Hook and eye

“ Too many figures of history have been surrendered for exploitation to belle-lettrists and professional biographers who draw their subjects with one literal eye on earlier portraits and one imaginative eye on Hollywood. ”

“ Inside of the front window of the eye that I have told you about [2048] there is a fluid as clear as water. In this fluid you see a sort of curtain with a round opening in it. This opening is called the pupil of the eye. It is not always of the same size. When there is a very bright light, it is small; but when the light is dim, it is large, for then you want all the light that you can get in that dark chamber where the jelly is. You can see the pupil change in its size if you look into the eye of any one while you bring a light very near, and then move it off quickly. ”

“ Whenever he came across any one with a peculiar eyeball, sometimes bright and clear, and at others covered with a filmy gauze, or a double pupil, ringed twice, or a larger eye on the left than on the right side, he would hold the thumb, fore and middle fingers in a peculiar manner, so as to ward off the evil effect of the eye. ”

“ When the hinge is situate above, the latter is one of the few positions of the face in which the pupil clears itself in ordinary cases; but one meets with instances in which, despite the hinge being above, the pupil remains clear except when the face is horizontal, the lens lying most of the time in the upper segment of the eye. There is another factor, and probably a more frequent one, than that of the local injury inflicted by the lens during its movement, which tends to tether it in situ. ”

“ You kept on knitting all the time. On your way out you struck the glare from the white sands of the plains in the dry country. At once the inflammation finished its exudation—and you were blind."
She sat motionless.
"Sometimes we take off the film of a cataract from the eye; sometimes even we can take out the crystalline lens and substitute a heavy lens in glasses to be worn by the patient." ”

“ It is not the image formed upon the retina which is transmitted to the brain, but an impression produced by that image. The mind does not look in upon the eye and see the image, but it receives an impression from it through the nerve ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The lens is just behind the pupil or central aperture in the iris or coloured ring at the front of the eye, and behind the cornea which is to the eye what a watch-glass is to a watch. If the lens of the eye be removed from a newt, as it is from human beings in the operation for cataract, the animal will grow another one. ”

“ ADMIRATION with ASTONISHMENT.
“You may observe, that the motions which accompany this passion are more lively and stronger marked, the eyebrows more elevated, the eyes more open, the eyeball further from the lower eyelid, and more [Pg 43] steadily fixed; the mouth is more open; and all the parts in a much stronger emotion; but, lest you should be too much inclined to stare and gape, I will tell you a story of two schoolfellows, which is
The History of Bill Vacant and Henry Hawk’s-eye.
“Bill Vacant and Henry Hawk’s-eye were schoolfellows of much about the same age. ”

“ Others again, on the contrary, place the book or object they are looking at, at a greater distance from the eye than that named. Such people are called long-sighted, and the defect results from the too great flatness of the cornea and the crystalline lens. ”

“ If the front of our eyeballs had been flat, we should have had the power of seeing under water as clearly as in air; but instead of being flat, they are very convex, consequently our eye stamps a concave lens of high power into the water, and it is the seeing through this concave eyeglass which our eyeball makes for itself, that causes the indistinctness of our vision. ”

“ If the retina could in any way be brought forward a little the difficulty would be obviated. But as this can not be done, concave glasses are resorted to, which counteract the effect of the too highly refractive power of the eye. In the far-sighted the difficulty is of an opposite character. ”

“ The Eye.—The eye is essentially a camera obscura. It is a dark chamber in which images are formed upon a screen in its back part, and the light which comes from objects is admitted through an opening in front, [274] where there is a double convex lens. That you may understand the manner in which the images are formed, I give you, in Fig. 244, a map of the eye. At a is the thick, strong white coat called the sclerotic coat, from a Greek word meaning hard. This, which is commonly the white of the eye, gives to the eyeball its firmness. ”

“ We are so accustomed to merely play with children, that we are easily blinded to the full seriousness of such requests.
We cannot break off these reflections on the image of the retina without making mention of a remarkable spot in the background of the eye—the yellow spot marking the entrance of the optic nerve. All perception whatever is arrested within the bounds of this spot—it is a blind point in our field of view. ”

“ In most cases of eccentric fixation, on the contrary, the eye quickly tires, and its appearance, with that of the face, is expressive of effort or strain. The ophthalmoscope reveals that the eyeball moves at irregular intervals, from side to side, vertically or in other directions. ”

“ The Winking of the Eyelids, when a person moves his hand rapidly close to the eyes of another person, is a familiar case of an action of the muscles, which we cannot prevent. The idea is that of pain, from the contact of the hand with the eye. A sudden sensation of pain in the eye makes the eyelid close. ”

“ The other day, going down on the Sandy Hook boat, I enjoyed a most wonderful sky without that hateful barrier of misted glasses, and I am positive I distinguished delicate shades of color that I never would have been able to see, even with clear glasses. Things seem to me now to have more form, more reality than when I wore glasses. Looking into the mirror you see a solid representation on a flat surface, and the flat glass can't show you anything really solid. ”

“ And then, imagine it, if you can, changing under your very eyes, with glaring lights and heavy shadows deepening and sharpening and hardening wrinkles and angles and lines, exaggerating defects, bringing coarseness and age and ugliness into painful prominence, and taking away at a sweep the pretty, rural background which might have relieved and soothed the eye, and putting a dull, common-place, incongruous one in its place. ”

