Of Anger

TO SEEK to extinguish anger utterly, is but a

bravery of the Stoics.  We have better oracles:

Be angry, but sin not.  Let not the sun go down

upon your anger.  Anger must be limited and con-

fined, both in race and in time.  We will first speak

how the natural inclination and habit to be angry,

may be attempted and calmed.  Secondly, how the

particular motions of anger may be repressed, or

at least refrained from doing mischief.  Thirdly,

how to raise anger, or appease anger in another.
 
 

For the first; there is no other way but to medi-

tate, and ruminate well upon the effects of anger,

how it troubles man's life.  And the best time to do

this, is to look back upon anger, when the fit is

thoroughly over.  Seneca saith well, That anger is

like ruin, which breaks itself upon that it falls.

The Scripture exhorteth us to possess our souls in

patience.  Whosoever is out of patience, is out of

possession of his soul.  Men must not turn bees;
 
 
 
 

...  animasque in vulnere ponunt.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it ap-

pears well in the weakness of those subjects in

whom it reigns; children, women, old folks, sick

folks.  Only men must beware, that they carry

their anger rather with scorn, than with fear; so

that they may seem rather to be above the injury,

than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a

man will give law to himself in it.
 
 

For the second point; the causes and motives of

anger, are chiefly three.  First, to be too sensible of

hurt; for no man is angry, that feels not himself

hurt; and therefore tender and delicate persons

must needs be oft angry; they have so many things

to trouble them, which more robust natures have

little sense of.  The next is, the apprehension and

construction of the injury offered, to be, in the cir-

cumstances thereof, full of contempt: for contempt

is that, which putteth an edge upon anger, as much

or more than the hurt itself.  And therefore, when

men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of

contempt, they do kindle their anger much.  Lastly,

opinion of the touch of a man's reputation, doth

multiply and sharpen anger.  Wherein the remedy

is, that a man should have, as Consalvo was wont

to say, telam honoris crassiorem.  But in all refrain-

ings of anger, it is the best remedy to win time;

and to make a man's self believe, that the oppor-

tunity of his revenge is not yet come, but that he

foresees a time for it; and so to still himself in the

meantime, and reserve it.
 
 

To contain anger from mischief, though it take

hold of a man, there be two things, whereof you

must have special caution.  The one, of extreme bit-

terness of words, especially if they be aculeate and

proper; for cummunia maledicta are nothing so

much; and again, that in anger a man reveal no

secrets; for that, makes him not fit for society.  The

other, that you do not peremptorily break off, in

any business, in a fit of anger; but howsoever you

show bitterness, do not act anything, that is not

revocable.
 
 

For raising and appeasing anger in another; it

is done chiefly by choosing of times, when men

are frowardest and worst disposed, to incense

them.  Again, by gathering (as was touched before)

all that you can find out, to aggravate the con-

tempt.  And the two remedies are by the contraries.

The former to take good times, when first to relate

to a man an angry business; for the first impres-

sion is much; and the other is, to sever, as much as

may be, the construction of the injury from the

point of contempt; imputing it to misunderstand-

ing, fear, passion, or what you will.