Eye of the Needle

“ The creaking of the saddle, the soft step of the mare upon the fir-needles, jar my ears. I seem alone in a dead world. A dead world: and yet so full of life, if I had eyes to see! Above my head every fir-needle is breathing—breathing for ever; currents unnumbered circulate in every bough, quickened by some undiscovered miracle; around me every fir-stem is distilling strange juices, which no laboratory of man can make; and where my dull eye sees only death, the eye of God sees boundless life and motion, health and use. ”

“ I’ve seen him galloping up and down this very room, with Master Eddy perched upon his shoulders, and Lily scampering at his heels; and it would have puzzled even our sharp friend the Needle to say which was the liveliest of the three.”
“He’s in trouble, then,” said the Thimble: “I’ve seen enough of life to know that mortals have their trials, which are to them as the hammer and the furnace to us.” ”

“ By complying with the indications and noting the measurements set down, we inevitably attain our object, on condition, be it understood, that we know where we are and whither we are going, in a word, that we are enlightened as to the real meaning of the Hollow Needle. ”

“ But besides this, it seems, that, in the deliriums attending distempers, a vivid train of visible images forces itself upon the patient’s eye, and that either from a disorder in the nerves and blood-vessels of the eye itself, or from one in the brain, or one in the alimentary duct, or which is most probable, from a concurrence of all these. ”

“ The optic nerve is the channel by which the mind peruses the hand-writing of Nature on the retina, and through which it transfers to that material tablet its decisions and its creations. The eye is consequently the principal seat of the supernatural. ”

“ At that time no surgeon, except those perhaps in France, understood surgery of the eye. So nature took her course, seemingly a cruel, dreadful course. The suffering man could neither sleep nor eat and finally could not stay in the house. ”

“ Let us now apply this to the optic nerve, which is the object of our present enquiry. In the first place, we know that no kind of action upon any part of the body except the eye and the nerve which belongs to it, can ever produce the sensation of light. ”

“ The trouble was with the optic nerve or the inner connection with the brain. He would never know light from darkness, though the eye, being well nourished, would grow with the body and retain its color. ”

“ If the dart enter through the midst of the eye, why does my heart suffer pain in my body? Why does not my eye also feel the pain, since it receives the first blow? That can I well explain. The eye has no care to understand aught nor can it do anything in the matter in any way; but the eye is the mirror to the heart, and through this mirror passes the fire by which the heart is kindled; yet so that it neither wounds nor braises it. Then is not the heart placed in the body like the lighted candle which is put inside the lantern? If you take the candle out, never will any light issue thence ”

“ The use of the needle for the daily [Pg 58] necessities of life could never, as we have remarked, be superseded; but the practice of ornamental needlework, in common with every ennobling science and improving art, was kept alive during this period of desolation by the church, and by the individual labours and collective zeal of the despised and contemned monks. ”

“ One dull, gray afternoon in November I was sitting in my office in Raymond Square, deeply absorbed in an article in my Medical Journal,—the description of an experiment conducted by a famous French surgeon for the purpose of determining whether sight could be restored to a blind person by engrafting the live nerve of a dog’s eye upon the shriveled and atrophied nerve of the patient’s eye. ”

“ It is a mistake to be over-timid in attacking floss-silk. It requires a light but firm hand, and should be pulled fairly tight to get it to lie smoothly—a sort of little secondary jerk after drawing the needle through to the back. ”

“ There had dashed into man’s eye, as it were, dust, earth; it had wounded the eye, and it could not see the light: that wounded eye is anointed; by earth it was wounded, and earth is applied to it for healing. For all eye-salves and medicines are derived from the earth alone. By dust thou wert blinded, and by dust thou art healed: flesh, then, had wounded thee, flesh heals thee. The soul had become carnal by consenting to the affections of the flesh; thus had the eye of the heart been blinded. “The Word was made flesh:” that Physician made for thee an eye-salve. ”

“ Oudin showed us the heart and lungs performing their functions in the thorax of a living man, made visible by the Roentgen Rays. Well! This is not any more miraculous. These photographs (he turned now toward Dantin) were taken of the retina of the dead man's eye. They are the reflection, the reproduction of the image implanted there, the picture of the last living being contemplated in the agony; the last visual sensation which the unfortunate man experienced. The retina has given to us—as a witness—the image of the living person seen by the dead man for the last time! ”

“ No matter whether the object regarded is strange or familiar, whether the light is good or imperfect, whether the surroundings are pleasant or disagreeable, even under conditions of nerve strain or bodily disease, the normal eye is expected to have normal refraction and normal sight all the time. ”

“ Some consider that the optic nerve is an organized ray of light; the brain an organized sun; the eye an organized chromatic sun or rainbow; the optic nerve perceives not the light in general, but its terrestrial formation in the chromatic image, which has been propagated into the eye. In contemplating this interesting subject we experience overwhelming admiration, that timidity in determining, and that veneration for the Creator which a consideration of his works ever creates. As we proceed, we encounter new joys, new fears, and are at last astounded with the many mysteries of the subject. ”

“ It may be that their habitual residence in the shallows exposes them peculiarly to the attacks of enemies; and the size of the eye may be connected with a greater power or quickness of sight, indicating a proportionate development of the optic nerve. ”

“ I have studied the expression of the eye in those born blind. These poor people, who could not even see dim shadows of objects, nor distinguish night from day, as though a sevenfold bandage covered their eyes, used to play instruments and be happy together, nor would anyone have thought that in them the eye was dead, insensible for ever to light; but it was only its movements which gave it an expression of joy and amiability, which inspired confidence and tenderness. ”

