Patient Only When No One Tests Us

It is like all the poisonous kinds of serpents or wild beasts. While they stay in solitude and in their own lairs, they are still not harmless; for they cannot really be called harmless just because they are not actually hurting anybody. In their case this comes not from any good disposition but from the necessity of solitude, and as soon as they get a chance to hurt someone, they at once bring out the poison stored up in them and show the ferocity of their nature. So too, for men who are aiming at perfection, it is not enough not to be angry with men. For we remember that when we were living in solitude a feeling of irritation would creep over us against our pen, because it was too large or too small; against our penknife, when it cut what we wanted cut badly and with a blunt edge; and against a flint if by chance, when we were rather late and hurrying to the reading, a spark of fire flashed out. And we could not remove and get rid of our disturbance of mind except by cursing the senseless material, or at least the devil. [a]

So, as a method of perfection, it will be of no use for there to be a shortage of men against whom our anger might be roused. For if patience has not already been gained, the feelings of passion still living in our hearts can spend themselves just as well on dumb things and paltry objects, and will not let us reach a lasting state of peace or be free from our remaining faults. Unless, perhaps, we think that some advantage, and a kind of cure for our passion, may be gained from the fact that lifeless and speechless things cannot possibly answer back to our curses and rage, or provoke our ungovernable temper to break out into a worse madness of passion.