The Psychology of Speculation by Henry Howard Harper

In a bear market a discouraged bull is at least not despised; he may / find a sympathetic sufferer; but in a bull market no one ever wastes / any compassion on a bear, or admits sympathetic kinship with him. He is / popularly regarded as a pessimist, a destroyer of values, a discordant / note, an uninvited guest at a banquet. If it be a true saying that / "misery loves company," it must follow that wretchedness is accentuated / by noncommunion with fellow-sufferers; in which case it may be said / that the situation of a bear in a rousing bull market represents the / _ne plus ultra_ of hopeless desolation.

At length it became a mooted question whether to "sit tight" and wait / for the boisterous storm to blow over, or cover his shorts, buy more / stocks and go with the tide. Heretofore he had maintained a stolid / attitude, born of self-confidence, inspired by a triumphant business / career, and supported by precedent and every reasonable prophecy. The / traders had simply gone mad and were rushing headlong to their ruin, / as they had often done before. History was merely repeating itself. / It was a time for sound cool-headed judgment, and he stood firm in / the determination not to lose his head and join in any such reckless / carousal. But the more he reasoned and studied the charts, the more / unprecedented and obstinate the market became. One thing he failed / to consider was, that the favorite caprice of the stock market is to / violate precedent, and to do the thing least to be expected of it.