§ xi. Now though all the passions need such discipline as by exercise shall tame and subdue their unreasoning and disobedient elements, yet there is none which we ought to keep under by such discipline so much as the exhibition of anger to our servants. For neither envy, nor fear, nor rivalry come into play between them and us; but our frequent displays of anger to them, creating many offences and faults, make us to slip as if on slippery ground owing to our autocracy with our servants, which no one resists or prevents. For it is impossible to check irresponsible power so as never to break out under the influence of passion, unless one wields power with much meekness, and refuses to listen to the frequent complaints of one's wife and friends charging one with being too easy and lax with one's servants. And by nothing have I been more exasperated against them, as if they were being ruined for want of correction. At last, though late, I got to see that in the first place it is better to make them worse by forbearance, than by bitterness and anger to distort oneself for the correction of others. In the next place I observed that many for the very reason that they were not corrected were frequently ashamed to be bad, and made pardon rather than punishment the commencement of their reformation, aye, and made better slaves to some merely at their nod silently and cheerfully than to others with all their beatings and brandings, and so I came to the conclusion that reason gets better obeyed than temper, for it is not as the poet said,
but it is just the other way about, for self-respect begets that kind of fear that corrects the behaviour. But perpetual and pitiless beating produces not so much repentance for wrong-doing as contrivances to continue in it without detection. In the third place, ever remembering and reflecting within myself that, just as he that teaches us the use of the bow does not forbid us to shoot but only to miss the mark, so it will not prevent punishment altogether to teach people to do it in season, and with moderation, utility, and decorum, I strive to remove anger most especially by not forbidding