“There is another thing that you never thought of. You know that if your eyes were fixed fast, as your ears and nose are, you could only see straight forward, or you would have to keep your head twirling about continually. But the eye is set loose in the head, and surrounded with little muscles, things with which we can turn it up, or down, or in any way, just as we wish. You know how long it takes grandfather to fix his telescope; but our eyes are ready, quicker than we think.
“You perceive, my dear, that this beautiful and curious thing, the eye, is very delicate, and easily injured, and if anything destroys our sight, it is a great calamity, and that the eye ought to be carefully protected. And so you will find that it is. It is placed in a deep socket, surrounded by bone, and lined with something very soft. It shelves over on the upper part, so as to form the eye-bow, which is a great protection to it. It is important that it should be kept clear and bright, and there is a little vessel close to it, full of salt water, called tears, to wash it clean, whenever we open or shut the eye; and there is a little hole in the bone of the nose to carry off the water after it has washed the eye. Then it has a nice cover, which we call the eyelid, with a beautiful fringe on the edge of it to shut the eye up tight, away from the dust and air when we do not want to use it: and which, moves so quick, that it shuts up in an instant if anything touches or alarms the eye. Indeed, it seems to be always employed in watching over and protecting this precious instrument of knowledge.
“There is still another thing, my dear, to be remembered about the eye. It is so made that sight is pleasant to it. The blue sky, the green grass, the flowers, the rainbow, all give it pleasure.
“A baby, you know, loves to look about, though it knows nothing. Our Father in Heaven has made it a great happiness to us merely to open our eyes upon the beautiful world he has made.”
After a short silence, Catherine said to her mother, “You told me that these curious painters, as you call them, drew the pictures of everything in that wonderful book that you described. How is that done, mother?”
“All we know,” answered Mrs. Nelson, “is, that the back part of the eye, where the pictures are painted is connected with the brain, and that by this means we become acquainted with the appearance of things.”
Well Spent Hour.
