SIGHT IN SAVAGES 161 



produce any other effect? Besides, their sight as 

 a rule is good when they are young, and as they 

 progress in life they are not conscious of deca- 

 dence in it; from infancy to old age the world 

 looks, they imagine, the same, the grass as green, 

 the sky as blue as ever, and the scarlet verbenas 

 in the grass just as scarlet. The man lives in his 

 sight ; it is his life ; he speaks of the loss of it as a 

 calamity great as loss of reason. To see spec- 

 tacles amuses and irritates him at the same time ; 

 he has the monkey's impulse to snatch the idle 

 things from his fellow's nose; for not only is it 

 useless to the wearer, and a sham, but it is an- 

 noying to others, who do not like to look at a man 

 and not properly see his eyes, and the thought 

 that is in them. 



To the mocking speech he had made the other 

 good-humoredly replied that he had worn glasses 

 for twenty years, that not only did they enable 

 him to see much better than he could without 

 them, but they had preserved his sight from fur- 

 ther decadence. Not satisfied with defending him- 

 self against the charge of being a fantastical per- 

 son for wearing glasses, he in his turn attacked 

 the mocker. * ' How do you know, ' ' he said, ' ' that 

 your own eyesight has not degenerated with time ? 

 You can only ascertain that by trying on a number 

 of glasses suited to a variety of sights, all in some 

 degree defective. A score of men with decaying 

 sight may be together, and in no two will the sight 

 be the same. You must try on spectacles, as you 



