Books: Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
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Jerome K. Jerome >> Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
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Yes, shy men, like ugly women, have a bad time of it in this world, to
go through which with any comfort needs the hide of a rhinoceros.
Thick skin is, indeed, our moral clothes, and without it we are not
fit to be seen about in civilized society. A poor gasping, blushing
creature, with trembling knees and twitching hands, is a painful sight
to every one, and if it cannot cure itself, the sooner it goes and
hangs itself the better.
The disease can be cured. For the comfort of the shy, I can assure
them of that from personal experience. I do not like speaking about
myself, as may have been noticed, but in the cause of humanity I on
this occasion will do so, and will confess that at one time I was, as
the young man in the Bab Ballad says, "the shyest of the shy," and
"whenever I was introduced to any pretty maid, my knees they knocked
together just as if I was afraid." Now, I would--nay, have--on this
very day before yesterday I did the deed. Alone and entirely by
myself (as the school-boy said in translating the "Bellum Gallicum")
did I beard a railway refreshment-room young lady in her own lair. I
rebuked her in terms of mingled bitterness and sorrow for her
callousness and want of condescension. I insisted, courteously but
firmly, on being accorded that deference and attention that was the
right of the traveling Briton, and at the end I looked her full in the
face. Need I say more?
True, immediately after doing so I left the room with what may
possibly have appeared to be precipitation and without waiting for any
refreshment. But that was because I had changed my mind, not because
I was frightened, you understand.
One consolation that shy folk can take unto themselves is that shyness
is certainly no sign of stupidity. It is easy enough for bull-headed
clowns to sneer at nerves, but the highest natures are not necessarily
those containing the greatest amount of moral brass. The horse is not
an inferior animal to the cock-sparrow, nor the deer of the forest to
the pig. Shyness simply means extreme sensibility, and has nothing
whatever to do with self-consciousness or with conceit, though its
relationship to both is continually insisted upon by the poll-parrot
school of philosophy.
Conceit, indeed, is the quickest cure for it. When it once begins to
dawn upon you that you are a good deal cleverer than any one else in
this world, bashfulness becomes shocked and leaves you. When you
can look round a roomful of people and think that each one is a mere
child in intellect compared with yourself you feel no more shy of them
than you would of a select company of magpies or orang-outangs.
Conceit is the finest armor that a man can wear. Upon its smooth,
impenetrable surface the puny dagger-thrusts of spite and envy glance
harmlessly aside. Without that breast-plate the sword of talent
cannot force its way through the battle of life, for blows have to be
borne as well as dealt. I do not, of course, speak of the conceit
that displays itself in an elevated nose and a falsetto voice. That
is not real conceit--that is only playing at being conceited; like
children play at being kings and queens and go strutting about with
feathers and long trains. Genuine conceit does not make a man
objectionable. On the contrary, it tends to make him genial,
kind-hearted, and simple. He has no need of affectation--he is far
too well satisfied with his own character; and his pride is too
deep-seated to appear at all on the outside. Careless alike of praise
or blame, he can afford to be truthful. Too far, in fancy, above the
rest of mankind to trouble about their petty distinctions, he is
equally at home with duke or costermonger. And valuing no one's
standard but his own, he is never tempted to practice that miserable
pretense that less self-reliant people offer up as an hourly sacrifice
to the god of their neighbor's opinion.
The shy man, on the other hand, is humble--modest of his own judgment
and over-anxious concerning that of others. But this in the case of a
young man is surely right enough. His character is unformed. It is
slowly evolving itself out of a chaos of doubt and disbelief. Before
the growing insight and experience the diffidence recedes. A man
rarely carries his shyness past the hobbledehoy period. Even if his
own inward strength does not throw it off, the rubbings of the world
generally smooth it down. You scarcely ever meet a really shy
man--except in novels or on the stage, where, by the bye, he is much
admired, especially by the women.
