Concerning Eyes. 203 



used in the quickly-perishing flowers of some frail 

 plants ; while a few living things of free and buoy- 

 ant motions, like birds and butterflies, have been 

 touched on the wings with the celestial tint only to 

 make them more aerial in appearance. Only in man, 

 removed from the gross materialism of nature, and in 

 whom has been developed the highest faculties of 

 the mind, do we see the full beauty and significance 

 of the blue eye the eye, that is, without the inter- 

 posing cloud of dark pigment covering it. In the 

 biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author says 

 of him : " His eyes were large, dark-blue, brilliant, 

 and full of varied expression. Bayard Taylor used 

 to say that they were the only eyes be ever knew to 

 flash fire. . . . While he was yet at college, an old 

 gipsy woman, meeting him suddenly in a woodland 

 path, gazed at him and asked, 



" ' Are you a man, or an angel ? ' 



I may say here that gipsies are so accustomed 

 to concentrate their sight on the eyes of the people 

 they meet that they acquire a marvellous proficiency 

 in detecting their expression ; they study them with 

 an object, as my friend the gambler studied the 

 backs of the cards he played with ; without seeing 

 the eyes of their intended dupe they would be at 

 a loss what to say. 



To return to Hawthorne. His wife says in one 

 of her letters quoted in the book : " The flame of 

 his eyes consumed compliment, cant, sham, and 

 falsehood ; while the most wretched sinners so 

 many of whom came to confess to him met in his 



