Boastfulness

“ In pleasure they comprehend malevolence—that is, pleased at another's misfortune—delight, boastfulness, and the like. To lust they associate anger, fury, hatred, enmity, discord, wants, desire, and other feelings of that kind. ”

“ Why, by your ostentation of yourself, do you judge others? Is it that, by your boasting, you invite others unto good? Nay, but even you yourself run the risk of losing, if you boast; and you drive others unto the same perils! What is assumed from love of boasting is easily destroyed. ”

“ Such unexpected modesty, in so exposed a situation, filled me with astonishment and veneration. How much did I wish to take her in my arms, and, by a kiss of affection, to express the sympathy I bore in her distress. How did I execrate the parsimony that had prevented my having about me all the money I possessed.--How earnestly did I wish to remove her to a more sheltered fate, where her beauty and her modesty might be better known and admired. ”

“ If a feeling of modesty does not deter you from shewing yourself tender, loving, and full of amorous ardour with me in his presence, how could I be ashamed, when, on the contrary, I ought to feel proud of myself? I have no reason to blush at having made a conquest of you, or at shewing myself in those moments during which I prove the liberality with which nature has bestowed upon me the shape and the strength which assure such immense enjoyment to me, besides the certainty that I can make the woman I love share it with me. ”

“ As humility regulates the interior, so modesty disciplines the exterior. This is the index that marks the motion of our soul: It discovers the situation of our passions, and tell us whether they obey the empire of sense or of reason. For providence seems to have designed the face not only for ornament, but for information. Nay the soul flies into our behaviour, and we can read its inclination, and disgust as legibly in our actions, as physicians do the state of the body by the beating of the pulse.
A woman discarded of modesty, ought to be gazed upon as a monster. ”

“ When we shall have become better acquainted, my worthy reader, there will be little necessity for my insisting upon a fact which at this early stage of our intimacy, I deem it requisite to mention; namely, that my native modesty and bashfulness are only second to my veracity, and that while the latter quality in a manner compels me to lay an occasional stress upon my own goodness of heart, generosity, candor, and so forth, I have, notwithstanding, never introduced the subject without a pang,—such a pang as only a sensitive and diffident nature can suffer or comprehend. ”

“ Beauty may be only skin-deep; modesty, like mine, pervades the grain. If I really believed my bashfulness was only cuticle-deep, I'd be flayed to-day, and try and grow a hardier complexion without any Bloom of Youth in it. No use! I could pave a ten-thousand-acre prairie with the "good intentions" I have wasted, the firm resolutions I have broken. Born to be bashful is only another way of expressing the Bible truth, "Born to trouble as the sparks are to fly upward." ”

“ This ingenious mode of disclaiming flattery only raised her in my esteem, and the more, as I told her such humble renunciation of praise could only proceed from that inward principle of genuine piety and devout feeling which made so amiable a part of her character.
"How little," said she, "is the human heart known except to him who made it! While a fellow creature may admire our apparent devotion, he who appears to be its object, witnesses the wandering of the heart, which seems to be lifted up to him. ”

“ Not that I say this boastfully—who am I, indeed, to boast?—but humbly and thankfully, knowing I passed through an ordeal from which—while the animal man cowered and shrank, crying aloud, aye, and with tears of agony, to be spared—the spiritual man drew strength and rose, in God’s mercy, to greater fulness of life. ”

“ But I will stop here, for in the same manner no one will grant to you that whatever ought to be sought is therefore praiseworthy; and that other argument of theirs is far from a legitimate conclusion, but a most stupid assertion, “that a happy life is one worthy of being boasted of.” For it can never happen that a person may reasonably boast, without something honourable in the circumstances. ”

“ Modesty, bashfulness, shame-facedness—as the good old English word was—that is the very beginning of all goodness in boys and girls. It is the very material out of which all other goodness is made; and those who laugh at, or torment, young people for being modest and bashful, are doing the devil’s work, and putting themselves under the curse which God, by the mouth of Solomon the wise, pronounced against the scorners who love scorning, and the fools who hate knowledge. ”

