Then do your best to control the menagerie that is at work in
your mind.
Stultify Mr. Pig, if he is too prominent. Circumvent Mr. Fox,
if he tries to rule you and make of you a mere cunning machine.
Do not let your Old Dog Tray qualities of friendship lead to your
being made a fool.
In short, study carefully the animal qualities that make up your
temperament and prove in your own person the falseness of
Napoleon's irritating statement that a man's temperament can
never be changed by himself. ----
It may interest you to note that when man becomes insane, the
fact is at once made apparent that his mind, dethroned, had acted
as the ruler of a savage menagerie. Many crazy men imagine
themselves animals of one sort or another. Nearly all of them
display the grossest animal qualities, once their mind is
deranged. Women of the greatest refinement sink into dreadful
animalism when insane. Heine tells of a constable who, in his
boyhood, ruled his native city. One fine day "this constable
suddenly went crazy, * * * and thereupon he began to roar like a
lion or squall like a cat."
Heine remarks with calculated naivete: "We little boys
were greatly delighted at the old fellow, and trooped, yelling,
after him until he was carried off to a madhouse.
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