There, in that supernatural land, he appears as a fair-haired and
saintlike young man--fair hair and goodness always go together on the
stage. No respectable audience would believe in one without the
other. I knew an actor who mislaid his wig once and had to rush on to
play the hero in his own hair, which was jet-black, and the gallery
howled at all his noble sentiments under the impression that he was
the villain. He--the shy young man--loves the heroine, oh so
devotedly (but only in asides, for he dare not tell her of it), and he
is so noble and unselfish, and speaks in such a low voice, and is so
good to his mother; and the bad people in the play, they laugh at him
and jeer at him, but he takes it all so gently, and in the end it
transpires that he is such a clever man, though nobody knew it, and
then the heroine tells him she loves him, and he is so surprised, and
oh, so happy! and everybody loves him and asks him to forgive them,
which he does in a few well-chosen and sarcastic words, and blesses
them; and he seems to have generally such a good time of it that all
the young fellows who are not shy long to be shy. But the really shy
man knows better. He knows that it is not quite so pleasant in
reality. He is not quite so interesting there as in the fiction. He
is a little more clumsy and stupid and a little less devoted and
gentle, and his hair is much darker, which, taken altogether,
considerably alters the aspect of the case.
The point where he does resemble his ideal is in his faithfulness. I
am fully prepared to allow the shy young man that virtue: he is
constant in his love. But the reason is not far to seek. The fact is
it exhausts all his stock of courage to look one woman in the face,
and it would be simply impossible for him to go through the ordeal
with a second. He stands in far too much dread of the whole female
sex to want to go gadding about with many of them. One is quite
enough for him.
Now, it is different with the young man who is not shy. He has
temptations which his bashful brother never encounters. He looks
around and everywhere sees roguish eyes and laughing lips. What more
natural than that amid so many roguish ayes and laughing lips he
should become confused and, forgetting for the moment which particular
pair of roguish ayes and laughing lips it is that he belongs to, go
off making love to the wrong set. The shy man, who never looks at
anything but his own boots, sees not and is not tempted. Happy shy
man!
Not but what the shy man himself would much rather not be happy in
that way. He longs to "go it" with the others, and curses himself
every day for not being able to. He will now and again, screwing up
his courage by a tremendous effort, plunge into roguishness. But it
is always a terrible _fiasco_, and after one or two feeble flounders
he crawls out again, limp and pitiable.
I say "pitiable," though I am afraid he never is pitied. There are
certain misfortunes which, while inflicting a vast amount of suffering
upon their victims, gain for them no sympathy. Losing an umbrella,
falling in love, toothache, black eyes, and having your hat sat upon
may be mentioned as a few examples, but the chief of them all is
shyness. The shy man is regarded as an animate joke. His tortures
are the sport of the drawing-room arena and are pointed out and
discussed with much gusto.
"Look," cry his tittering audience to each other; "he's blushing!"
"Just watch his legs," says one.
"Do you notice how he is sitting?" adds another: "right on the edge
of the chair."
"Seems to have plenty of color," sneers a military-looking gentleman.
"Pity he's got so many hands," murmurs an elderly lady, with her own
calmly folded on her lap. "They quite confuse him."
"A yard or two off his feet wouldn't be a disadvantage," chimes in the
comic man, "especially as he seems so anxious to hide them."
And then another suggests that with such a voice he ought to have been
a sea-captain. Some draw attention to the desperate way in which he
is grasping his hat. Some comment upon his limited powers of
conversation. Others remark upon the troublesome nature of his cough.
And so on, until his peculiarities and the company are both thoroughly
exhausted.
His friends and relations make matters still more unpleasant for the
poor boy (friends and relations are privileged to be more disagreeable
than other people). Not content with making fun of him among
themselves, they insist on his seeing the joke. They mimic and
caricature him for his own edification. One, pretending to imitate
him, goes outside and comes in again in a ludicrously nervous manner,
explaining to him afterward that that is the way he--meaning the shy
fellow--walks into a room; or, turning to him with "This is the way
you shake hands," proceeds to go through a comic pantomime with the
rest of the room, taking hold of every one's hand as if it were a hot
plate and flabbily dropping it again. And then they ask him why he
blushes, and why he stammers, and why he always speaks in an almost
inaudible tone, as if they thought he did it on purpose. Then one of
them, sticking out his chest and strutting about the room like a
pouter-pigeon, suggests quite seriously that that is the style he
should adopt. The old man slaps him on the back and says: "Be bold,
my boy. Don't be afraid of any one." The mother says, "Never do
anything that you need be ashamed of, Algernon, and then you never
need be ashamed of anything you do," and, beaming mildly at him, seems
surprised at the clearness of her own logic. The boys tell him that
he's "worse than a girl," and the girls repudiate the implied slur
upon their sex by indignantly exclaiming that they are sure no girl
would be half as bad.
