A case in point is the man who becomes nervous while making a speech, starts to stammer, and makes a lamentable failure of what began well enough, because he imagines that persons in the audience are making fun of him.
He has overheard a word, or surprized a look, neither of which had any relation to him, but so great is his egoism that he does not dream that any one in the audience can be so lacking in taste as to be concerned with anything but himself.
Had this man, in spite of his egoism, been endowed with poise, he would have gone along calmly, simply forcing himself to ignore all criticism and to impress his very critics by his attitude and his eloquence. But his distrust of himself, his mental instability, his habitual weakness of reasoning, all these enemies of poise league themselves together to inflict upon him a defeat, of which the memory will only aggravate his nervousness and his desire never to repeat such an unpleasant experience.
For the man who has no poise there is no snatching victory from defeat. His feeble will-power is completely routed, and the effort involved in stemming the tide of adverse opinion is to him an impossibility.
From dread of being carried away by the current, and feeling himself incapable of struggling against it, he prefers to hide himself in the caves along the shore, rather than to make one desperate effort to cross the stream.
But the very isolation he seeks, in depriving him of moral support, increases his embarrassment.
"It is not good for man to be alone," says Holy Writ. It is certainly deplorable, for one who desires to make his way, to find himself without a prop, without a counselor, and without a guide.
This is the case of those timid persons who do not understand how to make friends for themselves.
Poise, on the other hand, invites sympathy. It aids men to expand. It creates friends when needed, and weaves the bonds of comradeship and of protection without which our social fabric could not hold together.
Educators should seek for inspiration in the lessons that the exigencies of modern life offer to the view of the observer. Excessive modesty, sworn enemy of poise, is, socially speaking, a fault from which young minds should be carefully guarded.