Shying People

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Title:     Shying People
Author: Timothy Titcomb [More Titles by Titcomb]

"It is jealousy's peculiar nature
To swell small things to great; nay, out of naught
To conjure much: and then to lose its reason
Amid the hideous phantoms it has formed." YOUNG.

"I will not shut me from my kind;
And, lest I stiffen into stone,
I will not eat my heart alone,
Nor feed with sighs a passing wind."
TENNYSON.

"Fear is the virtue of slaves; but the heart
that loveth is willing." LONGFELLOW.

Reader, did you ever drive a horse that had the mean habit of shying? If so, then you will remember how constantly he was on the lookout for objects that would frighten him. He would never wait for the bugbear to show its head; but he conjured it up at every point. Every hair upon his sides seemed transformed into an eye; and there was not a colored stone, nor a stick of wood, nor a bit of paper, nor a small dog, nor a shadow across the road, nor any thing that introduced variety into his passage, that did not seem to be endowed with some marvellous power of repulsion. First he dodged to the right, after having foreseen the evil from afar, and wrought himself up to a fearful pitch of sidelong excitement; and then he dodged to the left, having been surprised into passing a cat without alarm; and so, dodging to the right and left, he has half worried the life out of you. Being constantly on guard, and always watching for objects of alarm, and suspicious of dangers in disguise, he has had no difficulty in maintaining a condition of permanent fright, which has worked itself off in spasms of shying. To a man who has driven a horse up to a locomotive without danger or fear, such an animal as this seems to be unworthy of the name of a horse; and to one who has read of the spirit and fearlessness of the war-horse, a shying horse seems to be the most contemptible of his race.

Well, I have met shying men, and I meet them upon the sidewalk almost every day. I have watched them from afar, and known by their eyes and a certain preparatory nervousness of body, that they would "shy" at me. I have been conscious, however, that there was nothing in me to shy at. I have had no pistols in my pocket, and no Bowie knife under my coat-collar. I have been innocent of any intention to leap upon and throttle them. I have had no purpose to trip their heels by a sudden "flank movement," and not even the desire to knock their hats off. Indeed, I have felt toward them a degree of friendliness and kindness which I would have been very glad to express, had they afforded me an opportunity; but they were shying men by nature, or by habit, or by whim. So far as I have been able to ascertain the causes of their infirmity, it is the result of a suspicion that they are not quite as good as other people, and a belief that other people understand the fact. Far be it from me to deny that their suspicions touching themselves are well-grounded; but that is no reason why other people should not speak to them politely. There is a class of men and women who are always looking out for, and expecting, slights from those whom they suppose to be their superiors. They get a suspicion that a certain man feels above them; so when they pass him in the street, they shy at him--go around him--will not give him an opportunity to be polite to them. They are martyrs, as they suppose, to unjust social distinctions. They act as if they were painfully uncertain as to whether they are men and women or spaniels.

Now by the side of the person who carries an unsuspicious, self-respectful, open face, into any presence, such people as these seem unworthy of the race to which they belong. It is not the bold, brassy, self-asserting man who is their superior, because his sort of offensive forwardness originates in even a worse state of mind and heart than the habit of shying. When a man shies, he only suspects that he is inferior to his surroundings. When a man offensively puts himself forward, and talks loudly among his betters, he knows he is mean, and knows that he is not where he belongs. You will find a professional gambler to be a loudmouthed man, who not only does not shy at his betters, but who seeks all convenient opportunities for associating with them, and claiming an equality with them. The shying man is one who has not much respect for himself, who is envious and jealous of others, and who, however strongly he may protest against the charge, has the most abject respect for social position and arbitrary social distinctions. If he see a man who either assumes or seems to be above him, it is a reason in his mind why that man should not notice him. The result is that decent men soon take him at his own valuation, and notice him no more than they would a dog; and they serve him right.

I know of no more thankless task than the attempt to assure shying people that we love them, respect them, and are glad to continue their acquaintance. The instances in which old school-mates meet in the journey of life with a sickening coolness, in consequence of changed circumstances and relations, are of every-day occurrence. Two persons who separated at the school-house door in dawning manhood, with equal prospects, come together later in life. One has risen in the world, has won hosts of friends, has been put forward by them into public office, perhaps, and has acquired a competence. The other has remained upon the old homestead, has had a hard life, and has won neither distinction nor wealth. The fortunate man grasps the hand of the other with all the cordiality of his nature and of his honest friendship; but he meets a reserve which may be almost sullen. He strives to call up the scenes gone by--the old school-sports--the school companions, boys and girls--the old neighborhood friendships--but they will not come. All attempts to touch the heart of his former schoolmate, and bring him into sympathy through the power of association, fail. The poor fool suspects his friend of patronizing him, and he will not be patronized. Feeling that his friend has got along in the world better than himself, he cannot understand why he should not be regarded as an inferior, and treated as such. Thenceforward, the fortunate man must seek the society of the unfortunate man, or he will never have it. The former may give practical recognition of entire equality, to the best of his ability, but it will avail nothing, for the latter will not "toady" to his friend, nor be "patronized" by him. At last the fortunate man becomes tired of the effort to make his unfortunate friend understand him, and he kicks him and his memory aside, and calls it a friendship closed forever, without fault upon his part.

