Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1872-11-07
The Art OF Seeing.


ANYTHIEG is worth what you realize
from it, A capitalist makes his money
realize fifty per cent. per annum some
times. But the miser's buried gold is
worth nothing, either as principal or in
terest A coal HEAVIER has Just as many
fingers as matchmaker, but they are
not worth so much to him The stage.
driver in the mountains has as good eyes
and as clear vision as the artist who
rides on his box, but the artist sees more
in the hills in an hour than the driver has
seen in lifetime. The ears of ordinary
murtals are as good in their structure as
the ears of Beethoven in their best days,
but none of us can hear all that he heard
Eyes, ears and fingers are capital capable
of improvement. The trouble is that
most men do not have right use Of their
eyes or ears or fingers.
some years ago Mr. Beecher wrote a
series Of anonymous articles, "By One
who keeps his Eyes and Ears open" 1t
was true description Of the great preach.
cr, for if any man ever kept his eyes and
ears open to men, it is Henry Ward
Beecher But the very title was lesson.
How few people ever keep their eyes and
ears open Sir Walter Scott said that
the secret Of the knowledge Of men
shown in his books was that he always
talked with his fellow travellers, whether
he had ever been introduced or not He
kept his eyes and ears open to human ma
ture. There were men in the stone-uuar-
ries whose eyes were as good as Hugh
Miller's, but he was an oyen-eyed man,
and succeeded in reading the stones as
few learned men ever read them
His eyes were open to the facts of ma
ture. Many hunter shot birds beside
Audubon, but never a hunter saw birds
as he saw them, knowing the haunts
and habits of each There were
many men who were keen observers of
nature in the Empire of Brazil, hut the
Emperor took great pains 10 import one
man with one pair of eyes, constructed
for all practical purposes like any other
pair of normal eyes The difference was
in the man who used them; for the world
learned more from the observations Of
Agassiz in Brazil than from the sight see
ing of all other travellers.
The frontier guide has his eyes trained
so that nothing OF consequence 10 him in
Journey or chase is missed. We have
known n northwestern ta8ageur who could
tell us whether it were fox or wolf made
certain depression in the grass, his only
criterion being the manner IN which the
fore.paws had been folded under the body.
And the story OF the lost camel, laden
with rice on the right side and honey on
the left, lame IN the left fore-foOt, and
blind in the right eye, which the dervish
described, without having seen, from the
birds who ate the spilled rice, and the
ants who ate the waste honey, and the
grass cropped always on the left side,
aud the track Of the Iimping foot, IS
very old story indeed, and illustrates the
advantage of a habit of observation. We
asked Northrup the guide what had beat
en- the ground under plum,tree on the
banks OF the Red River Of the North, and
and he dropped on hands and knees and
studied the apparently inexplicable maze
of hooflines. Sand then remarked that a
docelk and her fawn had stood under
that tree the day before, fighting the flies
The sea -Captain notes the sl(v, the bOtanist
reads the plants, the chemist is alive to
the smallest ana most subtle indications of
a trace" Of something or other in his
analysis
A professor of natural science once
said to us chat his greatest difficulty lay
in teaching people to use their ewes. NV
Juniors have never learned to see, said
he. The great majority of people in this
world are deaf and blind, except for pur.
poses related in some way to the getting
o! their living. Even educated people
do not see, We teach our girls to read
and talk with correct accent, we train
our boys to track mathematical demon.
struton; but seeing is a lost art, known
. e.