Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

in whatever rank he may be placed, cannot find strength either to confront or to fly from that which produces his discomfort.

■ This suffering is sometimes the effect of a discontented or over-wrought self-love. A man who fears that he stands alone in his opinion of himself, becomes timid through vanity: but more often, timidity is purely physical; — it is a disease.

There are men who cannot, without an inexplicable sense of uneasiness, be conscious that the human eye rests upon them. That eye paralyses them ; fetters their thoughts, their speech, and more especially their movements. This is so true, that I have often suffered from physical thnidity, in villages where, as a stranger, I attracted all eyes, much more than in the most stately saloons where nobody paid any attention to me. I could write a treatise on the different kinds of shyness, for I am the accomplished model of them all. Ко one has suffered more than I have, from my infancy, under the attacks of this incurable disease, scarcely known to the rising generation ; which proves that, over and above physical predisposition, timidity is peculiarly the result of education. Familiarity with the world enables us to dissimulate the infirmity, and that is all. The most timid men are often the most eminent in birth, in dignity, and even in merit. I long believed that timidity was modesty combined with an exaggerated respect for social distinctions, or for the gifts of mind; but how then could be explained the timidity of great writers, or of princes ? Happily, the princes of the imperial Russian family are by no means timid — they belong to their age; neither in their