Line of sight

“ Whereas we maintain that the only eye that we have—the only eye we can form any conception of—is the visible eye that belongs to the visible body, as a part does to a whole; whether this eye be originally revealed to us by the touch, by the sight, by the reason, or by the imagination. ”

“ THE STRUCTURE OF THE EYE. Of all the senses, says an ardent admirer of nature, the sight is certainly that which furnishes the mind with the quickest and most widely-extended perceptions. It is the source of the richest treasures of the imagination, and of our ideas of the beauty, order, and unity of the world around us. How unhappy are those whom a hard fate has deprived of the sense of sight from their birth! ”

“ That sight is from the mind's light flowing down into forms impressed upon the natural eye is illustrated by objects appearing to one in a dark room and with eyes closed, after the light is extinguished ”

“ We have since, with much attention, noticed the lines of nature, when most beautiful,—have watched the clouds, how they have arched valleys, and promoted a correspondence of sentiment,—and how, in woods, the receding and approaching lines of circles have made the meetings and the hollows, which both make space, and are agreeable. We are not setting forth our line of beauty. ”

“ Wherever I move, whether by rays or waves of light, from the farthest star to the nearest leaf with its complexity of vein and tint, there comes to that pinpoint of space, the eye, a multitudinous vision. ”

“ Light comes into those open windows, the moving panorama of external nature passes before them, but distinct vision, which recognizes and individualizes objects, is something more than a mere passive, bodily sensation. ”

“ The eye speaks as well as the tongue and better too; clearer, louder, softer, more ravishing, awe inspiring and sublime. What fore-ground, play-ground and battle-ground, has the mind like that of the human face? Let one's soul be but kindled, and how light breaks, and fires flash from the dilated form. Then posture, gesture, presence, the head, the hand, the planted foot, the bearing, the whole person become mind visible, at once its glowing focus, and its flaming radiator. ”

“ All will say no. Then the shadow comes in contact with something. Now what is that something called sight or one of the senses? Is it matter? The natural man cannot answer that question any more than the brute. He says the eye is the sight. ”

“ The look of a beloved eye will so thrill the frame, that old philosophers have had recourse to a doctrine of beams and radiant particles flying from one sight to another. In fine, what is contact itself, and why does it affect us? There is no one cause more mysterious than another, if we look into it. ”

“ In the eye, for example, how wide a scene is open to us, wherever our glance maybe turned?—woods, fields, mountains, rivers, the whole atmosphere of light, and that magnificent luminary, which converts into light the whole space through which it moves, as if incapable of existing but in splendour. The mere opening of our eyelid is like the withdrawing of a veil, which before covered the universe:—It is more; it is almost like saying to the universe, which had perished, Exist again! ”

“ If one looked steadily at the pretty sight, it lost reality as things do when too closely scrutinized, and became a visionary confluence of lines and colors, a soft stir of bloom like a flowery expanse moved by the air. ”

“ If we are ever poring over the same page, the sphere of vision is bounded by the four corners of our book; if we will never lift our eyes, we may shut out even the glories of Nature and the light of Heaven, until we come insensibly to forget them. ”

“ Our subject, the sense of sight, is adapted to light and its modifications, colour and shade, and render to the perception the surface, form, and position of objects through the medium of light.
Sight and hearing seem to bear the most important characteristics, being employed on those objects which form the basis of human knowledge, viz., time and space. ”

“ The sight, as it is called, of figure, or distance, appearing as it does a simple sensation, is in reality a complex state of consciousness—a sequence in which the antecedent, a sensation of color, and the consequent, a number of ideas, are so closely combined by association that they appear not one idea, but one sensation. ”

“ ‘What’, it will be Question’d, ‘When the sun rises do you not see a round Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?’ O no, no, I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.’ I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight. ”

“ The eye, too, forms the centre of emotional expression, and reveals to our fellow-men the subtile variations in mood and passion, as it is to the physician a delicate index of our well-being. There are reasons for believing that it was the function of sight as a distance-sense that led to its supremacy in the lives of our primitive ancestors. ”

“ But the unit of the visit, The encounter of the wise,— Say, what other metre is it Than the meeting of the eyes? Nature poureth into nature Through the channels of that feature, Riding on the ray of sight, Fleeter far than whirlwinds go, Or for service, or delight, Hearts to hearts their meaning show, Sum their long experience, And import intelligence. ”

“ In the second-sight, the vision makes such a lively impression on the seers, that they neither see nor think of anything else but the vision as long as it continues, and then they appear pensive or jovial, according to the object which was presented to them. ”

“ I'm glad you've traveled around a bit, because the wider the range of your legs the wider your range of vision, and, let me tell you, you'll need a mighty broad field of sight to take in America and the Americans. ”

