Bashfulness or Conceit.
By Editor
A PHYSICIAN claims that in a preparation of cocoa he has discovered a cure for bashfulness. It appears to us that the doctor has been wrongly directing his energies. What he should find out is a remedy for self-conceit. Bashfulness is an affliction that troubles no one but the individual who suffers from it—an inordinate self-conceit troubles every one but the individual who is made happy by it. Bashful men never ask for the privilege of addressing the Sunday-school—it is your self-approving men that insist on speaking “a few words” to the children, no matter how importune the request may be. Diffident people never bore anybody with long talks about themselves—self-opinionated persons never talk about anything else. Any one would rather have the task of calling out the thoughts of a retiring sort of man, than be bored out by self-praise of a forward fellow. It would be one of the greatest calamities that yet has happened to the world to have a sure cure for bashfulness, and, so, have none but the bumptious sort. If the remedy has been found, we trust that the secret will perish. We would rather bear with our own diffidence a while longer than to have the number of bores increased. We do not like the prayer of the old Scotchman who always asked the Lord to give him “a good consate of himself.”—S. S. Teacher.