Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-02-12
THE EYES OF GENIUS.

How the Orbs of the Poets Have Ap.
peared to Observers.
Emerson used to say that each man
carried in his eye the exact indication
of his rank in the immense scale of men.
Another close observer of human nature
asserts that persons with prominent
eyes are found to have great command
of words and to be ready speakers and
writer's. A third holds the theory that
the prevailing color of the eyes of men
OF genius is gray.
Colonel Higginson speaks of Nathaniel
Hawthorne's gray eyes," while f. Fl.
Underwood, ''who once studied them at
tentively, found them notified gray and
brown and indescribably soft and win
ming" Elsewhere we find it asserted
that mo finer eyes had appeared in the
literary circle of Great Britain since
Burns time than those of Hawthorne"
David Gray's were Large and lus-
trous," and Dante Rossettis ''gray-blue,
clear and piercing, and characterized by
that rapid, penetrating gaze SO notice.
able in Emerson"
Shelley's eyes are always spoken of
as magnificent, and fully indicative of
his hayward genius One writer de-
scribes them as Large and animated,
with dash of wildness in them;'' an
other speaks of them as 'such pair of
eyes as are rarely seen in a human or
any other head, intently blue, with
gentle and lambert expression, yet Won
derfully alert and engrossing." Med
with, while writing of Shelley's appear
ance, refers to his blue eyes, every
large and prominent. They were at
times. when he was distracted, as he
often was in contemplation, dull, and,
as it were, insensible to external OBJ
jects; at others, they flashed with the
fire of intelligence" Tom Moore's
eyes were ''as dark and fine as you
would wish to see under a setbof vine
leaves"
Of Coleridge it is reported ellis
forehead was prodigious-a great piece
of placid marble; and his fine eyes, in
which all the activity of his mind
seemed to concentrate, moved under it
with sprightly ease, as if it were
pastime to them to carry
all that thought" Another friend
of his writes: ''The upper part
of Coleridge's face was excessively
fine. His eyes were large, light gray,
and prominent, of liquid brilliancv,
which some eyes of fine character may
be observed to possess, as though the
orb itself retreated to the inner
most recess of the brain" In his Life
of Sterling" Carlyle introduces his ia
nous description of Coleridge's appear
ance. ''The deep eyes, of light hazel,
were,' he says, ''as full of sorrows as of
inspiration; confused pain looked mild
ly from them, as in kind of mild as
constituent"
The eyes of Keats were described by
one of his contemporaries as mellow
and glowing; large, dark and sensitive"
Cowden Clarke states that they were of
brown color, or dark hazel, thus con-
tradicting Mrs. Proctors assertion that
they were ''blue.''
THE finest eyes, in every sense of
the word, which | have seen in mans
head land [ have seen many fine ones)
are those of Thomas Carlyle Such is
the testimony of Leigh Hunt In a de-
scription of the Chelsea Sage" as
lecturer at Willis rooms, we find the
following: ''There he stood, rugged of
feature, brow abrupt like a low cliff,
craggy over eyes deep set, large, pierre
ing, between blue and dark gray, full of
rolling fire."
Leigh Hunt, in his Autobiography"
speaking of Wordsworth's appearance,
says: 81 never beheld eyes that looked
so inspired or supernatural. They were
like fires half burning, half shoulder
ing, with sort of acrid fixture of re-
gard, and seated at the further end Of
two caverns. One might imagine Eze-
kiel or Isaiah to have had such eyes,
Walter Scott says of Burns: There
was strong expression of sense and
shrewdness in all his Hneaments; the
eye alone, think, indicated the poetical
character and temperament. 1t was
large, and of class that glowed e say
literally glowed) when he spoke with
feeling Or interest. I never saw such
another eye in a human head, though I
have seen the most distinguished men
Cf my time. ''-Chambers journal.