Other shy men--men who fear general society, and show embarrassment in
the every-day surroundings--are eloquent when they get on their feet.
Many a shy boy at college has astonished his friends by his ability in
an after-dinner speech. Many a voluble, glib boy, who has been appointed
the orator of the occasion, fails utterly, disappoints public
expectation, and sits down with an uncomfortable mantle of failure upon
his shoulders. Therefore, the ways of shyness are inscrutable. Many a
woman who has never known what it is to be bashful or shy has, when
called upon to read a copy of verses, even to a circle of intimate
friends, lost her voice, and has utterly broken down, to her own and her
friends' great astonishment.
The voice is a treacherous servant; it deserts us, trembles, makes a
failure of it, is "not present or accounted for" often when we need its
help. It is not alone in the shriek of the hysterical that we learn of
its lawlessness; it is in its complete retirement. A bride often, even
when she felt no other embarrassment, has found that she had no voice
with which to make her responses. It simply was not there.
A lady who was presented at court, and who felt--as she described
herself wonderfully at her ease, began talking, and, without wishing to
speak loud, discovered that she was shouting like a trumpeter. The
somewhat unusual strain which she had put upon herself during the ordeal
of being presented at the English court revenged itself by an outpouring
of voice which she could not control.
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