Bunyan, John, 1628-1688 -- Criticism and interpretation
'Think, in the first place,' says the eloquent author of the _Five
Gateways of Knowledge_, 'how beautiful the human eye is. The eyes of
many of the lower animals are, doubtless, very beautiful. You must all
have admired the bold, fierce, bright eye of the eagle; the large,
gentle, brown eye of the ox; the treacherous, green eye of the cat,
waxing and waning like the moon; the pert eye of the sparrow; the sly eye
of the fox; the peering little bead of black enamel in the mouse's head;
the gem-like eye that redeems the toad from ugliness, and the
intelligent, affectionate expression which looks out of the human-like
eye of the horse and dog. There are many other animals whose eyes are
full of beauty, but there is a glory that excelleth in the eye of a man.
We realise this best when we gaze into the eyes of those we love. It is
their eyes we look at when we are near them, and it is their eyes we
recall when we are far away from them. The face is all but a blank
without the eye; the eye seems to concentrate every feature in itself. It
is the eye that smiles, not the lips; it is the eye that listens, not the
ear; it is the eye that frowns, not the brow; it is the eye that mourns,
not the voice. The eye sees what it brings the power to see. How true
is this! The sailor on the look-out can see a ship where the landsman
can see nothing. The Esquimaux can distinguish a white fox among the
white snow. The astronomer can see a star in the sky where to others the
blue expanse is unbroken. The shepherd can distinguish the face of every
single sheep in his flock,' so Professor Wilson. And then Dr. Gould
tells us in his mystico-evolutionary, Behmen-and-Darwin book, _The
Meaning and the Method of Life_--a book which those will read who can and
ought--that the eye is the most psychical, the most spiritual, the most
useful, and the most valued and cherished of all the senses; after which
he adds this wonderful and heart-affecting scientific fact, that in death
by starvation, every particle of fat in the body is auto-digested except
the cream-cushion of the eye-ball! So true is it that the eye is the
mistress, the queen, and the most precious, to Creator and creature
alike, of all the five senses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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