“ Art thou ready to judge humility to be sordid baseness, and knowest not how to submit to humble confession, when thou hast sinned against God; or injured thy brother? Art thou one that lookest strange at the godly poor, and art almost ashamed to be their companion? Canst thou not serve God in a low place, as well as a high? Are thy boastings restrained more by prudence or artifice than humility? Dost thou desire to have all men's eyes upon thee, and to hear them say, "This is he?" Art thou unacquainted with the deceitfulness and wickedness {229} of thy heart? ”

“ You're ashamed to boast of yourself so you fix it up for yourself by giving the virtues you think you've got to people and then singing about them as if you were an altruist and a sympathetic human observer. ”

“ Then I, thinking on these words, and, as it were, ashamed of myself, departed from them, and went, saying to myself, 'Since there is such bliss in those words which praise my lady, why has my speech been of other things?' And I proposed to take always for my subject, henceforward, the praise of this most gentle lady. And thinking much on this, I seemed to myself to have taken too lofty a subject for my power, so that I did not dare to begin. ”

“ Why, Sir, say even that your modesty, which astonishes me more and more every time I regard you, is calculated, and not a virtue naturally inherent in you, that very fact would argue for the high sense of the public morality among us. We will laugh in the company of our wives and children; we will tolerate no indecorum: we like that our matrons and girls should be pure. ”

“ Oh, you who are proud by nature, who are reserved by nature, who are sensitive in spirit, who feel every wrong done to you like a knife entering your breast, and who, when you forgive an injury, find it difficult to forget, and harder still to humble yourselves in any way to those who, you feel, have wronged you--here for you is a lesson, here for you is an example, a precious example, of the condescension of Love. ”

“ In private life do we not see hypocrisy, servility, selfishness, folly, and impudence succeed, while modesty shrinks from the encounter, and merit is trodden under foot? How often is ‘the rose plucked from the forehead of a virtuous love to plant a blister there!’ What chance is there of the success of real passion? ”

“ But the more influential powers are attended by a bashful genius, and step forth from themselves with a delicacy of boldness alike free from any blemishes of egotism or pretence. Nor do we accept as genuine the person not characterized by this blushing bashfulness, this youthfulness of heart, this sensibility to the sentiment of suavity and self-respect. Modesty is bred of self-reverence. Fine manners are the mantle of fair minds. None are truly great without this ornament. ”

“ Whether it is a mortal sin?
Art. 1 - Whether boasting is opposed to the virtue of truth? Objection 1: It seems that boasting is not opposed to the virtue of truth. For lying is opposed to truth. But it is possible to boast even without lying, as when a man makes a show of his own excellence. ”

“ This diminutive of false pride is one of the most pitiable of passions, and should be combated by manly efforts.
165. Modesty.—The virtue opposed to false pride, and which, besides, is nowise irreconcilable with true pride, is modesty, a correct feeling, namely, of one’s just worth. Morality does not forbid us a proper estimate of our merits; these merits, besides, having but a relative value, and representing but faintly the high ideal we should always keep before our eyes. To fail to appreciate the advantages we owe to nature, is often indicative only of laziness and apathy. ”

“ But that modesty, which it is desirable to possess, differs extremely from bashfulness, and from false delicacy. One is the excess of diffidence, and may exist without modesty; the other is the counterfeit of modesty, always liable to suspicion, easily detected, and assumed to conceal radical defects. Real modesty is the offspring of merit and of humility. It is frequently united with great abilities, and great acquirements, but it seeks not to display its excellencies; does not court the notice of others. ”

“ Then he began to boast—all men begin to boast when they fear they have not made sufficient impression upon a woman; they don’t realize that their boasting, like a frost in late spring, nips the first buds. He was telling me what a great poet he was and what the critics said of him, incidentally mentioning what you had said of him. ”

