pt anything of the kind, my dear young shy
friend. Your attempt to put on any other disposition than your own will
infallibly result in your becoming ridiculously gushing and offensively
familiar. Be your own natural self, and then you will only be thought to
be surly and stupid.

The shy man does have some slight revenge upon society for the torture
it inflicts upon him. He is able, to a certain extent, to communicate
his misery. He frightens other people as much as they frighten him.
He acts like a damper upon the whole room, and the most jovial spirits
become in his presence depressed and nervous.

This is a good deal brought about by misunderstanding. Many people
mistake the shy man's timidity for overbearing arrogance and are
awed and insulted by it. His awkwardness is resented as insolent
carelessness, and when, terror-stricken at the first word addressed to
him, the blood rushes to his head and the power of speech completely
fails him, he is regarded as an awful example of the evil effects of
giving way to passion.

But, indeed, to be misunderstood is the shy man's fate on every
occasion; and whatever impression he endeavors to create, he is sure
to convey its opposite. When he makes a joke, it is looked upon as a
pretended relation of fact and his want of veracity much condemned.
His sarcasm is accepted as his literal opinion and gains for him the
reputation of being an ass, while if, on the other hand, wishing to
ingratiate himself, he ventures upon a little bit of flattery, it is
taken for satire and he is hated ever afterward.

These and the rest of a shy man's troubles are always very amusing to
other people, and have afforded material for comic writing from time
immemorial. But if we look a little deeper we shall find there is a
pathetic, one might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. A shy
man means a lonely man--a man cut off from all companionship, all
sociability. He moves about the world, but does not mix with it. Between
him and his fellow-men there runs ever an impassable barrier--a strong,
invisible wall that, trying in vain to scale, he but bruises himself
against. He sees the pleasant faces and hears the pleasant voices on the
other side, but he cannot stretch his hand across to grasp another hand.
He stands watching the merry groups, and he longs to speak and to claim
kindred with them. But they pass him by, chatting gayly to one another,
and he cannot stay them. He tries to reach them,