Undoubtedly such a basis is formed by that vasomotor mechanism
of which the most obvious outward sign is, in human beings, the blush. All
the allied emotional forms of fear--shame, bashfulness, timidity--are to
some extent upheld by this mechanism, but such is especially the case with
the emotion we are now concerned with.[64] The blush is the sanction of
modesty.
The blush is, indeed, only a part, almost, perhaps, an accidental
part, of the organic turmoil with which it is associated.
Partridge, who has studied the phenomena of blushing in one
hundred and twenty cases (_Pedagogical Seminary_, April, 1897),
finds that the following are the general symptoms: tremors near
the waist, weakness in the limbs, pressure, trembling, warmth,
weight or beating in the chest, warm wave from feet upward,
quivering of heart, stoppage and then rapid beating of heart,
coldness all over followed by heat, dizziness, tingling of toes
and fingers, numbness, something rising in throat, smarting of
eyes, singing in ears, prickling sensations of face, and pressure
inside head. Partridge considers that the disturbance is
primarily central, a change in the cerebral circulation, and that
the actual redness of the surface comes late in the nerve storm,
and is really but a small part of it.
There has been some discussion as to why, and indeed how far,
blushing is confined to the face.
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