let him grasp the thumb of his right hand with his left hand, and
his left-hand thumb with his right hand, and let him cry in this
manner: "I am such a one, son of such a one, sprung from the seed
of Joseph"; and the evil eyes shall not prevail against him.
JOSEPH IS A FRUITFUL BOUGH, A FRUITFUL BOUGH BY A WELL, (31) etc.
Now you should not say BY A WELL, but OVER AN EYE. (32) Rabbi
Joseph Bar Henina makes the following deduction: AND THEY SHALL
BECOME (the seed of Joseph) LIKE FISHES IN MULTITUDE IN THE MIDST
OF THE EARTH. (33) Now the fishes of the sea are covered by the
waters, and the evil eye has no power over them; and so over those
of the seed of Joseph the evil eye has no power.'

I have been thus diffuse upon the evil eye, because of late years
it has been a common practice of writers to speak of it without
apparently possessing any farther knowledge of the subject than
what may be gathered from the words themselves.

Like most other superstitions, it is, perhaps, founded on a
physical reality.

I have observed, that only in hot countries, where the sun and moon
are particularly dazzling, the belief in the evil eye is prevalent.
If we turn to Scripture, the wonderful book which is capable of
resolving every mystery, I believe that we shall presently come to
the solution of the evil eye. 'The sun shall not smite thee by
day, nor the moon by night.' Ps. cxxi. v. 6.

Those who wish to avoid the evil eye, instead of trusting in
charms, scrawls, and Rabbinical antidotes, let them never loiter in
the sunshine before the king of day has nearly reached his bourn in