They are quite right; no girl would be. There is no such thing as a
shy woman, or, at all events, I have never come across one, and until
I do I shall not believe in them. I know that the generally accepted
belief is quite the reverse. All women are supposed to be like timid,
startled fawns, blushing and casting down their gentle eyes when
looked at and running away when spoken to; while we man are supposed
to be a bold and rollicky lot, and the poor dear little women admire
us for it, but are terribly afraid of us. It is a pretty theory, but,
like most generally accepted theories, mere nonsense. The girl of
twelve is self-contained and as cool as the proverbial cucumber, while
her brother of twenty stammers and stutters by her side. A woman will
enter a concert-room late, interrupt the performance, and disturb the
whole audience without moving a hair, while her husband follows her, a
crushed heap of apologizing misery.
The superior nerve of women in all matters connected with love, from
the casting of the first sheep's-eye down to the end of the honeymoon,
is too well acknowledged to need comment. Nor is the example a fair
one to cite in the present instance, the positions not being equally
balanced. Love is woman's business, and in "business" we all lay
aside our natural weaknesses--the shyest man I ever knew was a
photographic tout.
ON BABIES.
Oh, yes, I do--I know a lot about 'em. I was one myself once, though
not long--not so long as my clothes. They were very long, I
recollect, and always in my way when I wanted to kick. Why do babies
have such yards of unnecessary clothing? It is not a riddle. I
really want to know. I never could understand it. Is it that the
parents are ashamed of the size of the child and wish to make believe
that it is longer than it actually is? I asked a nurse once why it
was. She said:
"Lor', sir, they always have long clothes, bless their little hearts."
And when I explained that her answer, although doing credit to her
feelings, hardly disposed of my difficulty, she replied:
"Lor', sir, you wouldn't have 'em in short clothes, poor little
dears?" And she said it in a tone that seemed to imply I had
suggested some unmanly outrage.
Since than I have felt shy at making inquiries on the subject, and the
reason--if reason there be--is still a mystery to me. But indeed,
putting them in any clothes at all seems absurd to my mind. Goodness
knows there is enough of dressing and undressing to be gone through in
life without beginning it before we need; and one would think that
people who live in bed might at all events be spared the torture. Why
wake the poor little wretches up in the morning to take one lot of
clothes off, fix another lot on, and put them to bed again, and then
at night haul them out once more, merely to change everything back?
And when all is done, what difference is there, I should like to know,
between a baby's night-shirt and the thing it wears in the day-time?
Very likely, however, I am only making myself ridiculous--I often do,
so I am informed--and I will therefore say no more upon this matter of
clothes, except only that it would be of great convenience if some
fashion were adopted enabling you to tell a boy from a girl.
At present it is most awkward. Neither hair, dress, nor conversation
affords the slightest clew, and you are left to guess. By some
mysterious law of nature you invariably guess wrong, and are thereupon
regarded by all the relatives and friends as a mixture of fool and
knave, the enormity of alluding to a male babe as "she" being only
equaled by the atrocity of referring to a female infant as "he".
Whichever sex the particular child in question happens not to belong
to is considered as beneath contempt, and any mention of it is taken
as a personal insult to the family.
And as you value your fair name do not attempt to get out of the
difficulty by talking of "it."
There are various methods by which you may achieve ignominy and shame.
By murdering a large and respected family in cold blood and afterward
depositing their bodies in the water companies' reservoir, you will
gain much unpopularity in the neighborhood of your crime, and even
robbing a church will get you cordially disliked, especially by the
vicar. But if you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of
scorn and hatred that a fellow human creature can pour out for you,
let a young mother hear you call dear baby "it."
