As Sextius remarks, it has been good for some people to see themselves in a mirror while they are angry the great change in themselves alarmed them; brought, as it were, face to face with the reality they did not recognize themselves. And how little of the real ugliness did that image reflected in the mirror disclose! If the soul could be shown, if it were in some substance through which it might shine, its black and mottled, inflamed, distorted and swollen appearance would confound us as we gazed upon it. Even as it is, though it can only come to the surface through flesh, bones, and so many obstacles, its hideousness is thus great — what if it could be shown stark naked? You may perhaps think that no one has really been frightened out of anger by a mirror. Well, what then? The man who had gone to the mirror in order to effect a change in himself was already a changed man; while men remain angry no image is more beautiful than one which is fierce and savage, and such as they are they wish also to appear.
This, rather, is what we ought to realize — how many men anger in and of itself has injured. Some through too much passion have burst their veins, a shout that strains our strength has carried with it blood, and too powerful a rush of tears to the eyes has blurred the sharpness of their vision, and sickly people have fallen back into illnesses. There is no quicker road to madness. Many, therefore, have continued in the frenzy of anger, and have never recovered the reason that had been unseated. It was frenzy that drove Ajax to his death and anger drove him into frenzy. These all call down death upon their children, poverty upon themselves, destruction upon their house, and they deny that they are angry just as the frenzied deny that they are mad. They become enemies to their closest friends and have to be shunned by those most dear; regardless of all law except as a means to injure, swayed by trifles, difficult to approach by either word or kindly act, they conduct themselves always with violence and are ready either to fight with the sword or to fall upon it.35 For the fact is that the greatest of all evils, the vice that surpasses all others, has laid hold upon them. Other ills come gradually, but the power of this is sudden and complete. In short, it brings into subjection all other passions. It conquers the most ardent love, and so in anger men have stabbed the bodies that they loved and have lain in the arms of those whom they had slain; avarice, the most stubborn and unbending evil, has been trodden under foot by anger after being forced to scatter her wealth and to set fire to her home and all her collected treasure. Tell me, has not also the ambitious man torn off the highly prized insignia of his office and rejected the honor that had been conferred? There is no passion of any kind over which anger does not hold mastery.