Would anyone want to stab an enemy with such force as to leave his own hand in the wound and be unable to recover himself from the blow? But such a weapon is anger; it is hard to draw back. We take care to have light arms, a handy and nimble sword; shall we not avoid those mental outbursts that are clumsy, unwieldy, and beyond control? The only desirable speed is that which will check its pace when ordered, which will not rush past the appointed goal, and can be altered and reduced from running to a walk; when our muscles twitch against our will, we know that they are diseased; he who runs when he tries to walk is either old or broken in body. In the operations of the mind we should deem those to be the sanest and the soundest which will start at our pleasure, not rush on at their own.
Nothing, however, will prove as profitable as to consider first the hideousness of the thing, and then its danger. No other emotion has an outward aspect so disordered: it makes ugly the most beautiful faces; through it the most peaceful countenance becomes transformed and fierce; from the angry all grace departs; if they were well-kempt and modish in their dress, they will let their clothing trail and cast off all regard for their person; if their hair was disposed by nature or by art in smooth and becoming style, it bristles up in sympathy with their state of mind; the veins swell, the breast will be racked by incessant panting, the neck will be distended by the frantic outrush of the voice; then the limbs tremble, the hands are restless, the whole body is agitated. What state of mind, think you, lies within when its outward manifestation is so horrible? Within the man’s breast how much more terrible must be the expression, how much fiercer the breathing, how much more violent the strain of his fury, that would itself burst unless it found an outburst! As is the aspect of an enemy or wild beasts wet with the blood of slaughter or bent upon slaughter; as are the hellish monsters of the poet’s brain, all girt about with snakes and breathing fire; as are those most hideous shapes that issue forth from hell to stir up wars and scatter discord among the peoples and tear peace all to shreds; as such let us picture anger — its eyes aflame with fire, blustering with hiss and roar and moan and shriek and every other noise more hateful still if such there be, brandishing weapons in both hands (for it cares naught for self-protection!), fierce and bloody, scarred, and black and blue from its own blows, wild in gait, enveloped in deep darkness, madly charging, ravaging and routing, in travail with hatred of all men, especially of itself, and ready to overturn earth and sea and sky if it can find no ether way to harm, equally hating and hated. Or, if you will, let us take the picture from our poets:
Flaunting her bloody scourge the War-dame strides,
Or Discord glorying in her tattered robe.34
Or make you any other picture of this dread passion that can be devised still more dread.