e part of the body which is most
regarded, it is intelligible that any one ashamed of his personal
appearance would desire to conceal this part of his body. The habit,
having been thus acquired, would naturally be carried on when shame from
strictly moral causes was felt; and it is not easy otherwise to see why
under these circumstances there should be a desire to hide the face more
than any other part of the body.

The habit, so general with everyone who feels ashamed, of turning away
or lowering his eyes, or restlessly moving them from side to side,
probably follows from each glance directed toward those present,
bringing home the conviction that he is intently regarded; and he
endeavors, by not looking at those present, and especially not at their
eyes, momentarily to escape from this painful conviction.

4. Laughing[141]

Sympathy, when it is not the direct cause, is conditional to the
existence of laughter. Sometimes it provokes it; always it spreads it,
sustains and strengthens it.

First of all, it is so much the nature of laughter to communicate itself
that when it no longer communicates itself it ceases to exist. One might
say that outbursts of merriment need to be encouraged, that they are not
self-sufficient. Not to share them is to blow upon them and extinguish
them. When, in an animated and mirthful group, some one remains cold or
gloomy, the laughter immediately stops or is checked. Yet those whom the
common people call, in their picturesque language, wet blankets,
spoil-sports, or kill-joys, are not necessarily hostile to the gaiety of
the rest. They may only have, and, in fact, very often do have, nothing
but the one fault of being out of tune with this gaiety. But even their
calm appears an offense to the warmth and the high spirits of the others
and kills by itself alone this merriment.

Not only is laughter maintained by sympathy but it is even born of
sympathy. The world is composed of two kinds of people: those who make
one laugh and those who are made to laugh, these latter being infinitely
more numerous. How many there are, indeed, who have no sense of humor,
and who, of themselves, would not think of laughing at things at which
they do nevertheless laugh heartily because they see others laugh. As
for those who have a ready wit and a sense of the comic, do they not
enjoy the success of their jokes as much, if not more, than their jokes
themselves? Their mirthfulness, then, at least, grows w