Shyness was a source of misery to the late Archbishop Whately. When at Oxford, his white rough coat and white hat obtained for him the sobriquet of 'The White Bear;' and his manners, according to his own account of himself, corresponded with the appellation. He was directed, by way of remedy, to copy the example of the best-mannered men he met in society; but the attempt to do this only increased his shyness. He found that he was all the while thinking of himself rather than of others; whereas thinking of others rather than of one's self is the essence of politeness. Finding that he was making no progress, he said to himself: 'I have tried my very utmost, and find that I must be as awkward as a bear all my life, in spite of it. I will endeavour to think about it as little as a bear, and make up my mind to endure what can't be cured.' In thus endeavouring to shake off all consciousness as to manner, he says: 'I succeeded beyond my expectations; for I not only got rid of the personal suffering of shyness, but also of most of those faults of manner which consciousness produces; and acquired at once an easy and natural manner--careless indeed in the extreme, from its originating in a stern defiance of opinion, which I had convinced myself must be ever against me; rough and awkward, for smoothness and grace are quite out of my way, and of course tutorially pedantic; but unconscious, and therefore giving expression to that good-will towards men which I really feel; and these I believe are the main points.' Vanity again is the source of that boasting self-assertion which is the bane of manners. He is an ill-mannered man who is always loud in the praises of himself and of his children; who boasting of his rank, of his business, of achievements in his calling, looks down upon lower orders of people; who cannot refrain from having his joke at the expense of another's character, whose smart thing must come out because he has not the gentlemanly feeling that suggests to us Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow to the meanest thing that lives.