Note 118 — Chapter III · A REVIEW OF M. PAUL BATAILLARD’S REVIEWS

Every observer has noticed the Gypsy eye, which films over, as it were, as soon as the owner becomes weary or ennuyé; it has also a remarkable “far-off” glance, as if looking over and beyond you. Borrow (The Zincali) describes it as a “strange stare like nothing else in this world.” And again he says that “a thin glaze steals over it in repose, and seems to emit phosphoric light.” It is certainly a marvellous contrast with the small, fat-lidded eye of the Jew, the oblique and porcine feature of the Chinese, and the oblong optic of the old Egypt which in profile looks like full face.