This morbid dread of becoming the subject of ridicule ends by creating a
peculiar condition of mind of which, as we have already pointed out,
egoism is the pivot.

In this way it is a common occurrence to see people of timidity paying
exaggerated attention to the slightest changes in the condition of their
health.

Such people by shutting themselves out from the world have reduced it to
the circumference of their own personalities and everything which
touches them necessarily assumes gigantic importance in their eyes.

The slightest opposition becomes for them a catastrophe. The smallest
unpleasantness presents itself to them in the light of a tragic
misfortune.

For this reason the lives of the timid become a succession of boredoms
and of pains.

Even in those cases where no really unfortunate incident occurs, these
people so exaggerate what actually does happen to them that the least
little emotion causes them the most profound unhappiness.

On those days when nothing in particular happens they spend their time
anticipating all sorts of disasters, including those which are not the
least likely to happen. To them the tiniest cloud is an omen of a
devastating storm.

When the sun is shining their timidity prevents them from exposing