We are not now speaking of those idle fancies which are no more than
manifestations of nervousness. We have in mind rather that controlled
and enduring purpose which arms the heart against the assaults of the
emotions by giving it the strength to overcome them.

There are many cases even in which will-power has led to their entire
suppression.

This happens more particularly in the case of those artificial emotions
that the man of resolution ignores completely, but which cause agony to
the timid who do not know how to escape them, and exaggerate them to
excess.

This abnormal development of their personalities is the peculiarity of
the timid, which their fitful efforts of will only heighten, alienating
from them the sympathy which might be of assistance to them.

They take refuge in a species of mischievous and fruitless activity,
leaving the field open to the development of all sorts of imaginary ills
that argument does not serve to combat.

Their ego, whose importance is in no way counterbalanced by their
appreciation of the friends they keep at a distance, fills their entire
existence to such an extent that they have no doubt whatever that, when
they are in public, every eye is, of necessity, fixt upon them.

Their negative will leaves them at the mercy of every sort of emotion,
which, in arousing in them the necessity of a reaction they feel
themselves powerless to realize, reduces them to a state of inferiority