and announcing to the curious how it is with them. The face and eyes
reveal what the spirit is doing, how old it is, what aims it has. The
eyes indicate the antiquity of the soul, or through how many forms it
has already ascended. It almost violates the proprieties, if we say
above the breath here what the confessing eyes do not hesitate to utter
to every street passenger.

Man cannot fix his eye on the sun, and so far seems imperfect. In
Siberia, a late traveller found men who could see the satellites of
Jupiter with their unarmed eye. In some respects the animals excel us.
The birds have a longer sight, beside the advantage by their wings of a
higher observatory. A cow can bid her calf, by secret signal, probably
of the eye, to run away, or to lie down and hide itself. The jockeys say
of certain horses, that "they look over the whole ground." The outdoor
life, and hunting, and labor, give equal vigor to the human eye. A
farmer looks out at you as strong as the horse; his eye-beam is like the
stroke of a staff. An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun,
or can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams
of kindness, it can make the heart dance with joy.

The eye obeys exactly the action of the mind. When a thought strikes us,
the eyes fix, and remain gazing at a distance; in enumerating the names
of persons or of countries, as France, Germany, Spain, Turkey, the eyes
wink at each new name. There is no nicety of learning sought by the
mind, which the eyes do not vie in acquiring. "An artist," said Michael
Angelo, "must have his measuring tools not in the hand, but in the eye;"
and there is no end to the catalogue of its performances, whether in
indolent vision (that of health and beauty) or in strained vision (that
of art and labor).