actise, shrinking from the suave devices of gesture and
expression which in his own case might quickly pass into antic or
grimace, he withdraws more and more from the places where such arts win
esteem to live in a private world of inner sentiment. As he leaves this
sure retreat but rarely himself, so he forbids ingress to others; and
becoming yearly a greater recluse, he confines himself more and more
within the walls of his forbidden city. The mind which may have been
fitted to expand in the free play of intellectual debate or to explore
the high peaks of idea, loses its power of flight in this cave where it
dwells with a company of sad thoughts, until at last the sacrifice is
complete and the perfect eremite is formed.

But the virile Teutonic spirit does not suffer things to reach this
ultimate pass without stubborn resistance, and this is one reason why
shyness is often so conspicuous, seeming deliberately to court an
avoidable confusion. Over and over again it forces the recalcitrant body
back into the arena, preferring repeated humiliation to a pusillanimous
surrender. People often wonder at the recklessness with which the shy
expose themselves to disaster, forgetting that in this insistence of a
soul under discomfiture, there is evidence of a moral strength which is
its own reward. What discipline is harder than that which conscientious
diffidence imposes upon itself? To stand forth and endure, though every
instinct implores retreat, is a true assertion of the higher self for
the satisfaction of imperious duty. Such deliberate return towards
suffering is no cowardice, but a triumph over weak flesh; and the
awkward strife of diffidence may often prove a greater feat of arms than
the supple fence of self-possession.

Like the physical obstacles, the mists, the snows and bleak winds, which
have hardened the fibre of northern men, diffidence as an obstacle to
ease has its place among the causes of strong character; and those who
appear at a first glance weak and ineffectual as Hamlet, will often in
the light of knowledge be found guided by the most inflexible moral
determination. They see, as in a mirage, peace supreme and adorable, but
may not tread the hermit's path that leads to her dwelling. Only a
religious vow might justify the abandonment of the human struggle, and
even that appears desertion. The stern genius of the North grudges
immurement, even to great piety, remembering that Christ himself
remained but f