[The Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.]@TWC D-Link bookThe Complete PG Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION 193/419
They fell at last on Iris,--his next neighbor, you remember. -- We know in a moment, on looking suddenly at a person, if that person's eyes have been fixed on us. Sometimes we are conscious of it before we turn so as to see the person. Strange secrets of curiosity, of impertinence, of malice, of love, leak out in this way.
There is no need of Mrs.Felix Lorraine's reflection in the mirror, to tell us that she is plotting evil for us behind our backs. We know it, as we know by the ominous stillness of a child that some mischief or other is going-on.
A young girl betrays, in a moment, that her eyes have been feeding on the face where you find them fixed, and not merely brushing over it with their pencils of blue or brown light. A certain involuntary adjustment assimilates us, you may also observe, to that upon which we look.
Roses redden the cheeks of her who stoops to gather them, and buttercups turn little people's chins yellow.
When we look at a vast landscape, our chests expand as if we would enlarge to fill it.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|