Anger for a short time — until sunset, as the apostle briskly suggests (Eph. 4:26) — may help us over the shock of injury. It can open the way within our thoughts for an active pursuit of just reckoning and just reaction, which will draw us away from the one-sided grief of an injured plaintiff to a fuller understanding of the wrong that was done, and may lead us in the end to the most positive action imaginable in the face of wrong, which is clear-headed, unsentimental forgiveness. So it may help us to recover our capacity for action. Yet once the fire of anger has died, it may leave behind a
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