Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, Addressed to a Lady

London

Printed by H. Hughs, For J. Walter

1773

"By accustoming yourself thus to conquer and disappoint your anger, you will, by degrees, find it grow weak and manageable, so as to leave your reason at liberty."

It is plain, from experience, that the most passionate people can command themselves, when they have a motive sufficiently strong—such as the presence of those they fear, or to whom they particularly desire to recommend themselves; it is therefore no excuse to persons, whom you have injured by unkind reproaches, and unjust aspersions, to tell them you was in a passion; the allowing yourself to speak to them in a passion is a proof of an insolent disrespect, which the meanest of your fellow-creatures would have a right to resent. When once you find yourself heated so far as to desire to say what you know would be provoking and wounding to another, you should immediately resolve either to be silent, or to quit the room, rather than give utterance to any thing dictated by so bad an inclination. Be assured, you are then unfit to reason or to reprove, or to hear reason from others. It is therefore your part to retire from such an occasion of sin; and wait till you are cool, before you presume to judge of what has passed. By accustoming yourself thus to conquer and disappoint your anger, you will, by degrees, find it grow weak and manageable, so as to leave your reason at liberty. You will be able to restrain your tongue from evil, and your looks and gestures from all expressions of violence and ill-will. Pride, which produces so many evils in the human mind, is the great source of passion. Whoever cultivates in himself a proper humility, a due sense of his own faults and insufficiencies, and a due respect for others, will find but small temptation to violent or unreasonable anger.
(II, pp. 12-15)

War::Conquest Uncategorized::Liberty

Reading

At least 32 entries in ESTC (1773, 1774, 1775, 1777, 1778, 1783, 1786, 1787, 1790, 1793, 1797, 1800).

See Hester Chapone, Letters on the Improvement of the Mind, Addressed to a Lady, 2 vols. (London: Printed by H. Hughs for J. Walter, 1773). <Link to ECCO> <Vol. 1 in Google Books><Project Gutenberg Edition>

06/16/2011