SIGHT IN SAVAGES 159 



mushrooms growing in rings, and the shrinking of 

 the sensitive plant when touched, and Will-o '-the- 

 wisps, and crowing hens, and the murderous at- 

 tack of social birds and beasts on one of their fel- 

 lows, seemed less strange and wonderful than the 

 fact that this man's eyes did not correspond, but 

 were the eyes of two men, as if there had been 

 two natures and souls in one body. My astonish- 

 ment was, perhaps, not unaccountable, when we 

 reflect that the eye is to us the window of the 

 mind or soul, that it expresses the soul, and is, as 

 it were, the soul itself materialized. Some person 

 lately published in England a book entitled * ' Soul- 

 Shapes," treating not only of the shapes of souls 

 but also of their color. The letter-press of this 

 work interests me less than the colored plates 

 adorning it. Passing over the mixed and vari- 

 colored souls, which resemble, in the illustrations, 

 colored maps in an atlas, we come to the blue soul, 

 for which the author has a very special regard. 

 Its blue is like that of the commonest type of blue 

 eye. This curious fancy of a blue soul probably 

 originated in the close association of eye and soul 

 in the mind. It is worthy of note that while the 

 mixed and other colored souls seem very much 

 out of shape, like an old felt hat or a stranded 

 jelly-fish, the pure-colored blue soul is round, like 

 an iris, and only wanted a pupil to be made an 

 eye. 



But the subject of the color and expression of 

 eyes in man and animals must be reserved for the 