“ His own theory (as developed in his two interesting pamphlets, Die Sprache der Augen and Das Auge in seinen aesthetischen und culturgeschichtlichen Beziehungen) is that the greater or less brilliancy of the eyes depends entirely on the movements of the eyelids. Instead of calling the eye the window of the soul, it is more correct to say that the cornea is a mirror which, like any other mirror, reflects the light that falls on it. The higher the eyelids are raised the larger becomes the mirror, and the more light is therefore reflected. ”

“ The nerve of the eye at the back of its chamber can not see without light, and its light comes through the little round window called the pupil, or black of the eye—which is simply a hole in the iris, or colored part. ”

“ It is tied over the eyes like a pair of spectacles, being adapted to the forehead and nose, and hollowed out to favour the motion of the eyelids. A few rays of light only are admitted through a narrow slit an inch long, cut opposite to each eye. ”

“ When this is done every object appears double, because its image occupies in one eye a different part of the retina from what it does in the other, and so two different impressions are carried to the brain. The same thing occurs in squinting, in which the action of the muscles of the two eyes does not agree. Ordinarily in squinting there is not double vision, because the mind has the habit of disregarding the impressions that come from the defective eye. But when squinting occurs suddenly from disease there is double vision, for it takes a little time to form the habit referred to. ”

“ Twenty-five years ago Samuel D. was struck in the left eye by a nail thrown carelessly from a roof, and nineteen years later, while he was chopping wood, a stick flew up, hitting him in the face and injuring the same eye. ”

“ This part, indeed, is not a spot of definite size and form, for it appears that proceeding from a certain point of the retina, the distinct sensibility diminishes on every side by degrees. And the searching motion of the eye arises from the desire which we instinctively feel of receiving upon the sensible spot the image of the object to which the attention is directed. We are uneasy and impatient till the eye is turned so that this is effected. ”

“ So Yanechek put her down and she led him to a cave in the hillside where she and her wicked sisters had piled up a great heap of eyes—all kinds of eyes they were: big eyes, little eyes, black eyes, red eyes, blue eyes, green eyes—every kind of eye in the world that you can think of. ”

“ Nervous movements of the eyelids may also be noted, either by ordinary inspection, or by lightly touching the lid of one eye while the other regards an object either at the near point or the distance. The visual axes are never parallel, and the deviation from the normal may become so marked as to constitute the condition of squint. ”

“ After removing a rabbit's eye, a living rabbit's eye—yes, science is cruel—he placed it in a dark room, so that he could obtain upon the retina the image of some object, a window for instance, and plunged it [Pg 80] immediately into a solution of alum and prevented the decomposition of the pourpre retinien, and the window could plainly be seen, fixed on the eye. In that black chamber which we have under our eyebrows, in the orbit, is a storehouse, a storehouse of images which are retained, like the image which the old Dane's eye held of the wolf's nose and teeth. ”

“ Working consciously, I have tightened some muscle or other, some muscles or other, so that the eye has now the wrong shape for seeing at that distance. Moral: Let your eye alone, and it does the right thing. ”

“ Now, when the eyes are withdrawn from the operations of the will, they are controlled involuntarily by the oblique muscles, and turned upward and inward. For instance, in intense joy, in devotion, pain, sorrow, exhaustion, or bodily weakness, the eyes are turned up. This arises from the fact that the straight muscles resign their action, and the oblique muscles operate in their stead, and the eye is rolled upward under the eyelid. ”

“ The eye informs the reason that the same kind of law and order is present also in the outer world. The mind can think point and line; the eye reports that the same forms exist in nature outside. (Hooke could just as well have taken as his examples the apex and edge of a crystal.) The reason mistrusts the eye, however, and with the help of the microscope 'improves' on it. ”

“ The lens of the eye acts just like a glass lens. It makes a picture of everything we see, upon the ends of the nerves of sight which are spread out at the back of the eyeball. The nerves of sight tell their nerves in the brain about the picture, just as the nerves of feeling tell their cells when they are touched with a pin ”

“ In examining the mechanism of the eye, a great variety of contrivances appear, all aiding in accomplishing the object of vision. In the first place, we may observe its modes of protection and defense. The lid is a soft, moist wiper, which, with a motion quick as lightning, protects the eye from outward violence, cleanses it from dust, veils it from overpowering radiance, and in hours of repose entirely excludes the light. ”

“ Some men had it; a hook was in its golden gills, and they had tied its tail to the hook so that it could not stir, and they had put it in a pail of water that it might not die too quickly, die ere they could sell it. ”

“ The eye retained its old uneasy, sinister, sidelong glance, or at rare moments (as when Percival entered) , its searching penetration and assured command; but the eyelids themselves, red and injected, as with grief or vigil, gave something haggard and wild, whether to glance or gaze. Despite the paralysis of the frame, the face, though pale and thin, showed no bodily decay. A vigour surpassing the strength of woman might still be seen in the play of the bold muscles, the firmness of the contracted lips. ”

“ In order to prevent such a catastrophe it is necessary to remove the injured and useless eye as promptly as possible. That was the uniform practice in my time. The operation in question was urged upon the native an order to prevent sympathetic ophthalmia in the sound eye, but he declined it, preferring to consult a magician who lived a day’s journey from the village. The consultation took place and the man returned to the local dispensary; for although he still had good vision in the sound eye it was beginning to trouble him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those that look out of the windows - The optic nerves, which receive impressions, through the medium of the different humours of the eye, from surrounding objects - they are darkened; the humours becoming thick, flat, and turbid, they are no longer capable of transmitting those images in that clear, distinct manner, as formerly. There may be an allusion here to the pupil of the eye. ”