“ Such a machine requires an intelligent manufacturer; and yet we have only as yet been looking at the dead eye, paying no regard to sight at all. Even a blind man's eye prove an intelligent Creator.
Let us now turn our thoughts to the instrument of sight. The optic nerve is the part of the eye which conveys visions to the mind. ”

“ One of the most magnificent presents that one human being can bestow upon another is the gift of sight. Human eye tissue which is donated at death may be used in research and cornea transplant operations. Each year, thousands of Americans suffer from impaired vision caused by congenital defects, injuries, and diseases. ”

“ His eye is upon me at this moment, and as this awful conviction comes over me, a kind of deathlike calmness settles on the restless sea of passion. Oh! when I was blind, what was my conception of the All-seeing eye! It seemed to me as if it filled the world with its effulgence. I felt as if I, in my blindness, were placed in the hollow of that rock where Moses hid, when the glory of the Lord passed by. ”

“ Currecanti Needle is an object which excites the almost reverent wonder of every beholder. It is a symmetrical cone of red basalt, resting its feet in the Gunnison River and shooting up to an amazing height, its summit terminating in a spire that pierces the clouds, while its body is as variegated with bright colors as was Joseph’s coat. On each side of the stream the bluffs reach up 2,000 feet, but the needle soars very much more loftily, a great sachem among the stone giants that stand in colossal files along the river. ”

“ I know that there was a spot—a bead—of blood there, which I wiped away with a handkerchief, and that in wiping the spot I was certain that I could detect, by a pressure of my finger, the presence of the end of the needle under the skin.”
“And yet you also know that the casket in which the needle was kept by you was locked and that the [Pg 47] only key that exists within your knowledge which will open it was in your pocket—by the way, were your keys in your trousers or in your waistcoat?” ”

“ It is difficult to understand those cases in which the hysteric inflicts injuries upon him or herself; the individual who thrusts needles into his body and comes to hospital again and again to have them removed is a curious but not very uncommon object. An ophthalmic surgeon of my acquaintance had a patient who placed irritants under the lid of one eye till the sight was lost and the organ was removed, and the process was begun on the remaining eye before the trick was discovered. ”

“ If our theory be correct, the distribution of pain nerves must have much bearing upon the coexcitation of pain with other sensations. If there were no pain fibres in the optic sheath, but only in proximity to sight regions, this would explain why sensations of bodily pain do not accompany ordinary sight; only rare excitations of light, those violent enough to cause influences radiating to adjoining nerve terminals, or some mechanical disturbances upon the eye, as a blow, or some pathological irritation of the eye, would then cause optic pains. ”

“ Faerie Queene.
“Meantime, whilst monks’ pens were thus employed, nuns with their needles wrote histories also: that of Christ his passion for their altar-clothes; and other Scripture- (and more legend-) stories in hangings to adorn their houses.”—Fuller, Ch. Hist., B. 6.
Needlework is an art so indissolubly connected with the convenience and comfort of mankind at large, that it is impossible to suppose any state of society in which it has not existed. ”

“ Intense emotion, engendered by such a sight, would for an instant break through the stupefying power of nature's anæsthetic, as the surgeon's knife sometimes momentarily breaks the spell of ether, and the dying individual, springing, with eyes intent, features transfigured, and arms outstretched, toward the vision, would naturally pronounce the long-remembered name, and then fall back and die. ”

“ I am journeying far to find a certain kind of needle. This morning I shot my arrow at a tree, but it glanced, and tore a big hole in the wizard shoemaker’s leather apron. I must mend this, or he will do me harm, and to do it I must have a certain kind of needle which neither man can give me, nor woman can give me ”

“ The optic nerve being seated at the bottom of the eye, has the images of surrounding objects painted upon it; it looks out through the different humors. The different membranes and humours which compose the eye, and serve for vision, are, the tunica conjunctiva, the tunica sclerotica, the cornea, the iris, the pupil, the choroides, and the retina. ”

“ If thine eye be blinded, thy whole body is in darkness." If you cut off a finger, or the tip of the ear, there is indeed pain, but the loss is not so great, nor is the disfigurement attended by so much pain as it would be were you to take out the eyes, mutilate the nose, or saw through a bone. Some members we can dispense with and yet live: without others life is an impossibility. ”

“ The preparation of the pattern, in most kinds of needlework, is a most important matter and one requiring the greatest care, but in the case of needle-made lace and pillow lace the processes are different. ”

“ About twenty-five years ago a patient came to the New York Eye Infirmary with well-marked atrophy of the optic nerve. According to all that we know of the laws of pathology he should have been totally blind; yet his vision was normal. ”

“ In this, the eye perceives neither colour, nor form, nor motion. It roams over the limitless level in search of one or other, but in vain; and in the absence of all three, it tires, and the heart grows cheerless and sick. Even the sky scarcely offers relief. It, too, by refraction from the black surface beneath, wears a dull livid aspect; or perhaps the eye, jaundiced by the reflection of the earth, beholds not the brightness of the heavens. ”

“ Yet the loss of a finger will not necessarily affect vision, though a disease of the optic nerve will. Many of the body’s parts and functions may undergo change without noticeably altering the capacity to think. ”

“ The needle, having no head like a pin to stop it, slips right into the flesh. Sometimes the patient is not certain whether it is there or not, as it may have worked out again, for the danger in these cases arises from the tendency of the needle to travel through the flesh, doing great mischief as it goes along. What is the doctor to do? If he is quite sure that it is there and can feel it, he will of course cut it out; but he has to be very cautious. A needle is so fine and slender, that sometimes, even when he thinks he can feel it with the point of a probe, he finds himself mistaken. ”

“ The third, those who have become blind by some morbid action, though the mechanism of the eye has been little affected, and though no impediment has occurred but in regard to the action of the optic nerve. ”