Part 1

Transcriber's Note:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistent hyphenation. Some changes have been made. They are listed at the end of the text.

Italic text has been marked with underscores. Bold text has been marked with =equals signs=. OE ligatures have been expanded.

BASHFULNESS CURED:

Ease and Elegance of Manner GAINED.

"Manners Make the Man."

SETH CONLY, PUBLISHER,

NO. 524 SIXTH AVENUE, N. Y.

BASHFULNESS CURED:

EASE AND ELEGANCE OF MANNER QUICKLY GAINED.

NEW YORK: SETH CONLY, PUBLISHER, NO. 524 SIXTH AVENUE. 1872.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by SETH CONLY. In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

Bashfulness--Diffidence--Definition 5

Natural Diffidence 7

Causes and Cure of Natural Diffidence 20

Bashfulness from lack of Education.--How to Overcome it 23

Bashfulness from Ignorance of the Ways of Society.--The Cure 31

Bashfulness from Ill-Dress.--The Cure 36

Bashfulness Caused by Ill-Health.--To Remove 42

How to acquire Elegance and Fluency of Expression--Ease and Polish of Manner--a Graceful, Pleasing and Dignified Bearing--a Handsome Well-developed Chest--a Deep, Rich Voice. How to Dress Cheaply and Elegantly--How to be Attractive by certain attentions to Personal Habits. To the Debilitated: what to use to become Strong (new). How to Please greatly by delicate Flattery of Eye and Manner. A Secret of being Popular with the Ladies. How to easily Train, Brighten, and Sharpen the Intellect. To be Well-informed and Well-cultivated 9-48

BASHFULNESS--DIFFIDENCE.

DEFINITION.

We do not see why SIDNEY should have termed diffidence "rustic shame." Very many nice and proper persons who live in rural parts, and who are exceedingly bashful, are far from being shame-faced. "Excessive or extreme modesty," Webster defines bashfulness, and this is the better definition, though not literally correct, as many who are rough, impudent and vulgar in the privacy of their own homes, are wretchedly bashful when in company of strangers, or those whom they consider their superiors.

No emotion is more painful than bashfulness. Without feeling guilty, its subject feels crushed. Says one, "I am troubled with a painful sense of timidity and bashfulness in the presence of company on being spoken to, especially at the table; and no matter whether the person be my equal or my inferior, I blush from the cravat to the hair, and the very consciousness that I am blushing, and that my embarrassment is discovered, tends to deepen the blush and heighten the embarrassment. Now, I have a good personal appearance; I have a good education; I occupy a good position in society; I have been trusted by my friends with official position, and feel myself competent to fill it, and when I sit down to meditate I feel no cause for embarrassment or bashfulness; I can converse for hours with persons of culture and superior ability, and feel no cause of shame at the part I am enabled to act; still, if then spoken to suddenly or abruptly, this terrible diffidence comes upon me like a spell, and makes me stammer; my head seems splitting with excitement; my face turns red; my heart palpitates, and I am no longer, for the moment, myself. Now all this is very distressing." Yes, this is distressing, as very many can testify from disagreeable experience.

There are many influences that may directly and indirectly be mentioned as being the

CAUSES OF BASHFULNESS.