“ The chief trick by which clever men kept up the price of their abilities was called integrity. The chief trick by which handsome women kept up the price of their beauty was called modesty. The love of God, the love of country, the love of family, the love of friends, were phrases of the same sort, delicate and convenient synonymes for the love of self. ”

“ I know that modesty shuns formal confessions and requires to be overcome; but with delicacy and true love, will the lover ever be mistaken as to the real will? Will not he know when heart and eyes grant what the lips refuse? ”

“ How often do those whose modesty has been worn smooth, even take pleasure in thus saying and doing things to raise the blush on the cheek of youth and innocence, merely to witness the effect of this improper illusion upon them ”

“ How is it that the ineffable purity of a woman, her depth of affection, her capacity for sympathy, which even in its lesser degrees renders her such a blessing [Pg 34] in a world of so much trial, can, in some instances of great perfection, appear with such evidence in a few words, in an act which requires but little self-denial, in a tone of sorrow for small suffering, or of joy for some one who is happy! There are some men in whom you place perfect confidence as soon as you once behold the eye kindled with an earnest expression, and hear their voice. ”

“ Let us rather keep the level of common experience, and disclose the incursions of spirit which light a humble life. Love and Providence will appear in every breast; nothing more than Love and Providence appears to us above. ”

“ Thus, at length, I got snug into port, where, in the bosom of virtue, I gather'd the only uncorrupt sweets: where, looking back on the course of vice, I had run, and comparing its infamous blandishments with the infinitely superior joys of innocence, I could not help pitying, even in point of taste, those who, immers'd in a gross sensuality, are insensible to the so delicate charms of Virtue, than which even Pleasure has not a greater friend, nor than Vice a greater enemy. ”

“ Our divines have, therefore, you see, very good reasons for raising humility into the rank of virtue. An amiable modesty, a diffident mildness of demeanor, are unquestionably calculated to promote the pleasures and the advantages of society; it is equally certain that insolence and arrogance are disgusting, that they wound our self-love and excite our aversion by their repulsive conduct ”

“ If we were to observe this teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, we would not boast or praise one another so much in everything, inciting one another’s proud and evil hearts to boasting, since they themselves do not hesitate to pride themselves in everything and think highly of themselves.
How could a person exalt himself, considering the Lord’s words when He says that He looks down on all that are haughty? He knows everything. ”

“ There was nothing much in this; casual phrases of goodwill, spoken at a moment of conviviality, the outcome of genuine but perhaps not very deep feeling, except for that trifle of the kisses almost an ordinary accompaniment or conclusion of an evening's entertainment. I was a good fellow; the light praise had been lightly won. Yet even now as I write, looking back over the years, I can not, when I accuse myself of mawkishness, be altogether convinced by the self-denunciation. ”

“ Is any particular man addressed? Yes: Doeg the Edomite, as the preface to the psalm suggests. You can therefore find the historic reference of this verse and Psalm in 1 Samuel 22:9. Now take a concordance or topical text-book, and study the subject of “boasting.” What words mean the same thing as “boasting”? One is glorifying. Is boasting always condemned? In what does Scripture forbid us to boast? In what are we exhorted to boast? “Thus saith the Lord: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom; let not the rich man glory in his riches ”

“ But she rejoined, ‘Tell me the truth of the case, that I may order my affair; and what wantest thou with the mug of water?’ ‘To give the broker a drink,’ answered he; whereupon she exclaimed, ‘There is no power and no virtue but in God the Most High, the Supreme!’ And repeated the following verses:
O thou that seekest parting, stay thy feet: Let clips and kisses not delude thy spright.
Softly, for fortune’s nature is deceit And parting is the end of love-delight. ”

“ It does not seem, indeed, as if men were ever born modest, unless we dub with the name of modesty a sort of purely physical bashfulness, which is nearer to pride than is generally supposed. True modesty can be nothing but a meditation on vanity. ”