or cowardice, but from lack
of training in a certain school of fence. He needed the open air for the
play of his broadsword; and to his hand, apt to another hilt, the foil
appeared a woman's weapon. Speaking of high aims and national ideals, he
moved in a large place oblivious of himself; but in the social arena he
tripped with timid steps, like a man essaying an unfamiliar dance. On
the platform he had the enthusiasm and confidence of an orator; on the
carpet he could not string three sentences in any courtly language.

In the North the art of mercurial dialogue, which in the South is a
natural gift, is only learned under favourable conditions, and is often
condemned by those who have it not, as a popinjay's accomplishment.
Immediate cordiality to strangers is frowned upon as tending to divorce
courtesy from truth. It is otherwise with the southern peoples. While
the Englishman conceals his benevolence by a frigid aloofness of manner,
or blurts out friendliness like an indiscretion, the Italian is courtly
without a second thought, and the Frenchman seems the comrade of a
chance acquaintance from the moment when he has taken his hand. They are
amiable without effort in the security of a harmonious nature, and if
they encounter diffidence at all, observe it like an anthropologist
confronted with a survival of primitive times in the culture of a
civilized age.

Taine did not err when he found the home of shyness among the Teutonic
peoples; he saw that it flourishes in climatic conditions acting hardly
upon a vigorous race, and only allowing it to cultivate ease of manner
by effort and outlay, just as they only allow it to raise under glass
the grapes and oranges which more favoured peoples can grow in the open
air. He saw too that this pain of diffidence becomes more subtle as the
progress of culture makes us more sensitive to vague impressions from
our environment, and tunes the nerves to a higher pitch. A shy nature
upon this plane of susceptibility suffers anguish from an uncontrollable
body; and even in peaceful moments the memory of the discomfitures so
inflicted may distort a man's whole view of the world around him. He is
impatient of the wit which demands a versatility in response beyond his
powers, and persuades himself into contempt of those ephemeral arts to
which his nature cannot be constrained. Irritated at the injustice which
places so high in the general scale of values accomplishments which he
cannot pr