Don't cut off your nose to spite your face
Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Pictures; or, More of His Plain Talk for Plain People
SPITE YOUR FACE.
ANGER is a short madness. The less
we do when we go mad the better for
everybody, and the less we go mad the
better for ourselves. He is far gone who
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DON'T CUT OFF YOUR NOSE. 51
hurts himself to wreak his vengeance on
others. The old saying is " Don't cut off
your head because it aches," and another
says " Set not your house on fire to spite
the moon." If things go awry, it is a poor
way of mending to make them worse, as the
man did who took to drinking because he
could not marry the girl he liked. He
must be a fool who cuts off his nose to spite
his face, and yet this is what Dick did
when he had vexed his old master, and be-
cause he was chid must needs give up his-
place, throw himself out of work, and
starve his wife and family. Jane had been
idle, and she knew it, but sooner than let
her mistress speak to her, she gave warn-
ing, and lost as good a service as a maid
could wish for. Old Griggs was wrong,,
and could not deny it, and yet because the
parson's sermon fitted him rather close, he
took the sulks and vowed he would never
hear the good man again. It was his own
loss, but he wouldn't listen to reason, but
was as wilful as a pig.
Do nothing when you are out of temper,
and then you will have less to undo. Let
a hasty man's passion be a warning to you ;
52 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
if he scalds you, take heed that you do not
let your own pot boil over. Many a man
has given himself a box on the ear in his
blind rage, ay, and ended his own life out
of spite. He who cannot curb his temper
carries gunpowder in his bosom, and he is
neither safe for himself nor his neighbors.
When passion comes in at the door, what
little sense there is indoors flies out at the
window. By-and-by a hasty man cools
and comes to himself, like MacGibbon's
gruel when he put it out of the window,
but if his nose is off in the meantime, who
is to put it on again ? He will only be
sorry once and that will be all the rest of
his life. Anger does a man more hurt than
that which made him angry. It opens his
mouth and shuts his eyes, and fires his
heart, and drowns his sense, and makes his
wisdom folly. Old Tompkins told me that
he was sorry that he lost his temper, and
I could not help thinking that the pity
was that he ever found it again, for it was
Hke an old shoe with the sole gone and the
upper leathers worn out, only fit for a dung-
hill. A hot-tempered man would be all the
better for a new heart, and a right spirit.
DOX-T CUT OFF YOUR NOSE. 53
Anger is a fire which cooks no victuals, and
comforts no household : it cuts and curses
and kills, and no one knows what it may-
lead to ; therefore, good reader, don't let it
lodge in your bosom, and if it ever comes
there, pass the vagrant on to the next parish.
Gently, gently, little pot,
Why so hasty to be hot ?
Over you will surely boil,
And I know not what you'll spoil.
The old gent in our picture has a fine
nose of his own, and though he will be a
fool to cut it off, he would be wise to cut
off the supplies which have made it such a
size. That glass and jug on the table are
the paint-pots that he colors his nose with,
and everbody knows, whether he knows it
or knows it not, that his nose is the out-
ward and visible sign of a good deal of in-
ward and spirituous drink, and the sooner he
drops his drops the better. So here we
will cut off, not our nose, but the present
subject.