Although the heart’s warm blood is not carried to the cheeks in so dense
a network of arteries, nor so near the surface as in the lips, yet the
cheeks come next to the lips in delicate sensibility—a fact which Love
has discovered instinctively; for a kiss on the cheeks is still a kiss
of love, whereas a kiss on the forehead or eyelids indicates less
ecstatic forms of affection or esteem.
What makes the cheeks so sensitive is the great delicacy of their
transparent skin, which readily allows the colour of the blood to be
seen as through a veil, not only in blushing, but in the natural rosy
aspect of youth and health.
Though the cheeks may not vie with the lips and teeth, the hair and the
eyes, in lustrous depth of colour, they have an advantage in their
chamæleonic variety and changes of tint, and their delicious gradations.
Even the delicate blushes on an apple or a peach, caused by the warm and
loving glances of the sun,—what are they compared to the luscious,
mellow tints on a maiden’s ripe cheeks? Nor is it possible to find in
the leaves of an autumnal American forest more endless individual
_nuances_ and shades of red and rose and pink than in the cheeks of
lovely girls—unless indolence or other sins against health have painted
them with ghastly repulsive pallor, or the hideous Hottentot habit of
bedaubing them with brutal paint has ruined their translucent delicacy.
Says the author of the _Ugly Girl Papers_: “Some cheeks have a winelike,
purplish glow, others a transparent saffron tinge, like yellowish-pink
porcelain; others still have clear, pale carmine; and the rarest of all,
that suffused tint like apple-blossoms.”
At summer resorts where girls drink in daily draughts of the elixir of
youth and beauty, commonly known as fresh air, one of their greatest
love-charms is these colour-symphonies on their cheeks, changing their
melody with every pulse-beat. These charms they might possess all the
year round did not their parents commonly convert their dwelling-houses
into hothouses, reeking with stagnant, enervating air.
If, therefore, we read that Africans prefer the opaque, inky, immutable
ebony of their complexion to the translucent, ever-changing tints,
eloquent of health and varied emotions, in a white maiden’s face,
we—well, we simply smile, on recalling the fact that even among
ourselves a cheap, gaudy chromo is preferred by the great multitude to
the work of a great master which they do not understand. The slow growth
of æsthetic refinement is illustrated by the fact that it is only a few
years since Fashion has set its face against the use of vulgar paints
and powders, which ensure a most questionable temporary advantage at the
expense of future permanent defacement.
The colours of the cheeks, so far under consideration, are to a certain
extent subject to our will and skill; for no one who cultivates the
complexion and has plenty of pure air need be without these blooming
buccal roses. But the “thousand _blushing apparitions_” that start into
our faces are, as Shakspere’s well-chosen words imply, as independent of
our will and control as any other apparitions.
Are blushes ornamental or useful? That is, were they developed through
Sexual or through Natural Selection? Such Shaksperian expressions as
“Bid the cheek be ready with a blush, modest as morning;” “Thy cheeks
blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses;” and “To blush and
beautify the cheek again,” suggest the notion that the great poet
regarded blushes as beautiful; while the following permit a different
interpretation: “Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty;” “Blushing cheeks
by faults are bred, and fears by pale white shown;” “You virtuous ass,
you bashful fool, must you be blushing?” “His treasons will sit blushing
in his face.”
Let us see if any light is thrown on the problem by going back to the
beginning, and tracing the development of the habit of blushing. That
blushing is a comparatively recent human acquisition is made apparent
from the facts that it is not seen in animals, nor in very young
children, nor in idiots, as a rule; while among savages the faculty of
blushing seems to be dependent on the presence of a sense of shame,
which is almost, if not entirely, unknown to the lowest tribes.
That animals never blush, Darwin thinks, is almost certain. “Blushing,”
he says, “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.” Concerning
children he says: “The young blush much more freely than the old, but
not during infancy, 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.”
“In the dark-brown Peruvian,” says Mr. Tylor, “or the yet blacker
African, though a hand or a thermometer put to the cheek will detect the
blush by its heat, the somewhat increased depth of colour is hardly
perceptible to the eye.” Dr. Burgess repeatedly had occasion to observe
that a scar in the face of a negress “invariably became red whenever she
was abruptly spoken to, or charged with any trivial offence.” And Darwin
was assured by several trustworthy observers “that they have seen on the
faces of negroes an appearance resembling a blush, under circumstances
which would have excited one in us, though their skins were of an
ebony-black tint. Some describe it as a blushing brown, but most say
that the blackness becomes more intense.”
