7. Be not inquisitive into the affairs of other men, nor the faults of thy servants, nor the mistakes of thy friends; but what is offered to you, use according to the former rules, but do not thou go out to gather sticks to kindle a fire to burn thine own house. And add this; if my friend said or did well in that for which I am angry, I am in the fault, not he; but if he did amiss, he is in the misery, not I: for either he was deceived, or he was malicious, and either of them both is all one with a misérable person; and that is an object of pity, not of anger. 8. Use all reasonable discourses to excuse the faults of others, considering that there are many circumstances of time, of person, of accident, of inadvertency, of infrequency, of aptness to amend, of sorrow for doing it; and it is well that we take any good in exchange for the evil done or suffered. 9. Upon the rising of anger instantly enter into a deep consideration of the joys of heaven, or the pains of hell: for fear and joy are naturally apt to appease this violence. 10. In contentions be always passive, never active, upon the defensive, not the assaulting part: and then also give a gentle answer, receiving the furies and indiscretions of the other like a stone into a bed of moss and soft compliance; and you shall find it sit down quietly: whereas anger and violence make the contention loud and long, and injurious to both the parties. 11. In the actions of religion be careful to temper all thy instances with meekness, and the proper instruments of it: and if thou beest apt to be angry, neither fast violently, nor entertain the too-forward heats of zeal; but secure thy duty with constant and regular actions, and a good temper of body with convenient refreshments and recreations. 12. If anger arises suddenly and violently, first restrain it with consideration, and then let it end in a hearty prayer for him that did the real or seeming injury. The former of the two stops its growth, and the latter quite kills it, and makes amends for its monstrous and voluntary birth. Remedies against Anger, by way of Consideration. 1. Consider that anger is a professed enemy to counsel; it is a direct storm; in which no man can be heard to speak or call from without: for if you counsel gently, you are despised; if you urge it and be vehement, you provoke it more. Be careful therefore stock of reason and to lay up before-hand a great prudent consideration, that like a besieged town you may be provided for, and be defensible from within, since you are not likely to be relieved from without. Anger is not to be suppressed but by something that is as inward as itself, and more habitual. To which purpose add, that, 2. Of all passions it endeavours most to make reason useless. 3. That it is an universal poison, of an infinite object: for no man was ever so amorous as to love a toad, none so envious as to repine at the condition of the miserable, no man so timorous as to fear a dead bee; but anger is troubled at every thing, and every man, and every accident, and therefore unless it be suppressed, it will make a man's condition restless. 4. If it proceeds from a great cause, it turns to fury; if from a small cause, it is peevishness: and so is always either terrible or ridiculous. 5. It makes a man's body monstrous, deformed and contemptible, the voice horrid, the eyes cruel, the face pale or fiery, the gait fierce, the speech clamorous and loud. 6. It is neither manly nor ingenuous. 7. It proceeds from softness of spirit and pusillanimity; which makes that women are more angry than men, sick people more than healthful, old men more than young, unprosperous and calamitous persons than the blessed and fortunate. 8. It is a passion fitter for flies and insects than for persons professing nobleness and bounty. 9. It is troublesome not only to those that suffer it, but to them that behold it; there being no greater incivility* of entertainment than, for the cook's fault, or the negligence of the servants, to be cruel, or outrageous, or unpleasant in the presence of the guests. 10. It makes marriage to be a necessary and unavoidable trouble; friendships, and societies, and familiarities to be intolerable. 11. It multiplies the evils of drunkenness, and makes the levities of wine to run into madness. 12. It makes innocent jesting to be the beginning of tragedies. 13. It turns friendship into hatred: it makes a man lose himself and his reason and his argument in disputation. It turns the desires of knowledge into an itch of wrangling. It adds insolency to power. It turns justice into cruelty, and judgment into oppression. It changes discipline into * Dicere quid cœnâ possis ingratius istâ? No. 15. 2 Y tediousness and hatred of liberal institution. It makes a prosperous man to be envied, and the unfortunate to be unpitied. It is a confluence of all the irregular passions: there is in it envy and sorrow, fear and scorn, pride and prejudice, rashness and inconsideration, rejoicing in evil and a desire to inflict it, self-love, impatience, and curiosity. And lastly, though it be very troublesome to others, yet it is most troublesome to him that hath it. In the use of these arguments and the former exercises be diligent to observe, lest in your desires to suppress anger you be passionate and angry at yourself for being angry; like physicians, who give a bitter potion when they intend to eject the bitterness of choler *; for this will provoke the person, and increase the passion. But placidly and quietly set upon the mortification of it; and attempt it first for a day, resolving that day not at all to be angry; and to be watchful and observant for a day is no great trouble: but then, after one day's watchfulness it will be as easy to watch two days as at first it was to watch one day; and so you may increase till it becomes easy and habitual. Only observe that such an anger alone is criminal which is against charity to myself or my neighbour; but anger against sin is a holy zeal, and an effect of love to God and my brother, for whose interest I am passionate, like a concerned person: and if I take care that my anger makes no reflection of scorn or cruelty upon the offender, or of pride and violence, or transportation to myself, anger becomes charity and duty. * Amaram amaro bilem pharmaco qui eluunt. And when one commended Charilaus, the king of Sparta, for a gentle, a good, and a meek prince, his colleague said well, how can he be good who is not an enemy even to vicious persons*. 3. Remedies against Covetousness, the third Covetousness is also an enemy to alms, though not to all the effects of mercifulness: but this is to be cured by the proper motives to charity before-mentioned, and by the proper rules of justice; which being secured, the arts of getting money are not easily made criminal. To which also we may add, 1. Covetousness makes a man miserable; because riches are not means to make a man happy: and unless felicity were to be bought with money, he is a vain person who admires heaps of gold and rich possessions. For what Hippomachus said to some persons who commended a tall man as fit to be a champion in the Olympic games, It is true (said he) if the crown hang so high that the longest arm could reach it. The same we may say concerning riches, they were excellent things, if the richest man were certainly the wisest and the best; but as they are, they are nothing to be wondered at, because they contribute nothing toward felicity which appears, because some men choose to be miserable that they may be rich, rather *Plutar. de odio et invidia. + Quid refert igitur quantis sumenta fatiget Porticibus, quanta nemorum vectetur in umbra, Nemo malus felix. Juv. Sat. 4. |