by the manner in
which they return or evade your glance. "A gentleman," as the Autocrat
has wisely said, is always "calm-eyed." There is just enough abstraction
in his look to denote his individual power and the capacity for
self-contemplation, while he is, nevertheless, quietly and unobtrusively
observant. He does not seek, neither does he evade your observation.
Snobs and prigs do the first; bashful and mean people do the second.
There are some men who, on meeting your eye, immediately assume an
expression quite different from the one which they previously
wore, which, whether an improvement or not, suggests a disagreeable
self-consciousness. Perhaps they fancy they are betraying something.
There are others who return your look with unnecessary defiance, which
suggests a like concealment. The symptoms of the eye are generally borne
out in the figure. A man is very apt to betray his character by the
manner in which he appropriates his part of the sidewalk. The man who
resolutely keeps the middle of the pavement, and deliberately brushes
against you, you may be certain would take the last piece of pie at the
hotel table, and empty the cream-jug on its way to your cup. The man who
sidles by you, keeping close to the houses, and selecting the easiest
planks, manages to slip through life in some such way, and to evade its
sternest duties. The awkward man, who gets in your way, and throws you
back upon the man behind you, and so manages to derange the harmonious
procession of an entire block, is very apt to do the same thing in
political and social economy. The inquisitive man, who deliberately
shortens his pace, so that he may participate in the confidence you
impart to your companion, has an eye not unfamiliar to keyholes, and
probably opens his wife's letters. The loud man, who talks with the
intention of being overheard, is the same egotist elsewhere. If there
was any justice in Iago's sneer, that there were some "so weak of soul
that in their sleep they mutter their affairs," what shall be said of
the walking revery-babblers? I have met men who were evidently rolling
over, "like a sweet morsel under the tongue," some speech they were
about to make, and others who were framing curses. I remember once
that, while walking behind an apparently respectable old gentleman, he
suddenly uttered the exclamation, "Well, I'm d----d!" and then quietly
resumed his usual manner. Whether he had at that moment become impressed
with a tr