passes for a harmless little thing in its ordinary disguise. And yet
all wrath does not manifest itself thus exteriorly. Still waters are
deepest. An imperturbable countenance may mask a very inferno of wrath
and hatred.

To hear us talk, there is no fault in all this, the greater part of the
time. It is a soothing tonic to our conscience after a fit of rage, to
lay all the blame on a defect of character or a naturally bad temper.
If fault there is, it is anybody's but our own. We recall the fact that
patience is a virtue that has its limits, and mention things that we
solemnly aver would try the enduring powers of the beatified on their
thrones in heaven. Some, at a loss otherwise to account for it, protest
that a particular devil got hold of them and made resistance
impossible.

But it was not a devil at all. It was a little volcano, or better, a
little powder magazine hidden away somewhere in the heart. The imp
Pride had its head out looking for a caress, when it received a rebuff
instead. Hastily disappearing within, it spat fire right and left, and
the explosion followed, proportionate in energy and destructive power
to the quantity of pent-up self-love that served as a charge. Once the
mine is fired, in the confusion and disorder that follow, vengeance
stalks forth in quest of the miscreant that did the wrong.

Anger is the result of hurt pride, of injured self-love. It is a
violent and inordinate commotion of the soul that seeks to wreak
vengeance for an injury done. The causes that arouse anger vary
infinitely in reasonableness, and there are all degrees of intensity.

The malice of anger consists wholly in the measure of our deliberate