Poise: How to Attain It Part 8

"The modest man then advanced, looked down into the gulf, then decided to make use of the irregularities in the surface of the chasm to reduce the width of the jump.

"He made several attempts to carry this out, but could hardly touch the edge before an instinctive movement of fear forced him back.

"He worked so hard and so long at this that he was quite tired out when he at last chose the moment for the decisive attempt. He jumped, indeed, but in such a half-hearted way that he merely touched the opposite face of the creva.s.se and fell to the bottom of the precipice alongside of the boaster.

"The third climber, who possest the advantage of poise, had meanwhile been losing no time. He had mentally gaged the width of the creva.s.se, had made a number of trial jumps to test his ability to clear it, and when, with a firm resolution to succeed, he reached the edge from which he must leap, his soul, fortified by the knowledge of his powers was fired with a single idea, the consciousness of his own agility and strength.

"By this means he, alone of the three, was able to cross the gulf in which his two companions had perished."

Effrontery and boastfulness have often another source. The shyness of those who suffer from timidity, by isolating them and denying them the means of expansion, prevents them from obtaining a real control over their feelings, which undergo a process of deterioration so slow that they do not notice it.

There are very few things to which we can not easily become accustomed, to the extent of a complete failure to notice their peculiarities, if their strangeness is only unfolded to us gradually.

A thousand things which shock us at the first blush take on the guise of every-day matters when once we have acquired the habit of familiarity with them.

The timid man, who will not openly acknowledge his feelings, is practically unable to take cognizance of their gradual transformation.

We may add that he is always p.r.o.ne to dream, and peoples his world involuntarily with imaginary utopias, which he begins by considering as desirable, then as possible, and finally as actually existing.

This is the starting-point of boastfulness. It partakes at once of falsity and of sincerity. The timid man loves to feel himself important, and he merely pities the people whom he considers incapable of understanding him. He is, nevertheless, sincere in his bravado, as his dreams entirely deceive him as to his real self.

In his solitary meditations he deliberately shakes off his own personality, as a b.u.t.terfly abandons the shelter of its chrysalis, and, following the example of that gorgeous insect, he flies away on the wings of his dreams in the guise of the being that he imagines himself to have become.

This creature resembles him not at all. It is brave, courageous, eloquent. It accomplishes the most brilliant feats of daring.

In this way, just so soon as the timid man becomes intermittently a braggart, he commences to boast of exploits quite impossible of performance. We must remember, however, that it is not he who speaks, but merely the idealized ego which he invents because he is chagrined at being misunderstood.

Moral isolation is the parent of other curious phenomena. It imparts the gift of seeing things exactly as we would wish them to be, by clothing them little by little with a character entirely foreign to that which they really possess.

In "Timidity: How to Overcome It," we are told the following little personal anecdote of the j.a.panese philosopher Yoritomo:

"It was my misfortune as a child," says this ancient sage, "to be the victim of a serious illness which kept me confined to a bed and unable to move.

"I was not allowed to read and my only distraction was the study of the objects in my immediate neighborhood.

"The pattern of a screen made a particular impression upon me with its cl.u.s.ters of flowers and its bouquets of roses.

"I pa.s.sed hours in the contemplation of it.

"At first I merely followed the outlines with my eye, finding in them no more than an artistic reproduction of nature. But, little by little, the cl.u.s.ters of flowers were transformed into gardens, the rose-trees took on the imposing aspect of forests. In these gardens my dreams created a princess, and in the forest a company of warriors.

"Then the romance began.

"Every new line I observed became the pretext for creating a new character. The princess was very soon taken captive by a giant--whom I saw perfectly--and the warriors undertook the task of rescue.

"Every day a panorama moved before me of changing personalities, who reenacted the events of the story. Finally the obsession took such a strong hold of me that I began to talk about it in a manner that aroused the fears of my parents.

"The screen was banished from my room and when, a few days later, it was brought back for me to see, I was able to discover nothing more in it than the designs with which it was adorned."

This example, taken directly from life, shows us better than the most extended arguments the dangers of moral isolation.

By this we do not mean the isolation that is essential to concentration, the practise of which always leads to the most fruitful results.

We are speaking solely of the aloofness born of timidity or of exaggerated pride, which, in depriving us of contrary views, develops in us the propensity to see things from only one angle, which is always that which happens to flatter our vanity or please our tastes.

All those persons who suffer from this disease of the will, which deprives them of the ability of discussing things, may be compared to runners who have neglected to ascertain the limits of their race.

Like the latter, they keep running round the same track without any means of discovering when they are nearing the goal.

Instead of stopping, when they have reached it, they keep running forward and the monotony of their efforts, coupled with the fever-heat engendered by their exertions, very soon causes them to view the objects that they keep pa.s.sing and pa.s.sing under a deformed and distorted aspect.

The man of reason, on the other hand, runs with the single purpose in his mind of reaching the winning-post. He studiously avoids taking his eyes off the goal, which he has carefully located in advance, and takes pains to note the moment when he is nearing it, so as to run no risks of making his spurt too soon.

It is a matter of frequent observation that timidity often voluntarily a.s.sumes the role of effrontery, from very despair of successfully accomplis.h.i.+ng the task it is ambitious to perform.

Ill.u.s.trious examples of this contention are not lacking. Rousseau, who was a coward of the greatest hardihood, says in his _Confessions_:

"My foolish and unreasoning fear, that I was quite unable to overcome, of perpetrating some breach of good manners led me to a.s.sume the att.i.tude of caring nothing for the niceties of life."

A little further on, he adds:

"I was made a cynic by shyness. I posed as a despiser of the politeness I did not know how to practise."

This is a much more frequent cause than one might think of the exhibition of an effrontery which is apparently deliberate and intentional.

The timid man, feeling himself awkward and clownish when performing the usual acts of courtesy, a.s.sumes the att.i.tude of caring nothing for them and of avoiding them deliberately, while all the while he is tortured by the inability to perform them without seeming ridiculous.

But the onlooker is not deceived. The outward appearance of cynicism often conceals an inward sensitiveness of soul that is quite obvious, and the actor makes so poor a hand at identifying himself with the character he would a.s.sume that it is clearly evident he is only playing a part.

The conflict of diametrically opposing forces shows itself plainly in his att.i.tude which vacillates between the stiffest formality and the easiest a.s.surance.

The awkwardness that is the bugbear of the timid shows itself even beneath their work of cynicism, and the very effort accuses them, no less than their flighty and unreasoning conversation and their gestures, now exaggerated and now represt, all of which make up a whole that entirely fails to give an impression of harmony.

And what possible harmony can there be between a soul and a body that are completely out of accord with each other?

Should it be asked what the difference is between presumption or effrontery and the poise that we have in mind, this simple ill.u.s.tration should be illuminating.

Effrontery, bravado, and exaggeration are qualities that are shown by those who exceed their own capacity without giving the question a thought.

Poise is the virtue which gives us the strength of mind to a.n.a.lyze the possibilities that are dominant within us, to cultivate them, and to strengthen them in every possible way before undertaking an enterprise which is likely to call them into play.

Real poise has no bl.u.s.ter about it. It has a good deal in it of self-possession, the discretion belonging to which is one of its marked characteristics.

Repression of our outward movements enables us to achieve that control over our emotions which makes a perfect cloak for our intentions, and leaves our opponents in perplexity as to how to attack the fortress that they wish to conquer.

It is, therefore, between modesty and effrontery, both equally prejudicial to success, that poise must naturally be placed.

But, it will be objected, all the world does not possess this gift of poise. Are those who do not share it to be forever denied all chance of success?