This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
I shall conclude with one general rule, of sovereign
use against all the passions and diseases of the mind, but
particularly beneficial to such as labor under the present
distemper, bashfulness. And it is this: whenever they
have given way to this weakness, let them store up carefully such failings in their memory, and taking therein deep
and lively impressions of what remorse and disquiet they
occasioned, bestow much time in reflecting upon them and
keeping them fresh. For as travellers that have got a
dangerous fall against such a stone, or sailors shipwrecked
upon a particular promontory, keeping the image of their
misfortune continually before them, appear fearful and apprehensive not only of the same but even the like dangers;
so they that keep in mind the disgraceful and prejudicial
effects of bashfulness will soon be enabled to restrain themselves in like cases, and will not easily slip again on any
occasion.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.