We do not see why Sidney should have termed diffidence “rustic shame.” Very many nice and proper persons who live in rural parts, and who are exceedingly bashful, are far from being shame-faced. “Excessive or extreme modesty,” Webster defines bashfulness, and this is the better definition, though not literally correct, as many who are rough, impudent and vulgar in the privacy of their own homes, are wretchedly bashful when in company of strangers, or those whom they consider their superiors.
No emotion is more painful than bashfulness. Without feeling guilty, its subject feels crushed. Says one, “I am troubled with a painful sense of timidity and bashfulness in the presence of company on being spoken to, especially at the table; and no matter whether the person be my equal or my inferior, I blush from the cravat to the hair, and the very consciousness that I am blushing, and that my embarrassment is discovered, tends to deepen the blush and heighten the embarrassment. Now, I have a good personal appearance; I have a good education; I occupy a good position in society; I have been trusted by my friends with official position, and feel myself competent to fill it, and when I sit down to meditate I feel no cause for embarrassment or bashfulness; I can converse for hours with persons of culture and superior ability, and feel no cause of shame at the part I am enabled to act; still, if then spoken to suddenly or abruptly, this terrible diffidence comes upon me like a spell, and makes me stammer; my head seems splitting with excitement; my face turns red; my heart palpitates, and I am no longer, for the moment, myself. Now all this is very distressing.” Yes, this is distressing, as very many can testify from disagreeable experience.
There are many influences that may directly and indirectly be mentioned as being the
Causes of Bashfulness.
Among them is a certain peculiarity of constitution known as “natural diffidence;” then, bashfulness from ignorance of the ways of society; lack of education; ill-dress; ill-health; nervousness.
