A Very Naughty Angel

AUTHOR’S NOTEThere is no doubt that when people become blind they often have a perception that is not given to people who are still using their eyes. This was well known to the ancient Egyptians who depicted on their statues the Third Eye in the centre of their foreheads. Amongst the Ancients the eye had always been of tremendous importance. It was Edgar Allan Poe, the American Poet who wrote, “The eyes are the windows of the soul.” This was, however, known right back in the ancient times when it was believed that the eye receives and reflects the intelligence of thought and the warmth of sensibility. It is the sense of the mind and the tongue of understanding. The millionaire businessman who built Port Sunlight, the late Lord Leverhulme once told me, ‘to all applicants asking for employment, my first attention is given to the eye.’ In modern times we have lost the art of using our third eye or our perception in knowing whether people are right or wrong, lying or telling the truth. Hindu sacred legends revered the eye and believed that the Gods could look into a man’s soul through the eye. Josephine de Beauharnais, when Napoleon Bonaparte was trying to marry her, said, ‘His searching glance has something singular and inexplicable which imposes even on our Directors. Judge if it may not intimidate a woman.’ Napoleon himself agreed with this and said, ‘I have seldom drawn my sword. I won my battles with my eyes not with my weapons.’ Napoleon’s eyes were reported to be steady and flickerless even to the end of his very long life. We are told too that the Indian Emperor Akbar who achieved the most astonishing success in building up and retaining a very large Empire had a powerful personality and possessed most distinguished eyes. The Jesuit missionaries who visited his Court described them as being ‘vibrant like the sea in sunshine’. What therefore could be more powerful than a glance of love between two people when it comes from their hearts?