"Timid and embarrassed men," he says, "will sit as if they were
rooted to the spot, when they are conscious that they have to
traverse the length of a room in their retreat. In every case, an
interview will find a more easy and pleasing termination WHEN THE
DOOR IS AT HAND as the last words are spoken." (5)
The late Prince Albert, one of the gentlest and most amiable, was
also one of the most retiring of men. He struggled much against
his sense of shyness, but was never able either to conquer or
conceal it. His biographer, in explaining its causes, says: "It
was the shyness of a very delicate nature, that is not sure it
will please, and is without the confidence and the vanity which
often go to form characters that are outwardly more genial." (6)
But the Prince shared this defect with some of the greatest of
Englishmen. Sir Isaac Newton was probably the shyest man of his
age. He kept secret for a time some of his greatest discoveries,
for fear of the notoriety they might bring him. His discovery of
the Binomial Theorem and its most important applications, as well
as his still greater discovery of the Law of Gravitation, were not
published for years after they were made; and when he communicated
to Collins his solution of the theory of the moon's rotation round
the earth, he forbade him to insert his name in connection with
it in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' saying: "It would,
perhaps, increase my acquaintance--the thing which I chiefly
study to decline.
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