The historian of the conquest of Peru tells us how Gasca was assailed by reproaches and invectives which, however, had no power to disturb his equanimity; he patiently listened, and replied to all in the mild tone of expostulation best calculated to turn away wrath. “By this victory over himself,” says Garcilasso, “he acquired more real glory, than by all his victories over his foes.” As Spenser has it,—
“Words well-disposed
Have secret power t’ appease inflamèd rage.”
Sir Matthew Hale’s celebrated letter of advice includes this counsel,—if a person be passionate, and give you ill language, rather to pity him than be moved to anger. We shall find, the pious judge asserts, that silence, or very gentle words, are the most exquisite revenge for reproaches; they will either cure the distemper in the angry man, and make him sorry for his passion, or they will be a severe reproof and punishment to him. “But at any rate,” adds Sir Matthew, “they will preserve your innocence, give you the deserved reputation of wisdom and moderation, and keep up the serenity and composure of your mind. Passion and anger make a man unfit for everything that becomes him as a man or as a Christian.”
The fact is, maintains the author of “The Gentle Life,” all hard words are a mistake: most of our quarrels arise from a total misunderstanding of each other; and at any rate, hard words will not mend the matter. One might as well, he says, try to mend glass windows by pelting them with stones. Soft words, on the other hand, fall like a healing balm on the hearts of all. “Such power,” in the words of one who loved to be written, if not to write himself, Leontius, “such power has the least shadow of a pleasant speech, to do away an ill-feeling of the moment, in the complacency it produces, both in the giver and receiver.” To apply, again, a passage from Spenser, descriptive of a damsel’s success in deterring two doughty knights from mortal encounter, so effective was her speech to
... “calm the sea of their tempestuous spite:
Such power have pleasing words! Such is the might
Of courteous clemency in gentle heart!”
We are all of us fond of gentle words, once more to quote an ex titulo authority on all that concerns gentle living; and he denies the truth of the common rough proverb, “Soft words butter no parsnips,” which is shown to be, after all, an apologetic proverb, meaning that the hearer is tickled with the politeness, albeit real satisfaction is not yet made. “Soft words do butter parsnips; and many an oily fellow, whose talent, industry, and conscientiousness are small, owes his position and advancement in life to the soft words which drop continually from his mouth.” The soft answer that avails to dispel wrath, comes of practised patience; and when patience has its perfect work, it works miracles, as detailed by that fine old forgotten poet, Decker:—
“It is the greatest enemy to law