"
(_Voyage dans la Haute et Basse Egypte_, 1779, vol. i, p, 289.) When
Casanova was at Constantinople, the Comte de Bonneval, a convert to Islam,
assured him that he was mistaken in trying to see a woman's face when he
might easily obtain greater favors from her. "The most reserved of Turkish
women," the Comte assured him, "only carries her modesty in her face, and
as soon as her veil is on she is sure that she will never blush at
anything." (_Memoires_, vol. i, p. 429.)
[70] It is worth noting that this impulse is rooted in the natural
instinctive acts and ideas of childhood. Stanley Hall, dealing with the
"Early Sense of Self," in the report already mentioned, refers to the eyes
as perhaps even more than the hands, feet, and mouth, "the centres of that
kind of self-consciousness which is always mindful of how the self appears
to others," and proceeds to mention "the very common impression of young
children that if the eyes are covered or closed they cannot be seen. Some
think the entire body thus vanishes from sight of others; some, that the
head also ceases to be visible; and a still higher form of this curious
psychosis is that, when they are closed, the soul cannot be seen."
(_American Journal of Psychology_, vol. ix, No. 3, 1898.) The instinctive
and unreasoned character of this act is further shown by its occurrence in
idiots. Naecke mentions that he once had occasion to examine the abdomen of
an idiot, who, thereupon, attempted to draw down his shirt with the left
hand, while with the right he covered his eyes.
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