Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1893 — Sharp Eyes. [ARTICLE]

Sharp Eyes.

We never see everything that is about us, and no two of us ever see precisely the same things. Each sees what his previous training and his habit of mind have prepared him to see. When Mr. Hudson was in Patagonia he fell in with a gambler, who told him that always after the first few rounds of the game he knew i some of the cards as they were dealt; he recognized them by a difference so slight that another man could not detect it even when it was pointed out to him. Mr. Hudson is an ornithologist, and he says that this same preternaturally sharp-eyed man was greatly surprised when he was told that half a dozen kinds of sparrows were feeding and singing about the house. He had never seen any difference in them, he said. In size, color, shape, and actions they were all alike, and they all sang and twittered alike, so far as he had ever noticed. Native Patagonians, like other savage peoples, have very keen eyes for certain things, things which their modes of life have made it indispensable that they should notice. In other words, they are specialists, and as a matter of course they excel in their own particular line. But it does not follow that they have better eyes than are possessed by men of civilized countries. Set one of them to find a reversed “s” in the middle of a printed page, says Mr. Hudson, and the tears would run down his brown cheeks and he would give up the search with aching eyeballs. But the proof-reader can find the reversed letter in a few moments, and never strain his eyes in the least.