Sight in Savages. l6 - 



gress in life they are not conscious of decadence in 

 it; from infancy to old age the world looks they 

 imagine, the same, the grass as green, the sky as 

 >lue as eyer, and the scarlet yerbenas in the grass 

 just as scarlet . The man liveg inh . ss . 



h.s life; he speaks of the loss of it as a calamity 

 great as loss of reason. To see spectacles amuses 

 and mutates him at the same time; he has the 

 m .key s impulse to snatch the idle things from his 

 fellow s nose ; for not only i s it use l ess to the 

 wearer, and a sham, but it is annoying to others, 

 who do not hke to look at a man and not pro- 



6eS 



To the mocking speech he had made the other 

 good-humouredly replied that he had worn glasses 

 or twenty years, that not only did they enable him 

 to see much better than he could without them, 

 but they had preseryed his sight from further 

 decadence. Not satisfied with defending himself 

 against the charge of being a fantastical person for 

 wearing glasses, he in his turn attacked the mocker 

 How do you know," he said, that your own 

 eyes lg ht has not degenerated with time ? You can 

 only ascertain that by trying on a number of glasses 

 suited to a yariety O f sights, all in some degree 

 tive A score of men with decaying sight may 

 together, and in no two will the sight be the 

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

 boots, unt, you find a pair to fit you. You may 

 try mme if you like ; our years are the same, and 



