ss and
insolence on the part of children should be publicly rebuked; and as a
matter of fact both rudeness and insolence are far oftener the result of
shyness than is easily supposed.

After the shyness of adolescence there often follows a further stage.
The shy person has learnt a certain wisdom; he becomes aware how easily
he detects pretentiousness in other people, and realises that there is
nothing to be gained by claiming a width of experience which he does not
possess, and that the being unmasked is even more painful than feeling
deficient and ill-equipped. Then too he learns to suspect that when
he has tried to be impressive, he has often only succeeded in being
priggish; and the result is that he falls into a kind of speechlessness,
comforting himself, as he sits mute and awkward, unduly elongated, and
with unaccountable projections of limb and feature, that if only other
people were a little less self-absorbed, had the gift of perceiving
hidden worth and real character, and could pierce a little below the
surface, they would realise what reserves of force and tenderness lay
beneath the heavy shapelessness of which he is still conscious. Then is
the time for the shy person to apply himself to social gymnastics. He
is not required to be voluble; but if he will practise bearing a hand,
seeing what other people need and like, carrying on their line of
thought, constructing small conversational bridges, asking the right
questions, perhaps simulating an interest in the pursuits of others
which he does not naturally feel, he may unloose the burden from his
back. Then is the time to practise a sympathetic smile, or better still
to allow oneself to indicate and even express the sympathy one feels;
and the experimentalist will soon become aware how welcome such
unobtrusive sympathy is. He will be amazed at first to find that,
instead of being tolerated, he will be confided in; he will be regarded
as a pleasant adjunct to a party, and he will soon have the even
pleasanter experience of finding that his own opinions and adventures,
if they are not used to cap and surpass the opinions and adventures of
others, but to elicit them, will be duly valued. Yet, alas, a good many
shy people never reach that stage, but take refuge in a critical and
fastidious attitude. I had an elderly relative of this kind--who
does not know the type?--who was a man of wide interests and accurate
information, but a perfect terror in the domestic c