326 BLUSHING. Chap. XIII. 



Hereafter the question will be discussed, how it has 

 arisen that the consciousness that others are attending 

 to our personal appearance should have led to the capil- 

 laries, especially those of the face, instantly becoming 

 filled with blood. 



My reasons for believing that attention directed to 

 personal appearance, and not to moral conduct, has been 

 the fundamental element in the acquirement of the habit 

 of blushing, will now be given. They are separately 

 light, but combined possess, as it appears to me, con- 

 siderable weight. It is notorious that nothing makes 

 a shy person blush so much as any remark, however 

 slight, on his personal appearance. One cannot notice 

 even the dress of a woman much given to blushing, 

 wihout causing her face to crimson. It is sufficient 

 to stare hard at some persons to make them, as Col- 

 eridge remarks, blush, — " account for that he who 

 can." 23 



With the two albinos observed by Dr. Burgess, 24 

 " the slightest attempt to examine their peculiarities 

 invariably " caused them to blush deeply. Women are 

 much more sensitive about their personal appearance 

 than men are, especially elderly women in comparison 

 with elderly men, and they blush much more freely. 

 The young of both sexes are much more sensitive on 

 this same head than the old, and they also blush much 

 more freely than the old. Children at a very early age 

 do not blush; nor do they show those other signs of self- 

 consciousness which generally accompany blushing; and 

 it is one of their chief charms that they think nothing 

 about what others think of them. At this early age 

 they will stare at a stranger with a fixed gaze and un- 



23 In a discussion on so-called animal magnetism in 

 ' Table Talk,' vol. i. 



24 Ibid. p. 40. 