Now evidence has already been quoted in a previous chapter showing that
negroes admire a black skin more than a white one (vide _Descent of
Man_, 1885, p. 579). Is it likely, therefore, that the blush was admired
by negroes, and became a ground of selection, because it intensified the
blackness of the skin. It hardly seems probable that the coarse negro
can be influenced in his amorous choice by any such subtle, almost
imperceptible difference; and even the great originator of the theory of
Sexual Selection does not believe that it accounts for the origin of
blushes: “No doubt a slight blush adds to the beauty of a maiden’s face;
and the Circassian women who are capable of blushing invariably fetch a
higher price in the seraglio of the Sultan than less susceptible women.
But the firmest believer in the efficacy of sexual selection will hardly
suppose that blushing was acquired as a sexual ornament. This view would
also be opposed to what has just been said about the dark-coloured races
blushing in an invisible manner.”
On the other hand, it seems equally difficult to account for the origin
of blushing on utilitarian grounds. No one likes to be caught blushing;
on the contrary, every one tries to conceal such a state by lowering or
averting the face. How could such an unwelcome, embarrassing habit prove
of advantage to us? Sir Charles Bell’s remarks on the subject may serve
as a clue to the answer. That blushing “is a provision for expression
may be inferred,” he says, “from the colour extending only to the
surface of the face, neck, and breast—the parts most exposed.... The
colour caused by blushing gives brilliancy and interest to the
expression of the face. In this we perceive an advantage possessed by
the fair family of mankind, and which must be lost to the dark; for I
can hardly believe that a blush may be seen in the negro.... Blushing
assorts well with youthful and with effeminate features, while nothing
is more hateful than a dog-face that exhibits no token of sensibility in
the variations of colour.”
The poet Young tells us that “the man that blushes is not quite a
brute;” and Darwin quotes from Humboldt a sneer of the Spaniard, “How
can those be trusted who know not how to blush?” Darwin’s remark that
some idiots, “_if not utterly degraded_, are capable of blushing,” also
accords with Bell’s notion that blushing is a provision for expression.
Bell’s assertion that it is “indicative of excitement” is, however, not
sufficiently definite. What is it that a blush expresses? Evidently
nervous sensibility, a moral sense, modesty, innocence. The Circassian
who can blush is more highly valued than another, because the blush is
eloquent of maiden modesty and heart untainted. The fact that there is
also a blush of violated modesty, a blush of shame, and of guilt, does
not argue against this view, any more than the fact that we blush if,
though innocent, we are accused of guilt. It is the association of ideas
and of emotions that evokes the blush in such cases.
We may therefore conclude that a blush is useful on account of its
_moral beauty_, _i.e._ its expressiveness of presumptive innocence, or
at least of a desire to be considered innocent; whereas the unblushing
front and cheek indicate a brutal, callous indifference to virtue. We
admire a blush as “the most peculiar and the most human of all
expressions.” And we admire it also, to some extent, on purely æsthetic
grounds, if not exaggerated. A slight blush has a rosy charm of its own,
and it is only when it becomes a too diffused and deep facial Aurora
borealis that it loses its charm, because suggestive of the hectic or
fever flush, or the redness caused by anger, heat, violent exertion,
etc., which has a physiological origin distinct from that of blushing.
According to Bell, “the colour which attends exertion or the violent
passions, as of rage, arises from general vascular excitement, and
differs from blushing. Blushing is too sudden and too partial to be
traced to the heart’s action.” Darwin endeavours to find the explanation
of blushing in the intimate sympathy which exists between the capillary
circulation of the surface of the head and face, and that of the brain,
which would account for the mental confusion of shyness, modesty, etc.,
being so immediately photographed on the face. He sums up his theory in
these words:—
“I conclude that blushing—whether due to shyness—to shame for a real
crime—to shame from a breach of the laws of etiquette—to modesty from
humility—to modesty from an indelicacy—depends in all cases on the same
principle; this principle being a sensitive regard for the opinion, more
particularly for the depreciation of others, primarily in relation to
our personal appearance, especially of our faces; and secondarily,
through the force of association and habit, in relation to the opinion
of others on our conduct.”
He gives various illustrations showing how by directing our attention to
certain parts of the body we can increase their sensitivity and activity
in a manner analogous to that postulated by the theory of blushing. But
for these the reader must be referred to his essay on this subject in
the Expression of Emotions—a masterpiece of physiological and
psychological analysis. One more passage, however, may be cited, as it
helps to justify this long discussion of blushing by showing its special
relations to Romantic Love and Personal Beauty:—
“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 presence of the opposite
sex than in that of their own. 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. 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.’”