Bashfulness Caused by Ill Health.
Reading edition
A person who has any noticeable physical deformity, or who has been reduced by certain nervous diseases, cannot be expected to possess that buoyancy and manliness of spirit that he would were circumstances different. Persons with nerves that are naturally excitable, will greatly increase their excitability by the habitual use of strong tea, etc. As a result, they are nervous, fidgetty, and never quite at ease. When in company they easily lose their self-possession and do blundering things generally. There are certain habits known to young men that cause a person to become bashful and sheep-faced to a surprising degree.
We have no particular suggestions to offer where diffidence and bashfulness are the result of prolonged illness or disease. Every means should be taken to restore the health; and with the restoration will come the old manly and courageous spirit.
When the nerves are weak and unsteady from physical debility, great benefit will be immediately derived, in the majority of cases, from the use, for two or three weeks at a time, of Iodoform, two or three grains a day—taken at meal time on a bit of moist bread.
In case the voice and lungs are weak, read aloud daily, enunciating every word clearly and distinctly. Commence by reading ten minutes at a time, and finally half an hour. You will soon acquire a richness and depth of tone to be proud of, besides greatly improving your health by increasing the capacity of the lungs.
TO PASTE INSIDE YOUR HAT.
—And these few precepts in thy memory Hold fast: “Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportion’d thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar To the friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel: Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear It, that the opposer may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Neither a borrower, nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend. This above all:—To thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou can’st not be false to any man.”