Hot-tempered people should also abstain from the more burdensome pursuits, or at least should not ply these to the point of exhaustion, and the mind should not be engaged by too many interests, but should surrender itself to such arts as are pleasurable. Let it be soothed by the reading of poetry and gripped by the tales of history; it should be much coddled and pampered. Pythagoras used to calm his troubled spirit with the lyre; and who does not know that the clarion and the trumpet act as incitements to the mind, and that, similarly, certain songs are a soothing balm that brings it relaxation? Green things are good for disordered eyes, and certain colors are restful to weak vision, while by the brightness of others it is blinded, So pleasant pursuits soothe the troubled mind. We should shun the courts, court appearances, and trials, and everything that aggravates our weakness, and we should equally guard against physical exhaustion; for this destroys whatever gentleness and mildness we have and engenders sharpness. Those, therefore, who distrust their digestion, before they proceed to the performance of tasks of unusual difficulty, allay their bile with food; for fatigue especially arouses the bile, possibly because it drives the body’s heat toward the center, vitiates the blood, and stops its circulation by clogging the veins, or because the body when it is worn and feeble weighs down the mind. For the same reason, undoubtedly, those who are broken by ill-health and age are more irascible than others. Hunger and thirst also, for the same reasons, must be avoided; they exasperate and irritate the mind. There is an old proverb that “the tired man seeks a quarrel,” but it applies just as well to the hungry and thirsty man, and to any man who chafes under something. For just as a bodily sore hurts under the slightest touch, afterwards even at the suggestion of a touch, so the disordered mind takes offense at the merest trifles, so that even, in the case of some people, a greeting, a letter, a speech, or a question provokes a dispute. There will always be a protest if you touch a sore spot.