Onlooker

“ The first look is necessary to define the person of the individual one meets so as to avoid it in passing. Any unusual attraction detected in a first glance is a sufficient apology for a second, - not a prolonged and impertinent stare, but an appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may inoffensively yield to a passing image. ”

“ He strikes a close observer as one who could not easily be overlooked in any gathering. His face would remain in the memory—a face of one born to direct the thought and work of others, to lead and command. ”

“ It was the face of the man that held his gaze—a bronzed and high-boned face, full of weather-wrinkles like his own, whose dark eyes gave him look for look and in their arrogance held a peculiar glassy appearance. ”

“ The observer with a real sense never failed to pay this image the tribute of quite tenderly grasping the hand, and even of raising it, delicately, to his lips; having no less, at the same time, the instinct of not shaking it too hard, and that above all of never putting it to any rough work. ”

“ Let us conceive a single ragged coat to appear in the brilliant circle, and all eyes will be instantly fixed on it. Even beauty itself, till the buzz of astonishment is over, will, for the moment, scarcely attract a single gaze, or wit a single listener. ”

“ The ordinary eye might see nothing in a face that was winsome, if not handsome; yet, let the dainty mouth curve in speech, and at once a subtle attraction, lit up by lustrous eyes, permeated the face. ”

“ Your attention, if possible, should be so ready as to observe every person in the room at once, their motions, their looks, and their turns of expression, and that without staring or seeming to be an observer. ”

“ He had no appearance of thinking that men were looking at him, or of feeling that he was beauteous in his attire;—nothing could be more natural than his foot-fall, or the quiet glance of his cheery gray eye. ”

“ Walk along a crowded street and watch the different faces of the men and women as they pass by—grey faces, drab faces, white faces, yellow faces, faces sad and cross, and lined and dull, faces by the thousand blank of any expression at all, and then here and there, at rare, rare intervals, a live face that speaks. ”

“ Has it ever happened to you, as you walked along the street, thinking intently of some absent person very dear to your heart, to be warned of his approach by meeting one or more persons who bear a vague resemblance to him, preparatory images, outline sketches of the face that is soon to rise before you, which come forth from the crowd like successive appeals to your overstrained attention? ”

“ I am tired of the novelist's portrait of a gentleman, with gloves and hat, leaning against a pillar, upon a vague landscape background. I want the gentleman as he appears in a snap-shot photograph, with his every-day expression on his face, and the localities in which he spends his days accurately visible around him. ”

“ A sly look it was, a searching, critical look, that took close heed to all things, as—the fit and excellence of his clothes; the unconscious grace of his attitude; the hair that curled so crisp and dark at his temples; the woeful droop of his lips;—a long, inquisitive look, a look wholly feminine. Yes, he was certainly handsome, handsomer even than she had thought. ”

“ The difference just eyes can make! His face is the face of the drilled, of the perfect unthinking machine, the correct and well-born Oberleutnant; and out of it look the eyes of a human being who knows, or will know I'm certain before life has done with him, what exultations are, and agonies, and love, and man's unconquerable mind. ”

“ They have finely-chiselled features, deep, rather large and expressive eyes, slightly bronzed complexions, and in every curious look, gaze, or expression, there is an easy, modest dignity, such as I have never before seen, even among the rarest few. In every face there is a deep and real joy ”

“ She had been ever since fancying she could detect the lingering reflection of that look in all the girl’s glances. In the attentive, in the casual—even in the grateful glances—in the expression of the softest moods.
“Has she her soft moods, then?” I asked with interest.
Mrs Fyne, much moved by her recollections, heeded not my inquiry. All her mental energy was concentrated on the nature of that memorable glance. The general tradition of mankind teaches us that glances occupy a considerable place in the self-expression of women. ”

“ Don't sway the body, or nod the head, or shrug the shoulders, or move the feet, or make motions or gestures, unless the proper expression call for it, and your emotion prompts.
The eye.
The eye is particularly effective in expression, as there the [Pg 92] emotion first shows itself; and by it you can get and keep the attention of your audience. In reading, keep your eye off the book as much as possible, and on your audience. In recitation or extempore speaking, look at your audience. The eye leads in gesture, and, in many cases, looks in the direction of the gesture. ”

“ Only you must be sure that you get a natural, simple, and unaffected picture of it all; and what I object to in the interviews which I have been reading is that one gets an unnatural, affected, self-conscious, and pompous picture of it all. To go and pose in your favourite seat in a shrubbery or a copse, where you think out your books or poems, in order that an interviewer may take a snap-shot of you—especially if in addition you assume a look of owlish solemnity as though you were the prey of great thoughts—that seems to me to be an infernal piece of posing. ”

“ Enquiry into an obscure subject, fixes the body in one posture, the head stooping, and the eye poring, the eyebrows drawn down.
Attention to an esteemed, or superior character, has the same aspect, and requires silence; the eyes often cast down upon the ground; sometimes fixed on the face of the speaker ”

“ A face not very noteworthy but for the gray eyes, well opened and wide apart, at times lighting up his whole face with a kindly smile, at times set and stern, or now and then resting in that look as if they were gazing at something a long way off, as do the eyes of the poet or enthusiast. ”

