THE INFLUENCE OF THE EYES
FEW persons escape the influence of the human eye. If its look is imperious, it sub- jugates; if it is tender, it moves; if it is sad it penetrates the heart with melancholy.
But this influence can not be real and strong unless it is incited by the thought behind it which maintains and fixes that look, in com- municating to it the expression either terrible or favorable, persuasive or defiant, which alone can maintain the firmness and the perseverance of the active forces of our brain.
those who can maintain a steady gaze for a long time without blinking.
But it is not sufficient to be able to throw a glance the persistence of which sometimes causes a passing discomfort, which almost al- ways tends toward the subjection of spirits of the weaker sort.
This look should be the projection of a
thought in which the fixed form is definite enough so that its penetrative influence shall become efficacious.
But, some one will say, it is not always necessary to think, since several animals possess this power of fascination, like the snake, which holds a bird motionless under the power of its gaze, so that it never dreams of trying to use its wings to escape from its enemy.
But if conscientious thought does not exist in the animal, it is nevertheless active in re- sponding to instinct.
There is a blind force in the brain of the serpent, which nevertheless is very strongly accentuated, and which turns it from taking possession of its prey, and this force, mastered by a powerful instinct, determines a compulsion which in the weaker creature is sufficient to paralyze all inclination to resist.
But the serpent does not monopolize this privilege of fascination, if one may believe cer- tain old French chronicles.
In the old book published by Rousseau in the seventeenth century, it is related that a toad shut up in a vase that he could not get out of found it difficult to endure the fascination of
the human eye; at first, in evident uneasiness,
it tried to escape; then, when convinced that that was impossible, it would return to its former position and stare at the person in its turn, and ended by
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