THE ART OF SEEING THINGS 



correspondent inferred that the incident showed 

 the difference between bom royahy and hastily 

 made royalty. I wonder how many persons in 

 that vast assembly made this observation; proba- 

 bly very few. It denoted a gift for seeing things. 



If our powers of observation were quick and sure 

 enough, no doubt we should see through most of 

 the tricks of the sleight-of-hand man. He fools us 

 because his hand is more dexterous than our eye. 

 He captures our attention, and then commands 

 us to see only what he wishes us to see. 



In the field of natural history, things escape us 

 because the actors are small, and the stage is very 

 large and more or less veiled and obstructed. The 

 movement is quick across a background that tends 

 to conceal rather than expose it. In the printed 

 page the white paper plays quite as important a 

 part as the type and the ink; but the book of nature 

 is on a different plan: the page rarely presents a 

 contrast of black and white, or even black and 

 brown, but only of similar tints, gray upon gray, 

 green upon green, or drab upon brown. 



By a close observer I do not mean a minute, 

 cold-blooded specialist, — 



"a fingering slave. 

 One who would peep and botanize 

 Upon his mother's grave," — 



but a man who looks closely and steadily at nature, 

 and notes the individual features of tree and rock 



7 



