Morning journal and courier., 1890-09-26

in ancient times. Herodotus for in
stance, puts on record the ungalIant be-
lief that all Thracian women possessed it.
Halavy, the great traveller, must have been
fellow of infinite jest, for, finding that
he was given the credit of the dreaded
power, he took advantage of the opportu-
nifty of insisting upon gratuitous hospi-
tality, nobody having the courage to re-
fuse anything to one who could blast
them, like llr. Rider Haggard's immortal
heroine, at a glance. The evil eye of the
classics was endowed with a reflection of
the fires of Hades, and this is undoubted-
ly the origin of those legends of folk lore,
in which the eyes of witches and demons
are red. Sorcerers who were capable by
single look of stopping the blood in the
heart and arteries, and unhinging the
mind, might well instil dread. Nova
days, we imagine, they would be regarded
merely as leading exponents of hypnotic
science. The custom of closing the eyes
of the dying is at any rate in Teutonic
countries traceable to a belief that other
wise the dead men might blast the for
times of the living.
But the evil eye is probably nothing
more than a survival of the belief in the
powers of the dragon of international
mythology. Although the existence of
this mythical monster has long passed
into the domain of the fabulous, his ira
ditional attributes still survive in popular
superstition. The head, arms and eyes of
these dreaded monsters, with their anti
human instincts, were SO terrible as to
cast all the saurians into the shade. Now
Behemoth, Leviathan and the dragons of
scripture alike possessed the characteris-
tics of the serpent. AS the fable tells us,
this mystic animal lost its feet in punish
naant nf tic nm, P,rt ~,
remained the model of the line of grace
and beauty. 1t represents, as Mr.. Mon
cure Conway contends, ''the one active
form in nature which cannot be ungrace-
ful." Serpent worship, however, certain
ly had its sanctions in fear, and to the
same origin may be assigned many of the
attributes credited to it in some Egyptian
and Indian cults. In fact, the serpent
still creates throughout nature universal
terror, because it possesses the eye of evil
Its NEUROLOGICAL development, the dragon,
was also endowed with the gifts of pre-
ternatural vision and the ssglance that
kills" To the morbid imaginations of the
old world, a creature, universally believed
to exist, which by its very look could slay
represented the evil principle. And thers
| is no doubt whatever that the belief in it.
powers had its origin in the malignant ey,
of the serpent. We can, then, under
stand the heroism which, according to the
popular belief, was credited to such he.
roes as st. George. A dragon-slayeI
| might well enjoy unlimited prestige
Christianity, in its earliest forms, treadine
on the heels of pagan superstition, copied
| this among other beliefs, and we, there
| fore, find st. Michael, st. Andrew and St
Margaret, among many others. represented
| as dragon-sla We all know that
Ralph Waldo Emerson gibbered the ma.
tional hero whose efigy adOrns the es
| cutcheons of England and Russia as q
slow parasite, who got a lucrative con,
| tract to supply the army with bacen, /" and
l was Obliged to- flee from justice for rogue.
| ry and treachery. Embracing ,Arianism
| we read how he got promoted to the epis
copab throne of Alexandra, and when Ju,
lian came was lynehed, as he deserved
But Mr.. Ruskin denies the truth of tn,
| Identification of the heroic saint Will
George of Cappadocia, and contends
rightly or wrongly, that whatever ma,
have been the facts, those that createI
George the patron saint of England mean
| their homage for a hero. Mr.. Ruskin, too
finds his prototype in another martyr VIII,
died seventy years before the bacon curer
| But the fact that he was portrayed as
dragon-slayer shows us the hold which tn
superstition had upon the national mind
Turner realizes this in his wonderful pre-
sentation of Apollo staying the Python
His monster symbolizes all the tradition
which surrounded the dragon, but, abov
all, we see its marvellous eyes. And W
see, too, the eyes of the god confrontin
them fearlessly. 1t is a conception which
if made in the middle ages, would hav
represented not myth, but an article o
the popular creed. Indeed, history con
tains no greater heroes than those VIII,
could face the eye of evil, and not onl,
live, but overcome.