M. Vinteuil ... carried politeness and consideration for others to
such scrupulous lengths, always putting himself in their place,
that he was afraid of boring them, or of appearing
egotistical, if he carried out or even allowed them to suspect
what were his own desires.
-- Marcel Proust. Swann's Way (1913) p.157
(tr. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin
revised by D. J. Enright -- 1992)