partially unlucky to say to any person, 'How well you look'; as the
probabilities are that such an individual will receive a sudden
blight and pine away. We have however no occasion to go to
Hindoos, Turks, and Jews for this idea; we shall find it nearer
home, or something akin to it. Is there one of ourselves, however
enlightened and free from prejudice, who would not shrink, even in
the midst of his highest glee and enjoyment, from saying, 'How
happy I am!' or if the words inadvertently escaped him, would he
not consider them as ominous of approaching evil, and would he not
endeavour to qualify them by saying, 'God preserve me!' - Ay, God
preserve you, brother! Who knows what the morrow will bring forth?

The common remedy for the evil eye, in the East, is the spittle of
the person who has cast it, provided it can be obtained. 'Spit in
the face of my child,' said the Jew of Janina to the Greek
physician: recourse is had to the same means in Barbary, where the
superstition is universal. In that country both Jews and Moors
carry papers about with them scrawled with hieroglyphics, which are
prepared by their respective priests, and sold. These papers,
placed in a little bag, and hung about the person, are deemed
infallible preservatives from the 'evil eye.'

Let us now see what the TALMUD itself says about the evil eye. The
passage which we are about to quote is curious, not so much from
the subject which it treats of, as in affording an example of the
manner in which the Rabbins are wont to interpret the Scripture,
and the strange and wonderful deductions which they draw from words
and phrases apparently of the greatest simplicity.

'Whosoever when about to enter into a city is afraid of evil eyes,