In one of my own children, when two years and three months old,
I saw a trace of what certainly appeared to be shyness,
directed towards myself after an absence from home of only a week.
This was shown not by a blush, but by the eyes being for a few
minutes slightly averted from me. I have noticed on other
occasions that shyness or shamefacedness and real shame are
exhibited in the eyes of young children before they have acquired
the power of blushing.
[27] H. Wedgwood, Dict. English Etymology, vol. iii. 1865, p. 184.
So with the Latin word _verecundus_.
As shyness apparently depends on self-attention, we can perceive
how right are those who maintain that reprehending children
for shyness, instead of doing them any good, does much harm,
as it calls their attention still more closely to themselves.
It has been well urged that "nothing hurts young people more than
to be watched continually about their feelings, to have their
countenances scrutinized, and the degrees of their sensibility
measured by the surveying eye of the unmerciful spectator.
Under the constraint of such examinations they can think
of nothing but that they are looked at, and feel nothing
but shame or apprehension.
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