And so, just as it is an easy matter to check a
flame which is being kindled in hare's fur
1 or candlewicks or rubbish, but if it ever takes hold of solid
bodies having depth, it quickly destroys and consumes
With youthful vigour lofty craftsmen's work,2
as Aeschylus has it; so the man who at the beginning
gives heed to his temper and observes it while it is
still smoking and catching flame little by little from
some gossip or rubbishy scurrility need have no great
concern about it ; on the contrary, he has often
succeeded in extinguishing it merely by keeping
silent and ignoring it. For he who gives no fuel to
fire puts it out, and likewise he who does not in the
beginning nurse his wrath and does not puff himself
up with anger takes precautions against it and destroys it. I was therefore not satisfied with what
[p. 105]
Hieronymus
3 says - although he contributes other
useful remarks and advice - in the passage where he
declares that we have no perception of anger when it
comes into being, but only when it has already come
into being and exists, the reason being the swiftness
with which it acts. For the truth is that none of the
emotions, at the time when they are gathering and
beginning to move, has a birth and increase so easy
to perceive.
4 Indeed Homer also skilfully teaches
us this lesson when he causes Achilles to be suddenly
overwhelmed by grief on receiving the report,
5 in
the passage where the poet says :
He spoke, and a black cloud of grief closed round
Achilles;
but Homer portrays Achilles as being slow to lose
his temper with Agamemnon
6 and as becoming
inflamed only when many words had been spoken.
Yet if either one of the men had held back their
words at the beginning and prevented their utterance, the quarrel would not have had so great a
growth or have reached such magnitude. That is
the reason why Socrates,
7 as often as he perceived
himself being moved to too great harshness against
any of his friends, betaking himself to coast
Before the storm along some promontory,8
would lower his voice, cause a smile to spread over his
face, and make the expression of his eyes more gentle,
preserving himself from fault and defeat by setting
up within himself an influence to counteract his
passion.
