austed.

His friends and relations make matters still more unpleasant for the
poor boy (friends and relations are privileged to be more disagreeable
than other people). Not content with making fun of him among themselves,
they insist on his seeing the joke. They mimic and caricature him for
his own edification. One, pretending to imitate him, goes outside
and comes in again in a ludicrously nervous manner, explaining to him
afterward that that is the way he--meaning the shy fellow--walks into
a room; or, turning to him with "This is the way you shake hands,"
proceeds to go through a comic pantomime with the rest of the room,
taking hold of every one's hand as if it were a hot plate and flabbily
dropping it again. And then they ask him why he blushes, and why he
stammers, and why he always speaks in an almost inaudible tone, as if
they thought he did it on purpose. Then one of them, sticking out his
chest and strutting about the room like a pouter-pigeon, suggests quite
seriously that that is the style he should adopt. The old man slaps him
on the back and says: "Be bold, my boy. Don't be afraid of any one." The
mother says, "Never do anything that you need be ashamed of, Algernon,
and then you never need be ashamed of anything you do," and, beaming
mildly at him, seems surprised at the clearness of her own logic. The
boys tell him that he's "worse than a girl," and the girls repudiate the
implied slur upon their sex by indignantly exclaiming that they are sure
no girl would be half as bad.

They are quite right; no girl would be. There is no such thing as a shy
woman, or, at all events, I have never come across one, and until I do I
shall not believe in them. I know that the generally accepted belief
is quite the reverse. All women are supposed to be like timid, startled
fawns, blushing and casting down their gentle eyes when looked at and
running away when spoken to; while we man are supposed to be a bold and
rollicky lot, and the poor dear little women admire us for it, but are
terribly afraid of us. It is a pretty theory, but, like most generally
accepted theories, mere nonsense. The girl of twelve is self-contained
and as cool as the proverbial cucumber, while her brother of twenty
stammers and stutters by her side. A woman will enter a concert-room
late, interrupt the performance, and disturb the whole audience
without moving a hair, while her husband follows her, a crushed heap of
apologizing misery.

The super