st.

"Well, you hear men talk about it as though it were, but I tell you
it's much nearer tragedy. Take some poor, raw, young fellow who has
just put up his plate in a strange town. He has found it a trial all
his life, perhaps, to talk to a woman about lawn tennis and church
services. When a young man IS shy he is shyer than any girl. Then
down comes an anxious mother and consults him upon the most intimate
family matters. 'I shall never go to that doctor again,' says she
afterwards. 'His manner is so stiff and unsympathetic.' Unsympathetic!
Why, the poor lad was struck dumb and paralysed. I have known general
practitioners who were so shy that they could not bring themselves to
ask the way in the street. Fancy what sensitive men like that must
endure before they get broken in to medical practice. And then they
know that nothing is so catching as shyness, and that if they do not
keep a face of stone, their patient will be covered with confusion.
And so they keep their face of stone, and earn the reputation perhaps
of having a heart to correspond. I suppose nothing would shake YOUR
nerve, Manson."

"Well, when a man lives year in year out among a thousand lunatics,
with a fair sprinkling of homicidals among them, one's nerves either
get set or shattered. Mine are all right so far."

"I was frightened once," says the surgeon. "It was when I was doing
dispensary work. One night I had a call from some very poor people,
and gathered from the few words they said that their child was ill.
When I entered the room I saw a small cradle in the corner. Raising
the lamp I walked over and putting back the curtains I looked down at
the baby. I tell you it was sheer Providence that I didn't drop that
lamp and set the whole place alight. The head on the pillow turned and
I saw a face looking up at me which seemed to me to have more
malignancy and wickedness than ever I had dreamed of in a nightmare.
It was the flush of red over the cheekbones, and the brooding eyes full
of loathing of me, and of everything else, that impressed me. I'll
never forget my start as, instead of the chubby face of an infant, my
eyes fell upon this creature. I took the mother into the next room.
'What is it?' I asked. 'A girl of sixteen,' said she, and then
throwing up her arms, 'Oh, pray God she may be taken!' The poor thing,
though she spent her life in this little cradle, had great, long, thin
limbs which she curled up under her. I l