the
fad of the valetudinarian, adaptability which is not weakness,
enterprise which is not rashness--these are the qualities which will
preserve men in those evil days when the "blast of the terrible one is
against the wall."

X

DEPRESSION

Depression is not a word which sounds cheerfully in the ears of men of
affairs. But the actuality is not as bad as the term. It differs in
every respect from Panic. It is not a sudden and furious gust breaking
on a peaceful situation, irrational both in its onset and in its passing
away, but something which can be foreseen, and ought to be foreseen, by
any prudent voyager on the waters of business. The wise mariner will
furl his sails before the winds blow too strong.

Nor is depression in itself a disaster. It is merely the wholesome
corrective which Nature applies to the swollen periods of the world's
affairs. As with trade and commerce, so with the individual.

The high-spirited man pays for his hours of elation and optimism, when
every prospect seems to be open to him and the sunshine of life a thing
which will last for ever, by corresponding states of reaction and gloom,
when the whole universe seems to be involved in a conspiracy against his