“ You feel that he sees you, but that you are simply one of the images in the general make-up of the last picture that is conveyed to his brain. There is no recognition in the glance—just a vague, hopeless and apparently vacant stare, but one which you feel discerns the sharp outlines of the persons and objects in the room, without recognizing features or details. ”

“ I could say some nice things of your betters if I chose.
In youth you tend to look rather frequently into a mirror, not at all necessarily from vanity. You say to yourself, 'What an interesting face; I wonder what he is to be up to?' Your elders do not look into the mirror so often. We know what he has been up to. As yet there is unfortunately no science of reading other people's faces ”

“ I answered, pleased with the man’s address, as he stood square before me, looking as modest as fearless. “The sight of a man’s face is what everybody has a right to; but, for all that, I should like to know why you want to see my face.”
“Why, sir, you be the new vicar. You kindly told me so when I axed you.”
“Well, then, you’ll see my face on Sunday in church—that is, if you happen to be there.” ”

“ So, too, does her uncanny habit of looking with fixed gaze over one's shoulder at a dark corner of the room, and turning her head slightly from time to time, as her eyes follow the movements of the unseen object in the shadows. ”

“ You are used to see his face and to see other faces. I don't know how it is that, when I come to town, the appearance of the people in the street strike me with such force. They seem so awfully expressive. ”

“ Learn to take advantage of this great series of Name Pictures, which you can indelibly hitch to the Face Picture of the stranger who chances to bear the same name. Use the same method as before, see the two faces clearly, compare them to make the mind's eye picture of the friend's face definite. Use motion, think, become interested, and every other means to make a strong, lasting impression. ”

“ The operator is usually in a better position to know what to do than the onlookers, and while the suggestions of the latter are usually futile they may be endured for the occasional great help derived from them. ”

“ The meaning and power of two very fine eyes must all have gone into this one—the right one, fortunately, the one next his audience when he played. He believed that the glass eye which gave one side of his face such a dull, blind look, had ruined his career, or rather had made a career impossible for him. ”

“ In one of the farther rooms, more scantily peopled as yet than the rest, a tall thin man was strolling listlessly from picture to picture, making every now and then hasty references to his catalogue, but in general eyeing all he saw with the look of one in whom familiarity with the sight before him had bred weariness, if not contempt. ”

“ If it be not colours, then what is it that the touch compels us to associate with the eye? We answer that it is the abstract condition of impressions as the general law on which all seeing depends, but as quite distinct from the particular visual sensations apprehended in virtue of the observance of that law. ”

“ Yet even this wonderful eye cannot show us everything. Some see farther than others, some see more minutely than others, according as the lens of the eye is flatter in one person and more rounded in another. ”

“ A person's shadow on the wall in a room, by lamp-light, will reveal more of that party's real character than all the phrenology extant, and in its minute phases, too; just as a peculiar smile, observation, movement, or tone of voice will sometimes tell in a second more of a person's real self, than an acquaintance of fifty intimate years would otherwise. ”

“ Certainly I have seen "Pedigree [pg 24] is a Schoolmaster," and "Filigree is a list of your descendants!"
Tell a youngster that "an optician" is a person who looks after your eyes and then ask what "a pessimist" is, the odds are some little gamin will reply, "A person who looks after your feet," or "your hands," or "your ears," or "your legs," as the fancy strikes him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is strange how people can fence with their glances, as if they were emanations from the eyes instead of mere reflections of light back and forth. But however it is managed, this man and this woman played their stares like two foils feeling for an opening. ”

“ Ah, my dear sir, you began with being very near-sighted, and those near-sighted eyes always wear the best. I want very strong spectacles to read with, but then I think my eyes get better and better for things at a distance. ”

“ After which, no doubt, they went home and looked on a certain photograph of a dark-haired beauty smiling elusively, and then they probably sighed and squared their shoulders in the fashion of men who are hard hit, but not down. ”

“ You cannot truly place the small end of the telescope to your eye, and see yourself at the other. You cannot stand, for instance, as I stand, and see yourself as I see you. But study the subject a little before you give way to the identical petulant humours with which you would quarrel in your mistress. ”

“ In the face, the eyes attract more notice than any other feature, and the most admired ones are “the eyes like those of a mouse.” This is the highest praise that can be bestowed upon anyone’s personal appearance. ”

“ As a general principle in decoration, I would recommend that the eye should be solely or chiefly addressed where a passing glance only can be given to the work, and that the attention should be more taxed where leisure and surrounding circumstances permit or invite contemplation. ”

“ Whenever any object worthy of notice in the scenery presented itself, he would touch her lightly on the shoulder to attract attention, and then with a few rapid movements of his fingers, direct her eyes to it, and give an explanation of it. ”

“ Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only. ”

“ We are given the impression, which would have been our own impression: since in regard to a portrait, for instance, when we meet a person our curiosity does not immediately extend to such details as the character and number of buttons on his coat. ”

“ The holder of the mirror, by catching the rays of the sun could direct them right into the eyes of a passing person at some distance, and thus attract his attention, and communication between them was thus established. ”

“ The traits of features, to which the eye was once so well accustomed, awake a memory of individuals, and it is sometimes a moat difficult task to distinguish between the acquaintance and the passing stranger. ”

“ The movements of his white hands, the inflection of his voice, the double eyeglass which dangled from his vest by a ribbon of black silk, revealed the type of human being which considers itself something rarer and finer than its fellows. ”