in a brougham to the door of some strange house, and sees a grave butler advancing out of an unknown corridor, with figures flitting to and fro in the background; what shy person is there who at such a moment would not give a considerable sum to be able to go back to the station and take the first train home?  Or who again, as he gives his name to a servant in some brightly-lighted hall, and advances, with a hurried glance at his toilet, into a roomful of well-dressed people, buzzing with what Rossetti calls a “din of doubtful talk,” would not prefer to sink into the earth like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and be reckoned no more among the living?

It is recorded in Tennyson’s Life that he used to recommend to a younger brother the thought of the stellar spaces, swarming with constellations and traversed by planets at ineffable distances, as a cure for shyness; and a lady of my acquaintance used to endeavour as a girl to stay her failing heart on the thought of Eternity at such moments.  It is all in vain; at the urgent moment one cares very little about the stellar motions, or the dim vistas of futurity, and very much indeed about the cut of one’s coat, and the appearance of one’s collar, and the glances of one’s enemies; the doctrines of the Church, and the prospects of ultimate salvation, are things very light in the scales in comparison with the pressing necessities of the crisis, and the desperate need to appear wholly unconcerned!

The wild and fierce shyness of childhood is superseded in most sensitive people, as life goes on, by a very different feeling—­the shyness of adolescence, of which the essence, as has been well said, is “a shamefaced pride.”  The shyness of early youth is a thing which springs from an intense desire to delight, and impress, and interest other people, from wanting to play a far larger and brighter part in the lives of every one else than any one in the world plays in any one else’s life.  Who does not recognise, with a feeling that is half contempt and half compassion, the sight of the eager pretentiousness of youth, the intense shame of confessing ignorance on any point, the deep desire to appear to have a stake in the world, and a well-defined, respected position?  I met the other day a young man, of no particular force or distinction, who was standing in a corner at a big social gathering, bursting with terror and importance combined.  He was inspired, I would fain believe, by discerning a vague benevolence in my air and demeanour, to fix his attention on me.  He had been staying at a house where there had been some important guests, and by some incredibly rapid transition of eloquence he was saying to me in a minute or two, “The Commander-in-Chief said to me the other day,” and “The Archbishop pointed out to me a few days ago,” giving, as personal confidences, scraps of conversation which he had no doubt overheard as an unwelcome adjunct to a crowded smoking-room, with the busy and genial elders wondering