Temperament

By nature, as often confessed before, I am a creature of wrath and pride. Not anger or arrogance, those more human shades of infamy, but ira and superbia, as the ancients used to call them – two of the seven deadly sins. By faith, as I have made thanksgiving for many times as well, I am a creature in whom these natural urges are balanced by the temperance of patience and humility, sometimes bitterly imposed upon this mortal soul. The ancients would have called me a creature of bile, both choleric and melancholy; but as we know, all this classification is twaddle – after all, the two are opposed, so how should it be so?

And yet, when faced with students who prefer not to learn their lessons, one is tempted again. It is a mortification to my flesh, the returning realisation that one is not immune to sin, although one may have been justified by faith. The instinct to wrath is the worst in my family; the men all have it to a large extent. The instinct to pride is a bad complement to it: in wrath, one is oft tempted to use one's intellect as a bludgeon rather than a rapier, but in pride, one is tempted to use it both ways, to pierce and wound as well as to bruise. The phrases, 'a sound thumping' and 'a good thrashing' come to mind, with attendant shudders and a sense of sadness that one should think of them in the first place.

And so, one smiles a lot, and trusts by faith in one's calling and the One calling. But on some days it is very hard. Very hard, dolorous almost, painful, and wrenching to the soul. The natural self is quite a beast to ride. Sigh. But otherwise, how could one be tempered? Certainly not by losing one's temper through distemper or intemperance. Certainly not by taking apart the works of other men in order to establish one's own. And certainly not by allowing the spleen to override the brain.