Gaze

“ His dark eyes fixed themselves on her again drinking in her every contour, literally worshipping at her shrine. If ever there was undisguised admiration in a man’s passionate gaze it was there plain to be seen on that man’s face. ”

“ The house hung on every word with breathless worship, but the eyes of Isabel sought only those of one calm and unmoved spectator; she exerted herself as if inspired. The stranger listened, and observed her with an attentive gaze, but no approval escaped his lips, no emotion changed the expression of his cold and half-disdainful aspect. Isabel, who was in the character of a jealous and abandoned mistress, never felt so acutely the part she played. Her tears were truthful; her passion that of nature: it was almost too terrible to behold. ”

“ The glare of the flame spread, luminous and crimson, over the dark and rugged ground on which they stood, and drew an innumerable variety of shadows from crag and hollow. An oppressive and sulphureous exhalation served to increase the gloomy and sublime terror of the place. But on turning from the mountain, and towards the distant and unseen ocean, the contrast was wonderfully great: the heavens serene and blue, the stars still and calm as the eyes of Divine Love. It was as if the realms of the opposing principles of Evil and Good were brought in one view before the gaze of man! ”

“ The eye—which sees all objects reversed—retains the images for some time. This conclusion is proved by the results; because, the eye having gazed at light retains some impression of it. After looking (at it) there remain in the eye images of intense brightness, that make any less brilliant spot seem dark until the eye has lost the last trace of the impression of the stronger light. ”

“ We may think of the air around us as a vast ocean, through which waves conveying light and sound are constantly travelling. When a sound-wave strikes the ear, we hear; when a light-wave, moving like a water-wave, reaches the eye, we see. Light comes chiefly from the sun: it is beautiful to think, is it not?—of waves of light streaming always, day and night, from that wonderful sun so far away, and coming, wave after wave, to paint beautiful pictures on our eyes! ”

“ I can't put in words what he meant; but you do it here—going up and up so gradually that you don't realize that you are in the lap, not of mountains, but of mountain peaks; breathing, not air, but ozone; uplifted by a great weight being taken off spirit and body; looking at life through rose-colored tints, not metaphorically, but really; for there is something in this high rare air—not dust, not moisture—that splits white light into its seven prismatic hues. You look through an atmosphere wonderfully rare, but it is never clear, white light. ”

“ If this be a true account of the solar heat, for the support of which I appeal to my experiments, it remains only for us to admit that such of the rays of the sun as have the refrangibility of those which are contained in the prismatic spectrum, by the construction of the organs of sight, are admitted under the appearance of light and colors, and that the rest, being stopped in the coats and humors of the eye, act on them, as they are known to do on all the other parts of our body, by occasioning a sensation of heat. ”

“ Now when the waves in the ether sent out by the flame of a candle, or by the Sun, reach the eye, they pass through the cornea, then through the pupil, or hole in the iris, and finally through the lens which focuses the waves on the retina and forms the image there.
The different colors of light are caused by waves in the ether of different lengths; when very short waves strike the retina we say the color is violet; waves a little longer we call green and the longest waves which the eye can see form in our brains the sensation of red. ”

“ The peaceful stars shine like points of flame; the whole air is filled with a blue and tender light, which seems to sleep in the network of vapor wherein it lies. The eye penetrates it without apprehending anything. ”

“ Rays of light, which are in themselves invisible, radiate from the objects we look upon, enter the pupil of the eye, and impress the seat of vision in a manner which conveys to the mind a knowledge of the form, colour, and relative size and position of the figure we look upon. If this is not seeing the object—what is? It would be just as reasonable to say, that we cannot hear a person speak—that we only hear the vibrations of the air. ”

“ Any thing white seen in a dense air full of vapours, will appear larger than it is in reality.
The air, between the eye and the object seen, will change the colour of that object into its own; so will the azure of the air change the distant mountains into blue masses. Through a red glass every thing appears red; the light round the stars is dimmed by the darkness of the air, which fills the space between the eye and the planets. ”

“ Each sensation of taste, smell, light, or sound, is a phenomenon of psychological reaction which occurs in the soul when it is teased with a certain degree of energy by nerve-action, which in its turn depends on an outward action; but there is no relation of resemblance between the latter and the sensation it provokes. The ether, which, by its vibrations in unison with the elements of our retina, produces sensations of light in us, has in itself no luminosity. ”

“ But how many see the sun at all, even when they live where it is most radiant? How many think of the sun during the long day it illumines? The light is taken as a matter of course, as our breath is drawn through our lungs. ”

“ The color of our skin, for example, is different seen in 125 warm air from what it is in cold, and we could not say what our color really is, only what it is when viewed under each of these conditions. The same sound appears different in rare air from what it is in dense, and aromas are more overpowering in the warm bath and in the sun than they are in the cold air, and a body surrounded by water is light, but by air heavy. ”

“ Just as light carries the photograph or picture, so the air carries the sound of our words and other vibrations of the atmosphere which we call sound. Thus you see the light is one book and the air is another, and God doubtless has many other forms of making and keeping the record of our actions and words—yes, even of our thoughts, and in the great Judgment Day these words which we utter will say themselves over again in our ears. ”

“ And soon as ever 'thas filled and oped with light The pathways of the eyeballs, which before Black air had blocked, there follow straightaway Those films of things out-standing in the light, Provoking vision—what we cannot do From out the light with objects in the dark, Because that denser darkling air behind Followeth in, and fills each aperture And thus blockades the pathways of the eyes That there no images of any things Can be thrown in and agitate the eyes. ”

