nger, envy, pride, and jealousy, ambition, avarice, discontent, and
all the varied passions and emotions that torment, excite or depress
the human soul, and find a resting place in the human breast, obtain
expression in the eyes. At one moment the instruments of receiving and
imparting pleasure, at another the willing or passive instruments of
pain, their influences and changes are as varied and boundless as the
empire of thought itself." Through their silent expressions the mind
reveals its workings to the external world in signs more rapid and as
palpable as those uttered by the tongue. It is "the eyes alone that
stamp the face with the outward symbol of animation and vitality," and
which endue it with the visible "sanctity of reason." The eye is,
indeed, the chief and most speaking feature of the face, and the one
on whose excellence, more than any other, its beauty depends.
Theories have been based on even the peculiar color of the eyes. Thus,
it is said that dark blue eyes are found chiefly in persons of
delicate, refined or effeminate mental character; light blue eyes, and
more particularly gray eyes, in the hardy and active; hazel eyes, in
the masculine, vigorous, and profound; black eyes, in those whose
energy is of a desultory or remittent character, and who exhibit
fickleness in pursuits and affection. Greenish eyes, it is asserted,
have the same general meaning as gray eyes, with the addition of
selfishness or a sinistrous disposition. These statements, however,
though based on some general truths, and supported by popular opinion,
are liable to so many exceptions as to be unreliable and valueless in
their individual applications.
Shakespeare is said to have had hazel eyes; Swift, blue eyes; Milton,
Scott, and Byron, gray eyes. Wellington and Napoleon are also said to
have had gray eyes.
A beautiful eye is one that is full, clear, and brilliant; appropriate
in color to the complexion, and in form to the features, and of which
the connected parts--the eyelids, eyelashes, and eyebrows, which, with
it, in a general view of the subject, collectively form the external
eye--are also beautiful, and in keeping with it.
To increase the beauty and expression of the eyes, various means are
occasionally had recourse to, nearly all of which, except those herein
mentioned in connection with the eyelashes and eyebrows, are not
merely highly objectionable, but even dangerous. Thus, some
fashionable ladies and actress
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