Now the continuance of anger and frequent fits of it
produce an evil habit in the soul called wrathfulness, or a
propensity to be angry, which oft-times ends in choleric
temper, bitterness, and moroseness. Then the mind becomes ulcerated, peevish, and querulous, and like a thin,
weak plate of iron, receives impression and is wounded by
even the least occurrence; but when the judgment presently seizes upon wrathful ebullitions and suppresses them,
it not only works a cure for the present, but renders the
soul firm and not so liable to such impressions for the future.
[p. 37]
And truly, when I myself had twice or thrice made
a resolute resistance unto anger, the like befell me that did
the Thebans; who, having once foiled the Lacedaemonians,
that before that time had held themselves invincible, never
after lost so much as one battle which they fought against
them. For I became fully assured in my mind, that anger
might be overcome by the use of reason. And I perceived
that it might not only be quieted by the sprinkling of cold
water, as Aristotle relates, but also be extinguished by putting one into a flight. Yea, according to Homer, many
men have had their anger melted and dissipated by sudden
surprise of joy. So that I came to this firm resolution,
that this passion is not altogether incurable to such as are
but willing to be cured; since the beginnings and occasions of it are not always great or forcible; but a scoff, or
a jest, or the laughing at one, or a nod only, or some other
matter of no great importance, will put many men into a
passion. Thus Helen, by addressing her niece in the
words beginning,—
O my Electra, now a virgin stale,
provoked her to make this nipping return:—
Thou'rt wise too late, thou shouldst have kept at home.
1
And so did Callisthenes provoke Alexander by saying,
when the great bowl was going round, I will not drink so
deep in honor of Alexander, as to make work for Aesculapius.