Your best plan is to address the article as "little angel." The noun
"angel" being of common gender suits the case admirably, and the
epithet is sure of being favorably received. "Pet" or "beauty" are
useful for variety's sake, but "angel" is the term that brings you the
greatest credit for sense and good-feeling. The word should be
preceded by a short giggle and accompanied by as much smile as
possible. And whatever you do, don't forget to say that the child has
got its father's nose. This "fetches" the parents (if I may be
allowed a vulgarism) more than anything. They will pretend to laugh
at the idea at first and will say, "Oh, nonsense!" You must then get
excited and insist that it is a fact. You need have no conscientious
scruples on the subject, because the thing's nose really does resemble
its father's--at all events quite as much as it does anything else in
nature--being, as it is, a mere smudge.
Do not despise these hints, my friends. There may come a time when,
with mamma on one side and grand mamma on the other, a group of
admiring young ladies (not admiring you, though) behind, and a
bald-headed dab of humanity in front, you will be extremely thankful
for some idea of what to say. A man--an unmarried man, that is--is
never seen to such disadvantage as when undergoing the ordeal of
"seeing baby." A cold shudder runs down his back at the bare
proposal, and the sickly smile with which he says how delighted he
shall be ought surely to move even a mother's heart, unless, as I am
inclined to believe, the whole proceeding is a mere device adopted by
wives to discourage the visits of bachelor friends.
It is a cruel trick, though, whatever its excuse may be. The bell is
rung and somebody sent to tell nurse to bring baby down. This is the
signal for all the females present to commence talking "baby," during
which time you are left to your own sad thoughts and the speculations
upon the practicability of suddenly recollecting an important
engagement, and the likelihood of your being believed if you do. Just
when you have concocted an absurdly implausible tale about a man
outside, the door opens, and a tall, severe-looking woman enters,
carrying what at first sight appears to be a particularly skinny
bolster, with the feathers all at one end. Instinct, however, tells
you that this is the baby, and you rise with a miserable attempt at
appearing eager. When the first gush of feminine enthusiasm with
which the object in question is received has died out, and the number
of ladies talking at once has been reduced to the ordinary four or
five, the circle of fluttering petticoats divides, and room is made
for you to step forward. This you do with much the same air that you
would walk into the dock at Bow Street, and then, feeling unutterably
miserable, you stand solemnly staring at the child. There is dead
silence, and you know that every one is waiting for you to speak. You
try to think of something to say, but find, to your horror, that your
reasoning faculties have left you. It is a moment of despair, and
your evil genius, seizing the opportunity, suggests to you some of the
most idiotic remarks that it is possible for a human being to
perpetrate. Glancing round with an imbecile smile, you sniggeringly
observe that "it hasn't got much hair has it?" Nobody answers you for
a minute, but at last the stately nurse says with much gravity:
"It is not customary for children five weeks old to have long hair."
Another silence follows this, and you feel you are being given a
second chance, which you avail yourself of by inquiring if it can walk
yet, or what they feed it on.
By this time you have got to be regarded as not quite right in your
head, and pity is the only thing felt for you. The nurse, however, is
determined that, insane or not, there shall be no shirking and that
you shall go through your task to the end. In the tones of a high
priestess directing some religious mystery she says, holding the
bundle toward you:
"Take her in your arms, sir." You are too crushed to offer any
resistance and so meekly accept the burden. "Put your arm more down
her middle, sir," says the high-priestess, and then all step back and
watch you intently as though you were going to do a trick with it.
What to do you know no more than you did what to say. It is certain
something must be done, and the only thing that occurs to you is to
heave the unhappy infant up and down to the accompaniment of
"oopsee-daisy," or some remark of equal intelligence. "I wouldn't jig
her, sir, if I were you," says the nurse; "a very little upsets her."
You promptly decide not to jig her and sincerely hope that you have
not gone too far already.
At this point the child itself, who has hitherto been regarding you
with an expression of mingled horror and disgust, puts an end to the
nonsense by beginning to yell at the top of its voice, at which the
priestess rushes forward and snatches it from you with "There! there!
there! What did ums do to ums?" "How very extraordinary!" you say
pleasantly. "Whatever made it go off like that?" "Oh, why, you must
have done something to her!" says the mother indignantly; "the child
wouldn't scream like that for nothing." It is evident they think you
have been running pins into it.
The brat is calmed at last, and would no doubt remain quiet enough,
only some mischievous busybody points you out again with "Who's this,
baby?" and the intelligent child, recognizing you, howls louder than
ever.
