1. These eyes were blue; blue as autumn distance—blue as the blue we see between the retreating mouldings of hills and woody slopes on a sunny September morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no beginning or surface, and was looked into rather than at.

3. She’s got those big black eyes with plenty shiny white in them that makes them shine like brand new money and she knows what God gave women eyelashes for, too.

4. His eyes, meanwhile, roved very slowly all around the room—he completed the arc by turning to inspect the people directly behind. I think that, except for my presence, he would have taken one short glance beneath our own table.

5. As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph.

6. His eyes are quickened so with grief,

7. Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

8. Fear has sharp eyes, and sees things underground.

9. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
    I lift my lids and all is born again.
   (I think I made you up inside my head.)

10. To the Eyes of a Miser a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun, and a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with Grapes

11. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.

ANSWERS

1. B. Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes, describing Elfride Swancourt. This serial novel, the third published by Hardy but the first to bear his name, focuses on a romantic triangle between Swancourt and her two suitors: Stephen Smith, an ambitious architect from a modest background, and Henry Knight, an essayist and member of London society. The novel is notable for originating the term “cliffhanger.” At the end of one installment, Hardy leaves Knight hanging off a cliff, making readers wait for the next issue to find out what happens.

2. C. Louise Bogan, “Medusa.” The poem was first published in The New Republic in 1921, and again two years later in Body of This Death (1923), a collection of Bogan’s poetry. Bogan was a regular contributor to The Nation, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Scribner’s Magazine, and Atlantic Monthly. She also reviewed poetry for The New Yorker for thirty-eight years.

3. A. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, describing Daisy Blunt. Published in 1937, the novel tells the story of Janie Crawford and her three marriages. Although she played a pivotal role in the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston fell out of favor in subsequent decades. Critics objected to her folklorist approach to dialog, arguing it created caricatures of African Americans. A 1975 article by Alice Walker launched a Hurston revival.

4. A. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, describing gangster Meyer Wolfsheim. Published in 1925, the novel tells the story of the false life Jay Gatsby has constructed, one that includes doing business with Wolfsheim. By the time of his death in 1940, Fitzgerald’s literary fortunes had waned, his novels of the freewheeling 1920s at odds with the Great Depression. During World War II, Armed Services Editions distributed 150,000 copies of the novel to American military personnel, spurring a Fitzgerald revival.

5. D. Bram Stoker, Dracula. In the final scene of the book, Jonathan Harker and Quincey Morris win a desperate race to prevent the gypsies from returning the sleeping Count Dracula to his castle in Transylvania. The Count begins to awaken from his slumber as the sun sets, but, before he can rise, Harker and Morris slash Dracula’s throat and put a knife through his heart turning him to dust.

6. B. Robert Graves, “Lost Love,” appearing in Treasure Box (1919). Graves first gained recognition as one of the poets of the Great War, who, along with friends Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, gave voice to the horrors of the trenches. In later years, Graves would be known for his anti-war autobiography, Good-bye to All That (1929), and the novel I, Claudius (1934), a sympathetic account of the life of the Roman emperor. 

7. C. Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack. Between 1732 and 1758, Franklin published a yearly almanac featuring a calendar, weather predictions, astronomical charts, and advice. Known for its humorous observations, the almanac was one of the best-selling pamphlets in the American colonies, with more than 10,000 copies sold every year. 

8. A. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, as spoken by Sancho Panza, straight man and squire to legendary (in his own mind) knight Don Quixote. The observation occurs when Panza attempts to convince Quixote to wait until morning to investigate a frightful noise. The novel spawned the adjective quixotic, which pays homage to the main character’s foolish pursuit of impractical romantic ideals.   

9. C. Sylvia Plath, opening stanza of “Mad Girl’s Love Song,” published in the August 1953 issue of Mademoiselle. On break from her studies at Smith College, Plath spent the month of June interning at the magazine as a guest editor.

10. A. William Blake in a letter to Reverend John Trusler, 23 August 1799. Trusler commissioned a drawing from Blake, one of those rare men whose pen lent itself both to words and art, but rejected the final piece, because Blake had been too “fanciful.” In the letter, Blake defends his artistic vision and mocks Trusler’s insistence that he follow a more traditional style.

11. B. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice. In this novel of manners and marriage, the taciturn Mr. Darcy offers a kind observation about the allure of Elizabeth Bennett, a woman he had previously snubbed, to Miss Bingley, the sister of his best friend. Miss Bingley later uses the phrase “fine eyes” to mock Darcy’s growing admiration for Elizabeth.