Chap. XIII. BLUSHING. 327 



blinking eyes, as on an inanimate object, in a manner 

 which we elders cannot imitate. 



It is plain to every one that young men and women 

 are highly sensitive to the opinion of each other with 

 reference to their personal appearance; and they blush 

 incomparably more in the presence of the opposite sex 

 than in that of their own. 25 A young man, not very 

 liable to blush, will blush intensely at any slight ridicule 

 of his appearance from a girl whose judgment on any 

 important subject he would disregard. Xo happy pair 

 of young lovers, valuing each other's admiration and 

 love more than anything else in the world, probably ever 

 courted each other without many a blush. Even the 

 barbarians of Tierra del Fuego, according to Mr. Bridges, 

 blush " chiefly in regard to women, but certainly also at 

 their own personal appearance." 



Of all parts of the body, the face is most considered 

 and regarded, as is natural from its being the chief seat 

 of expression and the source of the voice. It is also the 

 chief seat of beauty and of ugliness, and throughout 

 the world is the most ornamented. 26 The face, there- 

 fore, will have been subjected during many generations 

 to much closer and more earnest self-attention than any 

 other part of the body; and in accordance with the prin- 

 ciple here advanced we can understand why it should 

 be the most liable to blush. Although exposure to alter- 

 nations of temperature, &c, has probably much in- 

 creased the power of dilatation and contraction in the 

 capillaries of the face and adjoining parts, yet this by 



25 Mr. Bain (' The Emotions and the Will,' 1865, p. 65) 

 remarks on " the shyness of manners which is induced be- 

 tween the sexes .... from the influence of mutual re- 

 gard, by the apprehension on either side of not standing 

 well with the other." 



26 See, for evidence on this subject, ' The Descent of 

 Man,' &c, vol. ii. pp. 71, 341. 



