[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1 Sia,—In your article
on "The Evil Eye," you have touched on a question which seems curiously overlooked by scientific observers. I am not quite sure that there is not some ground of fact at the bottom of the superstition you allude to, in the influence of eyes. From my own experience, I am inclined to believe that there is some discharge of force, capable of affecting a sensitive temperament, both in good eyes and bad eyes. I had at one time to do with a child of seven or eight, who, I found, had the power of making me feel thorough dis- comfort by the peculiar glances she shot at me when she was displeased, and I conquered the habit by returning the shot deliberately and steadily till my eyes mastered hers. I know a pair of "kind eyes" which can scrutinise, without los",ng their kindness, till they make you feel as if it was the Day of Judgment ; and a pair of spiritual eyes which seem to give out
• London; Skeffington.
what "esoteric Buddhists" would call "good magnetism," and raise your spiritual condition. I never understood how it was that the Germans were outdoing us in business until once in an omnibus I travelled with two young Germans and an Englishman of the same class. The Englishman looked physically strong and healthy, but his eyes were stolid; the German, with inferior physique, had eyes which discharged something out of them every time he spoke to his companion, —I suppose, what the Americans call "snap." It was almost imposssible to believe that nothing material came out of them. He was only talking business, energetically, but with no emotion. I should much like to know whether any of your readers have any light to throw upon this subject. I am myself disposed to think that the habit nervous people often have of. not meeting the eye of the person talking to them, which is often erroneously supposed to betoken shiftiness and dishonesty, is a natural instinct called into play to shelter them- selves from the force of this discharge; while habitual liars seem to have the power of drawing up a kind of screen before their own eyes, behind which they can face you boldly without fear of any effect from the discharge of force I am supposing to exist.—I am, Sir, Sic., X. Y. Z. P.S.—May not this be the reason why a prolonged gaze makes a dog so uncomfortable?
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