Chapter 13

SELF-ATTENTION--SHAME--SHYNESS--MODESTY: BLUSHING.

Nature of a blush--Inheritance--The parts of the body most affected--Blushing in the various races of man--Accompanying gestures--Confusion of mind--Causes of blushing--Self-attention, the fundamental element--Shyness--Shame, from broken moral laws and conventional rules--Modesty--Theory of blushing--Recapitulation.

BLUSHING is the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions. Monkeys redden from passion, but it would require an overwhelming amount of evidence to make us believe that any animal could blush. The reddening of the face from a blush is due to the relaxation of the muscular coats of the small arteries, by which the capillaries become filled with blood; and this depends on the proper vaso-motor centre being affected. No doubt if there be at the same time much mental agitation, the general circulation will be affected; but it is not due to the action of the heart that the network of minute vessels covering the face becomes under a sense of shame gorged with blood. We can cause laughing by tickling the skin, weeping or frowning by a blow, trembling from the fear of pain, and so forth; but we cannot cause a blush, as Dr. Burgess remarks,[1] by any physical means,--that is by any action on the body. It is the mind which must be affected. Blushing is not only involuntary; but the wish to restrain it, by leading to self-attention actually increases the tendency.

[1] 'The Physiology or Mechanism of Blushing,' 1839, p. 156. I shall have occasion often to quote this work in the present chapter.

The young blush much more freely than the old, but not during infancy,[2] which is remarkable, as we know that infants at a very early age redden from passion. I have received authentic accounts of two little girls blushing at the ages of between two and three years; and of another sensitive child, a year older, blushing, when reproved for a fault. Many children, at a somewhat more advanced age blush in a strongly marked manner. It appears that the mental powers of infants are not as yet sufficiently developed to allow of their blushing. Hence, also, it is that idiots rarely blush. Dr. Crichton Browne observed for me those under his care, but never saw a genuine blush, though he has seen their faces flash, apparently from joy, when food was placed before them, and from anger. Nevertheless some, if not utterly degraded, are capable of blushing. A microcephalous idiot, for instance, thirteen years old, whose eyes brightened a little when he was pleased or amused, has been described by Dr. Behn,[3] as blushing and turning to one side, when undressed for medical examination.

Women blush much more than men. It is rare to see an old man, but not nearly so rare to see an old woman blushing. The blind do not escape. Laura Bridgman, born in this condition, as well as completely deaf, blushes.[4] The Rev. R. H. Blair, Principal of the Worcester