troubling of the spirit a little shaking of the body. I actually purchased a horse, and trotted valiantly among the dandy equestrians, very little at first to the recreation of mind or body; for nothing could equal the aching of my bones but the mortification of my spirit, in seeing, as I fancied, everybody laughing at my riding. I should have observed, that it was this natural shyness, which formed a part of my character, that always stood in the way of my exertions. It kept me from going into company, from the never-to-be-forgotten night, when, being seduced into a tea-party, I got well nigh roasted alive, for want of sufficient intrepidity to change my position by crossing the room. It prevented my taking refuge in the excitement of dress; for I never put on a new coat that I did not feel as if I had got into a straight waistcoat, and kept clear of all my acquaintances, lest they should think I wanted to exhibit my finery. In short, I was too bashful for a beau, too timid for a gambler, too proud for a politician, and thus I escaped the temptations of the town, more from a peculiarity of disposition than from precept or example. I think I have somewhere read or perhaps only dreamed-that the pride of man waxed exceeding great, from the moment that he had subjected the horse to his dominion. It certainly is a triumph to sit on such a noble animal, tamed perfectly to our will, and to govern his gigantic strength and fiery mettle with silken rein, or a whispered aspiration. It strengthens the nerves and emboldens the spirits, at least it did mine. By degrees, as I began to be accustomed to the saddle, the pains in my bones subsided, and, feeling myself easy, I no longer suspected people of laughing at my awkwardness. In the warm season I was out in the country to see the sun rise, and in the winter I galloped in the very teeth of the north-west wind, till I defied Jack Frost, and snapt my fingers at the freezing point. My health daily improved-my spirits expanded their wings, and fluttered like birds released from their iron cages-and my nerves were actually braced up to the trial of looking a woman full in the face, an enormity I was never capable of before. Between my vexations in managing my business, and my rides on horseback, I was a new man, and had an idea of proposing my horse as a member of the College of Physicians, had I not apprehended that they might think I was joking. Still there were intervals in which my old infirmity of sitting becalmed at home, doing nothing, and nursing blue devils, would come over me like a spider's web, and condemn me to my chair, as if by enchantment. These relapses were terrible, and discouraged me beyond measure, for I began to fear that I never should be radically cured. Sitting thus stupified, one summer evening, I was startled by a smart slap on my shoulder, and a hearty exclamation of, "What, Tom, at your old tricks-hey-giving audience to the blues." This was spoken by a merry, careless fellow, who was always full of what the world calls troubles, and who, everybody said, was to be pitied, because he had a wife and twelve children, and was not worth a groat. But he belied the world and his destiny to boot, was always as busy as a bee by day, and as merry as a lark in the evening, and the more children he had the blither was he. Nature had decreed he should be a happy man, and fortune had co-operated with her in making him poor. "Come," said he, "what are you sitting here for, biting your lips, and eating up your own soul-for want of something else? Why don't you sally out somewhere, and do something?" "What can I do?-and where shall I go ?-I know nobody abroad and have no ties at home-no fire-side to cheer me of evenings," "Why, become either a beau. bachelor, or get married at once, which is better." "Married! pshaw." 66 Ay, married-if your wife turns out a scold, that is all you want. You then will have a motive for going abroad. If she is amiable, that is still better-then you will have a motive for staying at home." "Faith, there is something in that." "Something!-It is wisdom in a nutshell. There's more philosophy in it than in three hundred folios." "Well, if I thought-" "Thought! never think of it at all-you have been all your life thinking to no purpose-it is time for you to act now. Haven't I proved that you must be a gainer either way?" "Well, well-I believe-I think -I'll think of it." "Think of a fiddlestick. Do you think a man is the better prepared for a cold bath, by standing half an hour shivering on the brink! No-no-fall in love extempore; you have no time to study characters-and if you had, do you think a man is the wiser for studying a riddle he is destined never to find out? Mark what the poet says. "What poet?" "Hang me if I know, or care, but he sings directly to my purpose, and is therefore a sensible fellow. 'List-list-O list,' as the tailor said. Love is no child of time, unless it be "And you have been married thirteen years?" "Yes, and have twelve children, yet I can talk of love—ay, and feel it too. Come, I have a little party at home this evening; come-see and be conquered. "Well," said I, starting up, "wait till I make myself a little amiable." "No-no-I know you of old. If you once have time to consider you'll get becalmed as sure as a gun. Now or never-this is the crisis of your fate." Riding on horseback had made me bold, and I suffered myself to be carried off to the party by my merry friend; who predicted fifty times by the way, that I should be married in less than three weeks. It was fortunate the distance was small, or my courage would have served me as it did Bob Acres, and "oozed out of the palms of my hands," before we arrived. My friend hurried me on, talking all the way, without giving me time to think, so that I was in the middle of his little drawing-room before I could collect sufficient courage to run away. I made my bow to the lady, sat down as far as I could from