seless for a man in the habit of losing or mislaying his temper
to argue with himself that such a proceeding is folly, that it serves no
end, and does nothing but harm. It is useless for him to argue that in
allowing his temper to stray he is probably guilty of cruelty, and
certainly guilty of injustice to those persons who are forced to witness
the loss. It is useless for him to argue that a man of uncertain temper
in a house is like a man who goes about a house with a loaded revolver
sticking from his pocket, and that all considerations of fairness and
reason have to be subordinated in that house to the fear of the
revolver, and that such peace as is maintained in that house is often a
shameful and an unjust peace. These arguments will not be strong enough
to prevail against one of the most powerful and capricious of all
habits. This habit must be met and conquered (and it _can_ be!) by an
even more powerful quality in the human mind; I mean the universal human
horror of looking ridiculous. The man who loses his temper often thinks
he is doing something rather fine and majestic. On the contrary, so far
is this from being the fact, he is merely making an ass of himself. He
is merely parading himself as an undignified fool, as that supremely
contemptible figure--a grown-up baby. He may intimidate a feeble
companion by his raging, or by the dark sullenness of a more subdued
flame, but in the heart of even the weakest companion is a bedrock
feeling of contempt for him. The way in which a man of uncertain temper
is treated by his friends proves that they despise him, for they do not
treat him as a reasonable being. How should they treat him as a
reasonable being when the tenure of his reason is so insecure? And if
only he could hear what is said of him behind his back!...

The invalid can cure himself by teaching his brain the habit of dwelling
upon his extreme fatuity. Let him concentrate regularly, with intense
fixation, upon the ideas: 'When I lose my temper, when I get ruffled,
when that mysterious vibration runs through me, I am making a donkey of
myself, a donkey, and a donkey! You understand, a preposterous donkey! I
am behaving like a great baby. I look a fool. I am a spectacle bereft of
dignity. Everybody despises me, smiles at me in secret, disdains the
idiotic ass with whom it is impossible to reason.'

Ordinarily the invalid disguises from himself this aspect of his
disease, and his brain will instinctively avo