“ Immediately over the pupil of the eye we find the faculty of Vision or sense of Sight, marked Light, which runs into a sense of Shade at the inner angle of the eye, by which two perceptions everything in nature except colors is recognized. Light extends up into Color. ”

“ But this is not I think usual in any of our ideas but those received by sight: because sight, the most comprehensive of the senses, conveying to our minds the ideas of light and colours, which are peculiar only to that sense; and also the far different ideas of space, figure, and motion, the several varieties of which change the appearance of its proper object, i.e. light and colours; we bring ourselves by use to judge of the one by the other. ”

“ For the achievement of most imaginative work relative vision will suffice. If we consider the matter thoroughly, in many forms—which at first sight might seem to require absolute vision—we shall find nothing but relative vision at work. ”

“ But in each of these lines the mind takes in a wide horizon, comprising a multitude of objects at once, as the eye takes in a picture, with scene, and action, and figures, fore-ground and background, all at once. ”

“ Hence there is always a view, definite and yet very complex, made up of every variety of line, but always of clearest perspective: perfect horizontals at one's feet, perfect perpendiculars opposite the eye, a constant alternation of looking up and looking down, a never-failing possibility of looking beyond, an outlet everywhere for the eye, and for the breath ”

“ If and there is no accusing, if the sight means that surely the illumination is incandescent then surely something is expected of the direction which is opposite. There is that union and the face is there. ”

“ Outward in every direction reaches the broad earth, a crowded pageantry of color and form and sound and stir. Just at the center, the meeting point of all these energies, stands a man, thinking, feeling, willing. Upon him as a focus converge all rays of influence from the inclosing world. ”

“ But such inspiration comes not from one object or another, however great or fair, but from the whole “mighty world of eye and ear,” and it must be supported continuously, or it perishes. You may see a thousand sights never before seen by human eye, at every step you take, wherever be your path ”

“ When a novice, or one that has lately obtained the second sight, sees a vision in the night-time without doors, and comes near a fire he presently falls into a swoon.
“Some find themselves as it were in a crowd of people, having a corpse, which they carry along with them; and after such visions the seers come in sweating, and describe the vision that appeared. ”

“ Sun and shadow flit across it, changing every moment dark to light and light to dark, so that the general emphasis and expression of the scene constantly vary, like the expression of a human face, as we watch it. ”

“ Sight and touch agree that it is single. Now squint, and sight tells you that there are two marbles, while touch asserts that there is only one. Next, return the eyes to their natural position, and, having crossed the forefinger and the middle finger, put the marble between their tips. Then touch will declare that there are two marbles, while sight says that there is only one; and touch claims our belief, when we attend to it, just as imperatively as sight does. ”

“ But, in proportion as we compare the impressions made upon our organs of sight with the impressions made on the other senses, we come gradually to connect with the objects we see the idea of distance. ”

“ And so the vision came, from above as all good visions do, but it came while walking in the pathway of duty, in the unfolding of a larger experience. He who follows the dawning light will see the vision. ”

“ We notice that it required a separate intention of the eye, a more free and abstracted vision, to see the reflected trees and the sky, than to see the river bottom merely; and so are there manifold visions in the direction of every object, and even the most opaque reflect the heavens from their surface. Some men have their eyes naturally intended to the one and some to the other object.
“A man that looks on glass, On it may stay his eye, Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, And the heavens espy.” ”

“ In SIGHT, the organ is very conspicuous, and has an appropriate name, the Eye.
In ordinary language, the object of sight is the body which is said to be seen. This is a similar error to those which we have detected in the vulgar language relating to the senses of smell and hearing. It is Light alone which enters the eye; and Light, with its numerous modifications, is the sole object on sight. ”

“ The eye is the royal road to the mind, and most people are eye-minded; and the moving picture is a wonderful agency to convey to the mind, through the eye, accurate pictures of the world around us, natural and social. ”

“ Watch, I say, how a troubled ray, low on life's horizon, at last becomes a star in the world of men, high fixed and resplendent—to be seen by human eyes as long as there shall be human eyes to see anything. ”

“ I cannot imagine that within the whole compass of nature's varied aspects, there is presented to the human eye a scene so well adapted for promoting deep and serious reflection, for lifting the thoughts from trivial things of every day life to others of the highest import. ”

“ At the sight of a vision the eyelids of the person are erected, and the eyes continue staring until the object vanish. This is obvious to others who [309] are standing by when the persons happen to see a vision ”

“ If in a landscape, for instance, the interest of the sky dominates that of the land, the vision will centre there and come out through the foreground, and it is important that the eye have such a course marked out for it, lest, left to itself, it slip away through the sides, and the continuous chain of reverie be broken. ”