though we
know well enough that he has no power to injure us, the flashing eye,
the distended nostril, the rising pallor, the uplifted voice have a
disagreeable effect on our nerves, although we know well that no
physical disaster will result from it. Mrs. Browning, for instance,
though she had high moral courage and tenacity of purpose, could not
face an interview with her father, because an exhibition of his anger
caused her to faint away on the spot. One does not often experience
this whiff of violent anger in middle life; but the other day I had
occasion to speak to a colleague of mine on a Board of which I am a
member, at the conclusion of a piece of business in which I had
proposed and carried a certain policy. I did not know that he
disapproved of the policy in question, but I found on speaking to him
that he was in a towering passion at my having opposed the policy which
he preferred. He grew pale with rage; the hair on his head seemed to
bristle, his eyes flashed fire; he slammed down a bundle of papers in
his hand on the table, he stamped with passion; and I confess that it
was profoundly disturbing and disconcerting. I felt for a moment that
sickening sense of misgiving with which as a little boy one confronted
an angry schoolmaster. Though I knew that I had a perfect right to my
opinion, though I recognised that my sensations were quite irrational,
I felt myself confronted with something demoniacal and insane, and the
basis of it was, I am sure, physical and not moral terror. If I had
been bullied or chastised as a child, I should be able to refer the
discomfort I felt to old associations. But I feel no doubt that my
emotion was something far more primeval than that, and that the dumb
and atrophied sense of self-preservation was at work. The fear then
that I felt was an instinctive thing, and was experienced in the inner
nature and not in the rational mind; and the perplexity of the
situation arises from the fact that such fear cannot be combated by
rational considerations. Though no harm whatever resulted or could
result from such an interview, yet I am certain that the prospect of
such an outbreak would make me in the future far more cautious in
dealing with this particular man, more anxious to conciliate him, and
probably more disposed to compromise a matter.

Such an incident makes one unpleasantly aware of the quality of one's
nature and temperament. It shows one that though one may have a strong
moral