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 aérial 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 he 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 P’” 
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 