I have often wished that it could be understood by these people who are so uncertain in regard to their position, and so suspicious that everybody has the disposition to slight them, and so much afraid of being patronized, and so averse to the thought of "toadying" that they stand stiffly aloof from the society which they envy, and so much offended with people for feeling above them, that their sentiments and feelings are sufficient reasons for society to hold them in contempt. There is a lack of self-respect--a meanness--in their position, that is really a sufficient apology for treating them with entire social neglect. They habitually misconstrue those among whom they move; they are exacting of attention to the last degree; they are always uncomfortable, and they are ready to take offense at the smallest fancied provocation. I have now in my mind an artisan whom I had occasion to get acquainted with a dozen years ago; and I have compelled him to speak to me every time I have met him since. I really do not know what he had done to make him regard himself so contemptuously, but I think he has never to this day fully believed that I have the slightest respect for him. He has tried to dodge me. He has shied repeatedly, but I have compelled him to make me a good-natured bow, till he begins to like it, I think-- till he expects it, at least.

Many children are bred to the idea that certain families are socially above them. They are taught from their cradles to consider themselves in a certain sense inferior. How few American children are taught that there is no degradation in poverty, and that a humble employment and an obscure position are entirely consistent with self-respect, under all circumstances, in whatever society. I do not mean to say that they have not heard their parents remark that they were "as good as anybody." There is enough of this talk; and it is precisely this which teaches children that they are born to what their parents consider dishonor,--inferiority to their neighbors. It is impossible for children who have been bred in this way ever to outgrow, entirely, their feeling of inferiority. The people who are entirely self-respectful never have any thing to say about their position in the presence of their children; and it is a cruel thing to teach a child, not that there is a grade of society which is actually above him, but that the persons who occupy that grade look down upon him--and, in the constitution of society, have the right to look down upon him--with contempt. To see an honest lad in humble clothing actually awed by finding himself in the presence of a well-dressed child of affluence, is very pitiful; and there are thousands of these poor boys who, having won wealth and distinction, never in their consciousness lose their early estate sufficiently to feel at home with those among whom the advance of fortune has brought them.

A thoroughly self-respectful person will command respect anywhere. A man who carries into the world an unsuspecting, unassuming face, who is polite to everybody, minds his own business, and does not show by his demeanor that he bears about with him a sense of degradation and inferiority, and who gives evidence that he considers himself a man, and expects the treatment due to a man, will secure politeness and respect from every true gentleman and gentlewoman in the world. The man who shies, and suspects, and envies, and is full of petty jealousies, and is always afraid that he shall not get all that is due to him in the way of polite attention, and manifests a feeling of great uncertainty and anxiety concerning his own social position, is sure to be shunned at last, and he will well deserve his fate. No real gentleman, and no true gentlewoman, ever has feelings like these. It is only those who are neither, and who do not deserve the position of either, that are troubled in this way. I give it as a deliberate judgment that there is far less of contempt for the poor and obscure among what are denominated the higher classes of society than there is of envy and hatred of the rich and renowned among the poor and humble; and that the principal bar to a more cordial and gentle intercourse between the two classes, is the lack of self-respect which pervades the latter, and the mean, degrading humility which they manifest in all their relations with those whom they consider above their level.

American society is mixed--heterogeneous--more so, probably, than that of any other country. There is no such thing as well-defined classification. There is no nobility, no gentry, no aristocracy, no peasantry. The owners of palaces were bred in log cabins; men of learning are the children of boors; and one can never tell by a man's position and relations in society into what style of life he was born. The boy goes into the city from his father's farm, carrying only a hardy frame, a good heart, and a suit of homespun, and twenty years frequently suffice to establish him as a man of fortune, and marry him to a woman of fashion. There is no bar to progress in any direction for the ambitious man, except lack of brains and tact. Society erects no barriers of caste which define the bounds of his liberty. Notwithstanding this, there is always, in every place, a body of people who assume to be "the best society." The claim to the title is rarely well substantiated, and is based on different ideas in different places. We shall find in some places, that society crystallizes around the idea of wealth; in others, around the idea of literary culture; in others, around certain religious views, so that, as it may happen, the "best society" is constituted of the Presbyterian, or Episcopalian, or Unitarian, or other sectarian element. In other places, an old family name is the central power, and, in others still, a certain style of family life attracts sympathetic materials which assume the position of "the best society."