Whereupon some fat old lady remarks that "it's strange how children
take a dislike to any one." "Oh, they know," replies another
mysteriously. "It's a wonderful thing," adds a third; and then
everybody looks sideways at you, convinced you are a scoundrel of the
blackest dye; and they glory in the beautiful idea that your true
character, unguessed by your fellow-men, has been discovered by the
untaught instinct of a little child.
Babies, though, with all their crimes and errors, are not without
their use--not without use, surely, when they fill an empty heart; not
without use when, at their call, sunbeams of love break through
care-clouded faces; not without use when their little fingers press
wrinkles into smiles.
Odd little people! They are the unconscious comedians of the world's
great stage. They supply the humor in life's all-too-heavy drama.
Each one, a small but determined opposition to the order of things in
general, is forever doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, in the
wrong place and in the wrong way. The nurse-girl who sent Jenny to
see what Tommy and Totty were doing and "tell 'em they mustn't" knew
infantile nature. Give an average baby a fair chance, and if it
doesn't do something it oughtn't to a doctor should be called in at
once.
They have a genius for doing the most ridiculous things, and they do
them in a grave, stoical manner that is irresistible. The
business-like air with which two of them will join hands and proceed
due east at a break-neck toddle, while an excitable big sister is
roaring for them to follow her in a westerly direction, is most
amusing--except, perhaps, for the big sister. They walk round a
soldier, staring at his legs with the greatest curiosity, and poke him
to see if he is real. They stoutly maintain, against all argument and
much to the discomfort of the victim, that the bashful young man at
the end of the 'bus is "dadda." A crowded street-corner suggests
itself to their minds as a favorable spot for the discussion of family
affairs at a shrill treble. When in the middle of crossing the road
they are seized with a sudden impulse to dance, and the doorstep of a
busy shop is the place they always select for sitting down and taking
off their shoes.
When at home they find the biggest walking-stick in the house or an
umbrella--open preferred-of much assistance in getting upstairs. They
discover that they love Mary Ann at the precise moment when that
faithful domestic is blackleading the stove, and nothing will relieve
their feelings but to embrace her then and there. With regard to
food, their favorite dishes are coke and cat's meat. They nurse pussy
upside down, and they show their affection for the dog by pulling his
tail.
They are a deal of trouble, and they make a place untidy and they cost
a lot of money to keep; but still you would not have the house without
them. It would not be home without their noisy tongues and their
mischief-making hands. Would not the rooms seem silent without their
pattering feet, and might not you stray apart if no prattling voices
called you together?
It should be so, and yet I have sometimes thought the tiny hand seemed
as a wedge, dividing. It is a bearish task to quarrel with that
purest of all human affections--that perfecting touch to a woman's
life--a mother's love. It is a holy love, that we coarser-fibered men
can hardly understand, and I would not be deemed to lack reverence for
it when I say that surely it need not swallow up all other affection.
The baby need not take your whole heart, like the rich man who walled
up the desert well. Is there not another thirsty traveler standing
by?
In your desire to be a good mother, do not forget to be a good wife.
No need for all the thought and care to be only for one. Do not,
whenever poor Edwin wants you to come out, answer indignantly, "What,
and leave baby!" Do not spend all your evenings upstairs, and do not
confine your conversation exclusively to whooping-cough and measles.
My dear little woman, the child is not going to die every time it
sneezes, the house is not bound to get burned down and the nurse run
away with a soldier every time you go outside the front door; nor the
cat sure to come and sit on the precious child's chest the moment you
leave the bedside. You worry yourself a good deal too much about that
solitary chick, and you worry everybody else too. Try and think of
your other duties, and your pretty face will not be always puckered
into wrinkles, and there will be cheerfulness in the parlor as well as
in the nursery. Think of your big baby a little. Dance him about a
bit; call him pretty names; laugh at him now and then. It is only the
first baby that takes up the whole of a woman's time. Five or six do
not require nearly so much attention as one. But before then the
mischief has been done. A house where there seems no room for him and
a wife too busy to think of him have lost their hold on that so
unreasonable husband of yours, and he has learned to look elsewhere
for comfort and companionship.
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