How to Control Anger

AS A BOY I used to observe certain grown-ups of my acquaintance with awe. They seemed to me to be wonderful people. Always they were kind and pleasant. And they were never patronizing, like some of the other grown-ups that I did not care for at all. I remember the shock I received when I saw one of those heroes of mine show anger. It was as if he had suddenly become a demon. Then I had my first realization of the extraordinary change that anger could create in a human being.

I SUPPOSE that all children, consciously or unconsciously, go through the same experience. And yet, horrible as anger appears in their eyes, it doesn't keep them from showing anger themselves. On the contrary, it actually encourages them to express anger, according to nature's habit of teaching by imitation.

WE OCCASIONALLY hear of "righteous anger." We mean anger that is justified by circumstances. But, in a sense, all anger is righteous. That is, all anger justifies itself in the mind of the person who feels the anger. In another sense, there is no such thing as righteous anger. For no anger can really justify itself.

ANGER is a form of madness. The words we apply to it show that human beings have long recognized its character. We still speak of angry people as mad. We sometimes say that they are "furious" or "in a fury." Some people are led by anger into the most violent excesses. Anger is one of the commonest causes of murder and it often leads to the infliction of blows, mental or physical, that might easily occasion murder. Oftener still it commits murder without loss of life, by doing to minds and souls mischief irreparable. In one respect anger is like drunkenness. It tends to destroy prudence. Where the intoxication of anger is complete, prudence disappears altogether. Then the way is clear for infamy. There are some people who, when they have once yielded to anger, lose all control. They snatch any weapon within reach. If they cannot strike with things they will strike with