Thus, in the case we are considering, timidity either causes the difficulty in speaking or is caused by it. In the first condition as well as in the second, the disappearance of the one trouble depends upon the eradication of the other.
CHAPTER IV
PRACTICAL EXERCISES FOR OBTAINING POISE
COMPOSURE
One of the essential conditions of acquiring poise is to familiarize oneself with the habit of composure.
Timid people know nothing of its advantages. They are always ill at ease, fearful, devoured by dread of other people's censures, and completely upset by the idea of the least initiative.
Their mania leads them to exaggerate the smallest incident. A trifle puts them in a panic, and at the mere notion that strangers have perceived this they become quite out of countenance and are possest by but one idea, to avoid by flight the repetition of such unpleasant emotions.
A quite useless attempt, for in whatever retirement people who lack poise may live, they will find themselves certainly the victims of the small embarrassments of every-day life, which, in their eyes, will soon take on the guise of disasters.