p. 40.
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 lie would disregard.
No 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, therefore, 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 principle here advanced
we can understand why it should be the most liable to blush.
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