There is a terrific volatility in mass psychology nowadays. Strange little obsessions become huge lava flows and threaten to smother common sense.
“Good reader! if you e’er have seen,
When Phoebus hastens to his pillow,
The mermaids, with their tresses green,
Dancing upon the western billow;
If you have seen, at twilight dim,
When the long spirit’s vesper hymn
Floats wild along the western shore,
If you have seen, through mist of eve,
The fairy train their ringlets weave,
Glancing along the spangled green:—
If you have seen all this, and more,
God bless me, what a deal you’ve seen!”
Thomas Moore | “Nonsense”