p. 205 | He Blushes So Easily

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 27, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 13.

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He Blushes So Easily.

"But didn't you see him blush?"

"Well, what of that?"

"Don't you think he was lying?"

"No, I don't. I know he was telling the square truth."

"Do you know the circumstances?"

"Yes, and I know he told them just as they were."

"It sounded like a lie, anyway."

"That is why he blushed," said Mr. Denison, for this talk was taking place in his law office just after the departure of a young man who had been sued and was seeking advice from his attorney.

"I venture to say no man has had more trouble than I with blushes, and I think I know some of the causes behind them. You may have noticed that I blush on every conceivable occasion. If a question is put to me quickly I blush. If I meet a friend slap on the street—unless I see him some time before I reach him—I blush. If anybody speaks my name from behind or from some unexpected quarter, I blush. As much as I have been before juries, I blush every time an opposing advocate refers to me as 'the learned counsel for the defense.' Yes, I blush on all manner of occasions, and yet I don't believe anybody would say I am an especially modest or bashful man.

"No, sir," continued the old attorney, "I have blushed and blushed all my life, and the more I blush the more I try not to, and the more I try not to, the more I blush. Above all, the meanest blush is just such a one as you saw on that young man's face just now. I know just how he felt. He knew he was telling a pretty hard story, and he could see in your face that you didn't believe him. That's why he blushed. If he had been talking to me alone he would not have blushed, because he knows I am familiar with the circumstances he related; but you looked doubtingly at him, and he felt your mistrust so keenly that it brought the blood to his face." After a little pause Mr. Denison continued: "I never pay the least attention to blushes when examining a witness. The blush is not, as is too often believed, the evidence of a lie. Nor is it the true signal of embarrassment. I know that, for I have been told that I was blushing purple when I was as calm and unembarrassed as I am at this moment. There are many causes for my blushes, some of them purely physical, I think; but often when I am telling something—some little personal recollection, perhaps that amounts to nothing—I get it in my head that somebody doubts some part of it. Then I blush. Then I feel that I am blushing, and I say to myself: 'Now he will see me blush and he will be sure to think I am lying,' and that makes me blush all the more, until finally I can feel my face burn and glow like a coal, and I say to myself, 'Now he is sure I am lying, and he thinks I know he is sure of it,' and so I stand and blush because I think he doubts me until perhaps I really make him doubt me because of my blushes."—Chicago News.