[18]

Why does a man who is ashamed & knows you are thinking of him hate to meet your eye? is it then that he is made to feel still more certainly that you are actually looking at him? Or does he know that the eye expressed so clearly the emotions of his soul?

[Expression, p. 322: "An ashamed person can hardly endure to meet the gaze of those present, so that he almost invariably casts down his eyes or looks askant. As there generally exists at the same time a strong wish to avoid the appearance of shame, a vain attempt is made to look direct at the person who causes this feeling; and the antagonism between these opposite tendencies leads to various restless movements in the eyes. I have noticed two ladies who, whilst blushing, to which they are very liable, have thus acquired, as it appears, the oddest trick of incessantly blinking their eyelids with extraordinary rapidity. An intense blush is sometimes accompanied by a slight effusion of tears;21 and this, I presume, is due to the lacrymal glands partaking of the increased supply of blood, which we know rushes into the capillaries of the adjoining parts, including the retina.
21 Burgess, ibid. pp. 181, 182. Boerhaave also noticed (as quoted by Gratiolet, ibid. p. 361) the tendency to the secretion of tears during intense blushing. Mr. Bulmer, as we have seen, speaks of the "watery eyes" of the children of the Australian aborigines when ashamed.]