The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1874-01-08
fh1peclIne or Shrne.s.

generally considered the travestie ot
modesty- n reality, however, shy
ness IS less4requentiy the travestie OF
modesty tls4n ITS opposite. Modesty
is made up OF three ingredients-Of
some uncsasciOus merit, of absence
of self-coReit, and OF respect for
others. S1yness is also usually COM
posed OF three parts-of much con-
scious demerit, of an inconsistent de-
sire for seit-assertion, and q fear of
others The form it takes depends up
on which OF these three ingredients
predOminafes in the mixture.
The genuine impudent man, :he
man with q supreme incapaeity for
,, feeling or showing shame, moves
through the world graceful and serene
No one calls him impudent it Is
geniality, sduoir fdire, tact, and good
style-the spade is anything, in short,
except 3 spade. He is satisfied and at
ease with himself, and therefore
makes others satisfied and at ease
with him and with themselves. The
sO-called impudent man is the shy
man who, being conscious to himself
ofreaI or imaginary inferioritg, thinks
himself Obliged to seem what his un-
happy lack of true impotence AMI
true modesty will not allow him to
be. Being in his heart afraid of his
own voice, he rushes into talk with
the random rashness of a coward. Be
iieving himself to be necessarily un-
derrated, he seizes his own trumpet,
and bows thereon the wearisome note
of. He thinks il a social duty to be
entertaining, always and everywhere,
and 30. ike 5he German Baron, prae-
tices dhowto be lifely" by morally
jumping over the tables and chairs.
Afraid or ashamed of being left in the
rear. he makes point of charging ia
the very van. And thus, while the
impudeut float quietly and serenely
down the stream, he throws himself
into social whirlpools for fear of being
drowned. National characters for i'm
pudeRce areiobiained in the same way.
Nobody ever calls the typical German
| impudent, yetsthere Is probably no
man who surpasses him in that grand
requisite for practical success. The
fact is, that shy German is far rarer
than the prOverblai black swan. 1t is
the Irishman, the Frenchman, the
Yankee who is called impudent, simp-
ly because the constant burden of con-
sciousness of himself or consciousness
of his country renders him shy and i'll
at ease. The burlesque Of the "Mod-
est Irishman,n so familiar in farces
and novels, is the portrait, not of an
impndent but of superiatiYely shy
man. Women are not often afflicted
with shyness in its extreme and OBJ
trusive form. This, according to the
analysis, must be for one Of three
reasons. They must be either less in
clined to suspect themselves of hav-
ing dement's than men are, or they
must be less prone to self-assertion, or
they must be less timid. Certainly,
when a woman is shy she generally
prefers the old-fashioned way; though
even women seem year by year grow
ing more alive to the perilous tempts-
tions of the new.
Ordinary sbyness, then, is rapidly
changing its character. 1t is very dif-
ferent from the blushing, suffering
sort that used to be common, but is
now rare. Still, in their essence the
old and the new are the same. The
bluster of the so-called impudent fel-
low is, in nine cases out of ten, moth
ing more than the result of a mans
being ashamed of being ashamed.
| Shyness, even of the blushing order, is
essentially the outward expression OF
lself-mistrusting conceit, q high self
valuation spoiled by the scret fear that
the self-valuation is too high, q con-
tempt for those who fail to appreciate
the patients merits, mingled with a
suspicion that a contemptuous and
contemplate world may be right after
all. Sometimes, of course, the appar-
emily shy man is mistaken in his fears
that he rates himself too highly and
then his shyness trenches on the
scarce virtue of modesty. But as in
most cases the fear is only too well
founded, the unhappy self-tormentsr
is driven to do one of two things. In
former days he avoided an uncouge-
NAL world as much as possible, and
hid himself away in the refuge OF his
home, his office, or his college rooms,
and affected an air of not wholly un-
graceful mock misanthropy. Now, as
| q rule, he adopts the other alternative.
/ He is, as a matter of course, an habi-
| tual self-analyst. He has heard and
read of the successful results of impu-
deace and self-assertion, and he, too,
resolves, by q conscious effort of will,
to become impudent and self-assert-
/ ing. But, even as the really impu-
dent man who succeeds is born, not
made, so the wsuld-be self-made i'm
pudent fellow is notnecessarily DOOM
ed to fail.
There is much to be said for honest
shyness. The world, as yet, owes but
little to shy men and women of the
new school; but it owes a great deal
more than it can ever repay to those
of the old, who accepted their own
nature and either followed it or let it
yield gradually to the hand of Time
that great artist who never fails to
brazen cheeks and thicken skins.
The old-fashioned scholar was pro-
verbally shy; and it is doubtful, to
say the least, If we have improved the
breed. Who has not known some
clergyman, some artist, or even some
man of business-belonging to a set
ting generation-who shrunk from
display, and was driven back to throw
all his energies honestly upon his
work, simply because he was shy
/ man? Great orators have mostly set
out with a shyness that developed in
to the conscious respect for q mans
self, his audience, and his cause,
1 Is W nav OAOO0 - W
race horse. Ready fiuency is the pre-
cious privilege of true impudence, but
elouuence comes of native shyness,
| which is not ashamed of being shy.
1t is what is transatiantically called
''Oratingn that belongs to the would
be impudent form Of shyness, which
is so inexpressibly painful to its hear
ers, and, happily as its hearers will
think, far more painful to the speech
maker than is commonly supposed.
In a word, a,shy man who is asham-
ed of being shy generally richly de-
serves all the character for awkward
impudence that he usually obtains.
His career is one long struggle with
destiny in the character of conceit-
ed and cowardly bypocrite; and he
deliberately prefers such q career to
earning the rewards that come at last
to him who is not ashamed to blush
and hold his tongue.
n. Cfanbaue and CauaFal sherman