“ These nerve vibrations are sent over the optic nerve to the brain, where they take on the shape, size and colors of the Sun.
Reflection of Light.—The flame of a match, or a candle, an oil or a gas lamp, or Sun, comet or meteor, produces its own light, and for this reason these bodies are called self-luminous—that is, they are themselves the source of light.
All other objects which do not produce light, such as an apple, a stone, the Earth and other planets and moons are called non-luminous bodies. ”

“ I wish thee to believe that light in the bodies that we call luminous is nothing more than a very brisk and violent motion, which, by means of the air and other transparent media, is conveyed to the eye, exactly as the shock through the walking-stick reaches the hand of a blind man. ”

“ It is amazing, that a ray of light, after traversing a distance of 91,000,000 miles, can, by falling upon the retina, and acting as a stimulus, not only produce a contraction of the pupil, but excite thoughts which analyze that ray, instantly spanning the infinitude of trackless space! The same penetrative faculties, with equal facility, can quickly and surely discern the morbid symptoms of body and mind, become familiar with the indications of disease, and classify them scientifically among the phenomena of nature. ”

“ Thus heat, light and chemical action are but phases, expressions, effects or results of the different influences of waves upon different kinds of matter. The same waves or billows will affect the eye itself as light, the ordinary nerves as warmth, and the skin as chemical action, in tanning it. ”

“ Things differing in temperature, colour, taste and smell agree in resisting compression, in filling space. Because of this quality we regard the wind as a thing, though it has neither shape nor colour, while a shadow, though it has both but not resistance, is the very type of nothingness. This constituent is invariable, while other qualities are either absent or change—form altering, colour disappearing with light, sound and smells intermitting. Many of the other qualities—colour, temperature, sound, smell—increase in intensity if we advance till we touch a body occupying space ”

“ Light by which your eyes see—sound by which your ears hear—are different forms of motion by which you are impressed; odours, flavours, &c., are emanations which strike upon your olfactory nerve or touch your palate; these are solely vibratory motions which are transmitted to your brain. You can only appreciate a few of these movements through the senses you possess, principally those of sight and hearing. You, in your simplicity, believe that you see and hear nature? ”

“ It is defined as a substance hot to the feel. [Heat, then, and light are identified as one substance.] [3]
"It has the qualities of earth except smell, taste, and gravity. It is eternal, as atoms; not so, as aggregates.
"Organic luminous bodies are beings abiding in the solar realm. The visual ray, which is the organ of sight, is lucid. Unorganic light is reckoned fourfold: earthy, celestial, alvine and mineral. Another distinction concerns sight and feel; as light or heat may be either latent or manifest, in respect of both sight and feel, or differently in regard to either. ”

“ In one word, the sphere of darkness in which I floated seemed to be filled with points of light, while the absolute blackness that surrounded them, the absence of the slightest radiation, or illumination of space at large, was strange beyond expression to an eye accustomed to that diffusion of light which is produced by the atmosphere. ”

“ The eye is very sensitive to differences of light, when, as here, the eye is in comparative darkness, and when the quantities of wave motion thrown against the retina are small. The larger particles declare themselves by the greater whiteness of their scattered light. Call now to mind the observation, or effort at observation, made by our president when he failed to distinguish the particles of resin in Brücke’s medium, and when you have done so follow me. I permitted a beam of light to act upon a certain vapor. ”

“ The sense of sight, for instance, is seated in the eye; the hearing in the ear; the smell in the internal membrane of the nose; and the taste in the tongue.
The light; the pulses, or vibrations of the air; the effluvia floating in the atmosphere; saline particles, or particles which are soluble in water or saliva, are the substances which act upon these four senses; and the organs which transmit their action to the nerves, are admirably adapted to the respective nature of each. The eye presents to the light a succession of transparent lenses to refract its rays ”

“ As you approach, the brilliancy of the star declines; and when the full flood of light is thrown upon the shell, it nearly, or entirely disappears. If you press your finger rudely upon the spot, you will again perceive the luminous matter diffused, like a fluid, over the surrounding surface, and shining, for an instant, more brightly than ever, even under the immediate glare of the gas. ”

“ Rays of light emitted or reflected from a body entering the pupil of the eye, are so refracted by the humours of it, as to be united at the surface of the retina, and so make images of the objects, by means of which they are visible to us ”

“ I am speaking of the sun. One small, slender flame of a lamp, which can be extinguished by one breath, spreads its light over all that lies near it: thou seest the light generated by the flame spread out ”

“ But if we breathe against a window pane, the scattered water in our breath is collected by the cold of the glass in a little cloud; and if we place the warm palms of our hands against this window pane, in the same way the cold collects the water that is passing from the little mouths in our skin, and shows it to us as a cloud on the glass. ”

“ The azure of the sky is produced by the transparent body of the air, illumined by the sun, and interposed between the darkness of the expanse above, [Pg 156] and the earth below. The air in itself has no quality of smell, taste, or colour, but is easily impregnated with the quality of other matter surrounding it; and will appear bluer in proportion to the darkness of the space behind it, as may be observed against the shady sides of mountains, which are darker than any other object. ”

“ Each globule of moisture floating in the air becomes a reflector of light, and by myriads of reflections and counter reflections the light (which on a clear night is concentrated) is diffused over a large area, producing an illumination which for practical purposes is far superior to that produced on a clear night. When the latter condition prevails the rays of light are so intense on objects immediately surrounding the lamps that one is blinded; so that the places which are in shadow seem darker than they would be if there were no light at all. ”