Thomas Ballantyne

“ Solomon warns us against familiarity with "him that hath an evil eye; for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." The double-minded man cannot help showing his real nature in the language of his eye. "Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee." Singleness of heart is equally visible in frankness of ocular expression. "My eye no sooner fixed upon his," says John Dunton, "but through that perspective I could see the inward virtue of his soul, which immediately produced a veneration in my breast, and I soon found our hearts beat time to one another." ”

“ Vain and forgotten are all the fine offers and offices of hospitality, if there is no holiday in the eye. How many furtive inclinations are avowed by the eye, though dissembled by the lips. A man comes away from a company in which, it may easily happen, he has said nothing, and no important remark has been addressed to him, and yet, if in sympathy with the society, he shall not have a sense of this fact, such a stream of life has been flowing into him, and out from him, through the eyes. ”

“ Hazlitt ought to have remembered the fundamental law which reigns through all physiognomical relations, that like begets like. If your eyes wear a habitually suspicious or jealous expression, you may be sure that they will call forth a corresponding look in the eyes of most people with whom you come in contact. On the other hand, if your eyes have an open, frank, and cheerful expression, as if a good-natured soul were looking out of the window, you will find most people responding to your hearty greeting in the same pleasant ocular dialect. ”