Visibility

“ Or again, they are geographical senses,—eyes, ears, and speech; for of these supreme mediators in the body, voice, vision, and hearing, it is the office, as of rivers, to open communication between the interior and exterior world; they are rivers of access to the outlying universe of men and things, which enters them, and approaches the soul through the freighted suggestions of sight and sound. ”

“ 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 pin-point of space, the eye, a multitudinous vision. If every pin-point of external space is dense yet not blind with immensity, what more miracle of subtlety, of ethereal delicacy, could be affirmed of matter and be denied because it strains belief? ”

“ We know that the point of sight is the eye of the spectator; and if you ask, how is a series of subjects, such as the life of a saint, to be represented, in different compartments on the same wall? I answer, that you are to place the principal event in the largest compartment, and make the point of sight as high as the eye of the spectator. ”

“ Looking at an object I perceive a certain visible figure and colour, with some degree of faintness and other circumstances, which from what I have formerly observed, determine me to think that if I advance forward so many paces or miles, I shall be affected with such and such ideas of touch: so that in truth and strictness of speech I neither see distance itself, nor anything that I take to be at a distance. I say, neither distance nor things placed at a distance are themselves, or their ideas, truly perceived by sight. ”

“ And as the eyes of the young surveyor slowly range the wide prospect from point to point, and take in miles and miles of beauty at a single stretch of view, there is a look in them as if he would recall some pleasing dream of the night, which he would now fain bring forth, though but a dream, to refine and elevate the thoughts wherewith his mind must needs be occupied throughout the day. ”

“ Also, human beings shut off sight with peculiar case, by closing their eyes or by the calamity of blindness. The information provided by mere sight is peculiarly barren — namely, external regions disclosed as coloured. ”

“ We come to these visionary altitudes, not to look at realities but at pictures. Distance is a famous hand with the brush. To omit details and to fill the canvas with atmosphere, these are the secrets of his art. ”

“ As I look out upon the landscape that lies before my window, and see the men and women working in the fields, and the fields smiling to man’s husbandry, when I see no marks of the spoiler, and recognize that each one is safe in his person and secure in his possessions, then it is I see peace, and think of my poor country with a sigh, and, oh, with what reflections. ”

“ What inundation of life and thought is discharged from one soul into another, through them! The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity of nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the words of Mr Bailey, "Whether objects are seen to be external, or at some distance, is one question altogether distinct from the inquiry—whether objects are seen by the unassisted vision to be at different distances from the percipient." ”

“ In vision, for example, when the original power of that sense has been strengthened and enriched, by the acquisitions which it is capable of receiving from other sources, we see a long line of distance before us; and the small distances with which we are familiar, we distinguish with sufficient accuracy; but, in our visual measurement of greater distances, we are almost certain to err, taking often the less for the greater, and the greater for the less. ”

“ His mind, well-acquainted with the enemy situation, his vision, accustomed to the appearance of terrain from on high, examines the roads, searches the railroads, observes both fields and camps, and since at times some detail may escape the notice of the observer, the other eye, the faithful lens of the camera, completes the picture by recording what the observer may have overlooked. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To a large extent we are misled by the impressive prominence of the visual data. In vision we are presented with a system of inter-related and simultaneously occurring sensations which we find by experience to be the sure and certain indicators of the potent obstructions which our activity encounters. For this reason we habitually make use of the visual sign as the guide and instrument of our exertional activity, and this habitual use leads us to regard the visual presentation as the essential form of Reality. ”

“ Suddenly, at a turn of the road, we came upon an undistinguishable something, which, when our eyes could pierce through and beyond the immediate light afforded by our diligence-lamp, we discovered to be another diligence leaning heavily over a ditch, while its conductor and postilion were at their horses' heads, endeavoring to make them extricate it from its awkward position. ”

“ Our horizon is more restricted, but because we see the frame we can fit our picture into it. Life with you, over there across the Channel, for all your charm and force, is essentially confused and haphazard. ”

“ The observer's head being in the direct rays of the sun, as they pass over him to that of his shadow in the field, he carries the glory with him. Those before and behind him see the same glory around the shadows of their own heads, but cannot see it round that of the head of any other person before or behind ”

“ But their habits preclude the possibility of this, their own changes of position, not to speak of those of the spectator, bringing them, as they fly about, across, often in a single second, the whole gamut of backgrounds, from brightest sky to deepest tree-shadow, and back. And against every one, except the single one which they match, they are clearly visible. ”

“ I cannot see what occasion there is always for a confined View; a more open one sometimes makes Variety.
Polypth. You mistake me: I am not against a Prospect's being bounded even by the blue Hills in the Country. All I mean is this, that where Objects are set up to terminate a View, they ought to be of such a Nature as to afford Pleasure at any Distance they are designed to be viewed from. ”

“ Now, it being already shown that distance is suggested to the mind by the mediation of some other IDEA which is itself perceived in the act of seeing, it remains that we inquire what IDEAS or SENSATIONS there be that attend VISION, unto which we may suppose the IDEAS of distance are connected, and by which they are introduced into the mind. ”

