Of Bashfulness (6-10)

Besides all this, the exercising such a resolution is of great use in praising others. If one of my friend’s harpers play lewdly, or a comedian he has hired at a great rate murder a piece of Menander in the acting, although the vulgar clap their hands and admire, I think it no moroseness or ill-breeding to sit silently all the while, without servilely joining in the common applauses contrary to my judgment. For if you scruple to deal openly with him in these cases, what will you do, should he repeat to you an insipid composition of his own, or submit to your revisal a ridiculous oration? You will applaud, of course, and enter yourself into the list of common parasites and flatterers! But how then can you direct him impartially in the greatest administrations of his life? how be free with him where he fails in any duties of his trust or marriage, or neglects the offices incumbent on him as a member of the community? I must confess, I cannot by any means approve of the reply Pericles made to a friend who besought him to give false evidence, and that too upon oath, when he thus answered: As far as the altar I am wholly at your service. Methinks he went too far. But he that has long before accustomed himself not to commend any thing against his judgment, or applaud an ill voice, or seem pleased with indecent scurrilities, will never suffer things to come to that issue; nor will any one be so bold

After the same manner we may learn to refuse such as come to borrow considerable sums of us, if we have used to deny in little matters where refusal is easy. As Archelaus, king of Macedon, sat at supper, one of his retinue, a fellow who thought there was nothing so honest as to receive, begged of him a golden cup. But the king commanded a waiter to give it immediately to Euripides: For you, sir, said he, are fit indeed to ask any thing, but to receive nothing; and he deserves to receive, though he lacks the confidence to ask. Thus wisely did he make his judgment, and not bashful timidity, his guide in bestowing favors. Yet we oftentimes, when the honesty, nearness, and necessities of our friends and relations are not motives sufficient to prevail with us to their relief, can give profusely to impudence and importunity, not out of any willingness to bestow our money so ill, but merely for want of confidence and resolution to deny. This was the case of Antigonus the elder. Being wearied out with the importunity of Bias, Give, said he to his servants, one talent to Bias and necessity. Yet at other times he was as expert at encountering such addresses as any prince, and dismissed them with as remarkable answers. Thus a certain Cynic one day begging of him a groat, he made answer, That is not for a prince to give. And the poor man replying, Then bestow a talent, he reparteed briskly, Nor that for a Cynic (or, for a dog) to receive. Diogenes went about begging to all the statues in the Ceramicus; and his answer to some that wondered at his fancy in it was, he was practising how to bear a repulse. But indeed it chiefly lies upon us to exercise ourselves in smaller matters to refuse an unreasonable request, that we may not be at loss how to refuse on occasions of greater magnitude. For no one, as Demosthenes says, who has spent all the money that he had in unnecessary

Yet bashfulness is not only a bad steward of our estate, but even in weightier concerns it refuses to hearken to the wholesome advice of right reason. Thus, in a dangerous fit of sickness, we send not to the ablest physician, for fear of giving offence to another of our acquaintance. Or, in taking tutors and governors for our children, we make choice of such as obtrude themselves upon us, not such as are better qualified for that service. Or, in our lawsuits, we regard not to obtain counsel learned in the law, because we must gratify the son of some friend or relation, and give him an opportunity to show himself in the world. Nay, lastly, you shall find some that bear the name of philosophers, who call themselves Epicureans or Stoics, not out of choice, or upon the least conviction, but merely to oblige their friends or acquaintance, who have taken advantage of their modesty. Since then the case is so with us, we ought to prepare and exercise ourselves in things that we daily meet with and of course, not so much as indulging that foolish weakness in the choice of a barber or fuller, or in lodging in a paltry inn when better accommodation is to be had, to oblige the landlord who has cringed to us. But if it be merely to break ourselves of such follies, in those cases still we should make use of the best, though the difference be but inconsiderable; as the Pythagoreans were strict in observing not to cross their right knee with the left, or to use an even number with an odd, though all things else were indifferent. We must observe also, when we celebrate a sacrifice or keep a wedding or make a public entertainment, to deny ourselves so far as not to invite any that have been extremely complacent to us or

And thus much may suffice concerning exercising ourselves. My first use of what has been said is to observe, that all passions and distempers of the mind are still accompanied with those very evils which by their means we hoped to avoid. Thus disgrace pursues ambition; pain and indisposition, sensuality; softness and effeminacy are fretted with troubles; contentiousness with disappointment and defeats. But this is nowhere more conspicuous than in bashfulness, which, endeavoring to avoid the smoke of reproach, throws itself into the fire. Such men, wanting confidence to withstand those that unreasonably importune them, afterwards feel shame before those who justly accuse them, and for fear of a slight private rebuke incur more public disgrace. For example, not having the heart to deny a friend that comes to borrow, in short time they are reduced to the same extremity themselves, and exposed openly. Some again, after promising to help friends in a lawsuit, are ashamed to face the opposite party, and are forced to hide their heads and run away. Many have been so unreasonably weak in this particular as to accept of disadvantageous proposals of marriage for a daughter or sister, and upon second thoughts have been forced to bring themselves off with an arrant lie.

One made this observation of the people of Asia, that they were all slaves to one man, merely because they could not pronounce that syllable No; but he spake only in raillery. But now the bashful man, though he be not able to say one word, has but to raise his brows or nod downward, as if he minded not, and he may decline many ungrateful and unreasonable offices. Euripides was wont

My friend, no silver white have I in all my caves,—

The wretch has made himself a slave to shame,

And drags a tiresome, though an unforged chain.

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Seem not thy brother’s honesty to doubt;

Yet, smiling, call a witness to his hand.

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