5. Shakespeare speaks in _Richard the Second_ of 'the open ear of
youth,' and it is a beautiful truth in a beautiful passage. Young men,
who are still young men, keep your ears open to all truth and to all duty
and to all goodness, and shut your ears with an adder's determination
against all that which ruined Richard--flattering sounds, reports of
fashions, and lascivious metres. 'