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.”