“ The air has here, above all in the south, a transparency—oh, an infinite transparency! The despair of painters. Then this transparency gives greater purity to the outlines; nowhere do points stand out as they do here. ”

“ Assuming as proved or evident that the sight cannot inform us of distance in a direct line outwards, inasmuch as all the points in such a line are projected upon a single point in the retina, he argues that all sight involves foresight ; that an apparently simple perception involved an infererence founded upon association, and that the visual sensations are merely signs of of corresponding tactual sensations. ”

“ The science of perspective gives the dimensions of objects seen in space as they appear to the eye of the spectator, just as a perfect tracing of those objects on a sheet of glass placed vertically between him and them would do ”

“ Have a man (later, several) walk away from the rest of the [Pg 362] men and when he is about to disappear from view, halt him, and estimate the distance. Send a man (later, several) outside the field of vision, to advance on the rest of the men. ”

“ I think it largely arises from the extraordinary development of one of the senses not much exercised by us at home—I mean that of vision. In this country everything has a sombre, leaden hue, from the grey sky down to the dingy cottage, and the aspect of our streets to a southern eye must appear gloomy and cold-looking in the extreme. ”

“ Carefully disciplined by thought and investigation in the outer world, through a long series of laborious years, the curtain which separated the seen from the unseen was, for him, drawn aside, and his prepared eyes saw in clear sunlight those mysteries of life and spirit, which the best and wisest of men have most ardently desired to see. ”

“ But when the message turns out to be of evidential value it is presumably because this subliminal portion of the person is in touch, either telepathically or in some other way, with intelligences not ordinarily accessible,—with living people at a distance perhaps, or more often with the apparently more accessible people who have passed on, for whom distance in the ordinary sense seems hardly to exist, and whose links of connexion are of a kind other than spatial. ”

“ But perhaps the survey of a wider field may lead us to think that they contain in germ the solution of the problem. To that wider survey we must now address ourselves. It will be long and laborious, but may possess something of the interest and charm of a voyage of discovery, in which we shall visit many strange foreign lands, with strange foreign peoples, and still stranger customs. The wind is in the shrouds: we shake out our sails to it, and leave the coast of Italy behind us for a time. ”

“ You remember my old theory, that we are all of us surrounded by an atmosphere proper to ourselves, emanating from each of us,—a separate, sensitive envelope, extending some little distance from our visible persons. ”

“ Is not the one the appropriate field and province of observation,—a power habitually awake to all the perceptions and impressions of the bodily organs? and does not the other fall exclusively under the cognizance of reflection,—an operation which inverts all the ordinary habits of the understanding, abstracting the thoughts from every sensible object, and even striving to abstract them from every sensible image? ”

“ To understand this, we have but to think of our immunity to the great majority of sounds and sights on the streets of a busy city. On a busy street corner, we are assailed by an infinitude of sounds and sights—but we hear but few of these, and see still fewer. The rest of these impressions are lost to us, although we have ears to hear and eyes to see. We hear and see only those impressions which are strong enough to awaken our attention. ”

“ The eye wanders over the diversified views with unabated pleasure, and rests in calm repose upon its superlative beauty. Indeed, the eye cannot but be gratified at viewing the entire country from the coast to the metropolis. ”

“ You can’t think how soon one learns to ‘annihilate space’, if not time, in one’s thoughts, by daily reading advertisements for every port in India, America, Australia, &c., &c., and conversing with people who have just come from the ‘ends of the earth’. ”

“ The most modern note yet sounded in business, in diplomacy, in social life, is expressed by the phrase, "Live openly!" From every quarter, in regard to every manner of human activity, has come the cry, "Let in the light!" By a physical correspondence not the result of coincidence, but of the operation of an occult law, we have, in a very real sense, let in the light. ”

“ Read news from foreign countries—from out-of-the-way places—and think of the miles of mountains, deserts, plains and valleys passed over; think of the slender cable down deep in the throbbing bosom of the ocean and of the little spark that brings the news to your door; and then reflect on the men whose abilities accomplish these results. Think of his work in the countries where it is so hot that it seems as if the land beyond the River Styx is at his elbow; in lands where it is always cold and the days and nights are long. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every movement is watched, every action reported, and as he passes from city to city a description and report precedes him, and there is an eye, or rather a couple of dozen eyes, to mark his coming and grow keener when he comes. ”

“ I have to seek all possible kinds of by-ways, through alleys profound and obscure; and when I cross a thoroughfare, it is with the same dogged straight-forward look with which a man swims across a dangerous river. When I do happen, in a moment of facility or confidence, to venture upon an open street, I have all kinds of expedients for avoiding and diminishing the pains of recognition. When you see an acquaintance approaching, you must consider the relative circumstances. ”

“ If I say I conceive of another world that is now in secret communication with certain esoteric inhabitants of this earth, I say I conceive of still other worlds that are trying to establish communication with all the inhabitants of this earth. I fit my notions to the data I find. ”