all the females in the room, and felt-nobody can describe what a bashful man feels in such a situation. I fancied every laugh leveled directly at me, and, because I felt strange myself, believed that everybody considered me a stranger. Luckily there was no fire in the room, or I should have undergone a second roasting; for I am of opinion, if an earthquake had happened, I could not have found the use of my legs sufficiently to run out of the room, unless it had previously been deserted by the awful assemblage. The recollection of this For some old tree because we've known it horrible probation, even at this dis long No, this is but to put the heart at nurse, Unwillingly to learn his A B C, Under some greybeard, flogging pedagogue. tance of time, makes me shudder. Had I an enemy in the world, which I hope I have not, all the harm I wish him would be to be cursed with that sensitive bashfulness, the offspring of pride and timidity, which, (while it makes one think himself an object of universal attention, conveys an irresistible impression that he is some way or other ridiculous. How often have I envied those impudent fellows, whom I saw sailing about the ladies, and laughing, chatting, or flirting, with as little apprehension as a moth flutters round a candle! I would have pawned every grain of sense I had in the world for just as much brass as would have emboldened me to pick up a lady's fan, or sweeten her tea. I had remained in this situation just long enough to get into an agony of perspiration, when my good friend came over to me, with a request to introduce me to a lady, who sat on the opposite side of the room. I made fifty excuses, but all would not do; he had told her of his intention, and it would look rude for me to decline. Despair, for I verily believe it was nothing else, gave me sufficient strength to rise from my chair; my friend led me up to the lady, introduced me, pointed to a chair next to her, and left me to my fate. My hands shook, my forehead became wet with cold dew, my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, and a roaring in my ears announced that commotion of the nervous system which always foretells the approach of a nightmare. I attempted to speak, with as little success as I had often had in trying to call for help in my sleep, when under the dominion of that foul fiend. Our eyes at length happened to meet, and there was something in a little mischievous sinile, that sparkled in her eye, and played in the corner of her lip, that called to mind a vision I thought I remembered to have seen before. "I believe you don't recollect me, Mr. Roebuck," said a voice that almost made me jump from my chair, though it was as low and as sweet as a distant wood-dove's. I have heard men extolled for marching up to the mouth of a loaded can non without flinching; but no wellauthenticated instance of heroism, in my opinion, ever came up to that I exhibited on this memorable occasion, when I answered, in a voice that I almost think was audible, looking her almost in the face the while "Indeed I have not that honor, madam." The effect was decisive, my hands became steady, my forehead resumed its natural warmth, the roaring in my ears gradually subsided, my pulse beat heathfully, and my nerves settled down into something like self-possession. My neighbor followed up my reply, by reminding me that we had been at school together a long while ago-though I recollected that she was much younger than myself-spoke of many little kindnesses that I had done her at that time, and how vain she was of being the pet of not only the biggest, but the handsomest boy in the school. "You are much altered," said she, "and so am I-but I recollected you as soon as you came into the room. I was determined to renew our acquaintance, and to make the first advances-for I remember you used to be a shy boy." "Yes," said I," and I am, a shy man, to my sorrow; but I can still feel delighted at meeting my little favorite again, in the shape of a fine woman"-and I believe the very d—l got into me, for I seized her hand, and squeezed it so emphatically that she blushed, and smiled mischievcusly, as I continued begging her pardon for not recollecting her, and apologizing for being such a shy fellow. The recollection of past times and youthful days, the meeting of old friends, and the recalling of carly scenes and attachments, come over the heart of man, as the spring comes over the face of nature-waking the early songsters, touching the little birds and blades of grass with her magic wand into sensation, and putting the whole vivifying principle of expansion, growth, warmth, life, love, and beauty, into sprightly and exulting acti vity. As the ice-bound brook signalizes its release from the cold, rigid, inflexible chain of winter by its eternal murmurs, so did my enfranchisement from the tongue-tied demon of silent stupidity, by an overflow of eloquence such as alarmed my very self. I reveled in the recollections of the past; a dawning intimation of the future danced before my awakened fancy, distant, obscure, and beautiful. talked like a Cicero of congress, whose whole year's stock of eloquence has been frozen up by a Lapland winter, and suddenly set going by a spring thaw-lamented my shyness and again shook her hand most emphatically, to corroborate my assertion that I was the shyest man in the world. I think I may truly affirm, that I enjoyed more of actual existence in one hour after this recognition, than I had for the last fifteen years, and was swimming in the very bosom of Elysium, when, happening to look towards my merry friend, I caught him in the very act of laughing at me most inordinately. O reader, if thou art peradventure a bashful man, or, what is still more rare, a bashful woman, thou canst tell what it is to have the cold water of a mischievous laugh thrown on the warm embers of a newly-awakened sentiment just lighting into a blaze. Like the traveller