y sacrifice to the god of their neighbor's
opinion.

The shy man, on the other hand, is humble--modest of his own judgment
and over-anxious concerning that of others. But this in the case of
a young man is surely right enough. His character is unformed. It is
slowly evolving itself out of a chaos of doubt and disbelief. Before
the growing insight and experience the diffidence recedes. A man rarely
carries his shyness past the hobbledehoy period. Even if his own inward
strength does not throw it off, the rubbings of the world generally
smooth it down. You scarcely ever meet a really shy man--except
in novels or on the stage, where, by the bye, he is much admired,
especially by the women.

There, in that supernatural land, he appears as a fair-haired and
saintlike young man--fair hair and goodness always go together on the
stage. No respectable audience would believe in one without the other.
I knew an actor who mislaid his wig once and had to rush on to play the
hero in his own hair, which was jet-black, and the gallery howled at
all his noble sentiments under the impression that he was the villain.
He--the shy young man--loves the heroine, oh so devotedly (but only
in asides, for he dare not tell her of it), and he is so noble and
unselfish, and speaks in such a low voice, and is so good to his mother;
and the bad people in the play, they laugh at him and jeer at him, but
he takes it all so gently, and in the end it transpires that he is such
a clever man, though nobody knew it, and then the heroine tells him she
loves him, and he is so surprised, and oh, so happy! and everybody loves
him and asks him to forgive them, which he does in a few well-chosen and
sarcastic words, and blesses them; and he seems to have generally such
a good time of it that all the young fellows who are not shy long to be
shy. But the really shy man knows better. He knows that it is not quite
so pleasant in reality. He is not quite so interesting there as in the
fiction. He is a little more clumsy and stupid and a little less devoted
and gentle, and his hair is much darker, which, taken altogether,
considerably alters the aspect of the case.

The point where he does resemble his ideal is in his faithfulness. I am
fully prepared to allow the shy young man that virtue: he is constant in
his love. But the reason is not far to seek. The fact is it exhausts
all his stock of courage to look one woman in the face, and it would
be simply impossible f