Whatever may be the central idea of the self-constituted elite, they are always the objects of the envy of a large number of minds. Silly people "lie awake nights" to get into the best society. Those who are securely in, of course sleep soundly in their safety and their self-complacency; and those who are too low to think of rising to it, and those who do not care for it, go through the six to ten hours of their slumber "without landing," as the North River boatmen say. But a middle class, who range along the ragged edges of society, know no rest. They sail along in an uncertain way, like the moon on the border of a cloud-- sometimes in and sometimes out--feeling naked and very much exposed among the stars, and rather foggy and confused in the cloud, as if, after all, they did not belong there. It is in this class that we meet with shying men and shying women. It is in this class that we find heart-burnings, and jealousies, and envyings, and sensitive misunderstandings. It is a sort of purgatory through which the rising man and woman pass to reach the paradise of their hope, and from which an unhappy soul is never lifted. These people do not stop to inquire whether they have any sympathy, or any thing in common with the society which they seek--whether they would be lost, or whether they would be at home in it. They do not even seem to suspect that much of that which is called the best society, is the last society that a sensible, good man should seek.

Let us suppose that wealth is the central idea of the best society, and then let the aspirant to this society ask himself whether he has wealth. Has he a fine house and an elegant turnout? Does he dress expensively, and is he able to give costly entertainments? Is he prepared to unite, on a plane of perfect equality, with those who give the law to this society? If so, it will not be necessary for him to seek it, for the society will seek him,--that is, if he be an agreeable man. If he be very rich indeed, why, it is not necessary that he be agreeable at all. But suppose literary culture be the central force of this society--has the aspirant any fitness for, or sympathy with it? Can he meet those who form this society as an equal, or mingle in it as a thoroughly sympathetic element? Would he feel happy and at home in a literary atmosphere? Those questions indicate a legitimate direction of inquiry, touching every case of this kind. Multitudes of those who are dissatisfied with their position have nothing in common with the society to which they aspire, and would be so much out of place there that they would be very unhappy. My idea, then, is, that so far as society is concerned, men and women naturally find their own place. A true gentleman and a genuine gentlewoman, wherever they may appear, and whoever they may be, are as readily known as any objects; and really good society recognizes its affinities for them at once. They do not have to seek for a place, for they fall into their place as naturally as a soldier falls into, and joins step with, his company.

Now what can be meaner than the jealousy which sits in the circle where it is really most at home, and regards with its green and greedy eyes, a circle for which it has no affinities, except the affinities which envy has for that which it considers above itself? It is a meanness, too, which has two sides to it. It is notorious that the black overseer upon the plantation is severer with his companions in slavery than a white man would be, and it is just as notorious that the man who has abjectly bowed before the distinction of wealth and social standing, always becomes insufferably pretentious when fortune or favor lifts him to the place of his desire. The man who shies those he esteems his betters is always a proud man at heart, or if the adjective be allowable, an aristocratic man; and he is very careful to preserve his position of comparative respectability with relation to those below him. He will always be found to be pretentious in his own circle, and supercilious with relation to those in lower life. Is it not true that half of the neighborhood quarrels that take place, and three-quarters of the slander, and all the gossip that are indulged in, result from these petty jealousies between circles, and the sensitiveness that is felt regarding social standing on the part of those who are not quite so high in the world as they would like to be?

I can only notice briefly the shying that is done by the other side of society. In effect, I have done this already, perhaps, but it is proper to say directly that there are many moving in what is called the best society, who, with a suspicion that they do not belong there, or a feeling that their position is not secure there, shy a humble man when they meet him, and dodge all vulgar associations. I suppose that no true gentleman is ever afraid of being mistaken for any thing else. A gentleman knows that there is nothing which is more unlike the character of a gentleman than the supercilious treatment of the humble, and the fear of losing caste by treating every class with kindness and politeness. I recognize no difference between the two shying classes--the men who shy their fellow-men because they are high, and the men who shy their fellow-men because they are low. Both are mean, both are unmanly, and both are deficient in the self-respect necessary to the constitution of a gentleman. There are no better friends in the world--no men who understand each other better--none who meet and converse more freely at their ease--none who have more respect for each other--than a genuine gentleman and a self-respectful humble man, who knows his place in the social scale, and is abundantly satisfied with it. There is no need of any intercourse between men, of whatever difference of social standing, less dignified and gentle than this.

[The end]
Timothy Titcomb's essay: Shying People

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