of the Swiss valley, thou wilt find thyself, in one single moment, at one single step, transported from the region of flowers, fruits, and herbage, to the region of eternal ice-from the glowing embraces of laughing spring, to the withering grasp of frowning winter. I was struck dumb, "and word spake never more " that night. My little school-mate, finding she could get nothing more out of me, changed her seat, and left me alone, howling-no, not howling-but lost in the silent wilderness of stupefaction, where I remained, to see, as I thought, my host and the lady making themselves right merry at my expense. I thought I could tell by the motion of their lips that they were talking of me; every word was a dagger, and every look a winged arrow tipt with poison. People may talk of the rack, the knout, the stake, the bed of Procrustes, and the vulture of Prometheus, but all these are nothing compared to the agonies of a sensitive, bashful man, when he thinks himself an object of laughter. With a mortal effort, such as I never made before, and never shall again, I got up from my chair, made my bow, and rushed out of the room, in a paroxysm of wounded sensibility and unappeasable wrath. The next day, my merry, pleasant friend came to see me, and inquire how I liked his party, and what I thought of my little school-mate. I was grim-horribly grim, mysterious and incomprehensible; I was too proud to acknowledge my wounds, or to do anything more than hint at her being a giggling thing; I could not bear to see a woman always laughing, nor old friends that took such liberties with people as some people did. short, I was as crusty as Will Waddle, after his half year's baking. In Hey-day!" cried my merry friend, "which way does that perverse weathercock of thine point now? What is the matter with the shy gentleman'—hey ?" "There, there! By heaven I knew it, I knew how it was-I'm not quite so blind as some people think me-I'm not deaf—”. 66 No, nor dumb either, faithI'll say that for you, friend Tom ; you talked last night for the next hundred years. But how do you like my cousin? She has done nothing but talk of you this morning-' "Yes-and she did nothing but laugh at me last night." Out it came; I could hold no longer. "Laugh at you! with you, you mean; why, you were the merriest couple in the room." Except yourselves, after she left me "Well, what if we did laugh you can't expect to have all the laughing to yourself." O no-by no means-not I; you may laugh till doomsday; only I wish you would find somebody else to laugh at." "Somebody else!-Why, what do you mean, Tom?” "Why, sir, I mean that you were laughing at me, from the moment she left my side," cried I, stalking about the room in great wrath. "No such thing upon my serious honor; we should both scorn such ill manners, and particularly towards you. She was describing the airs and affectation of a party of fashionable upstarts she met in the steam-boat, returning from the great northern tour." "What did you keep looking at me every now and then for?" "She was comparing you with what you were at school, and saying how little you were altered, except for the better." "Now, Harry, upon your honor, remember-" "Upon my honor, then, this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth-except, indeed-" "Except what?" Except that she expressed her pleasure of again meeting you, and her hope that she should see you often. What say you to paying her a morning visit-hey?" "With all my heart-for she's a fine woman." I repeated my visits day after day, till I began to feel myself quite easy in the society of my little school-fellow, who gained vastly in my good graces ever since I heard she thought me so much altered for the better. I remembered, at our first interview, she told me how proud she was in being the favorite of the biggest and the handsomest boy in the school; and if I was handsomer now than then, I concluded, much to my satisfaction, I must be a tolerably good-looking fellow. A woman who can make a shy, awkward man once feel easy 36 ATHENEUM, VOL. 5, 3d series. in her company, can do anything with him. But if she can add to this the miracle of making him satisfied with himself, his happiness and devotion will be complete. From feeling perfectly easy in her society, I soon began to be very uneasy. I began to be in love, and a shy man in love is as great a torment to a woman as he is to himself, if she cares anything about him. I certainly was something of an original in my amour; for while I used as much pains to hide as others to display their love, I took it into my head that the lady ought to behave as if I were an accepted lover, and eschew all the rest of mankind. I was affronted with her three times a week for some imaginary display of indifference; became inordinately jealous; and, I confess honestly, played such capricious pranks, that, had she not been the best-tempered creature in the world, she would have forbidden me her presence. treated me with a charming indulgence, humored my follies, and forgave my insolent irritability sooner than I could forgive myself. Three several times I swore to myself that I would confess my love and ask her hand, and as often did the fates interpose to prevent me-once in the shape of a rainy day, which I thought a good excuse for delay; once in the likeness of a hole in my silk stocking, which I observed just as I was on the point of knocking at the door, and which so damped my spirits that I turned about and went home disconsolate ; and a third time in the semblance of one of those worthy persons, who lend their wits to such as have money, and let them into the secret of turning it to the best advantage. He propounded to me a cotton speculation, by which a fortune would be made, as certain as fate, in three months at farthest. Yet she To tell my readers a secret, the management of my property, although of great advantage to my health, had redounded very little |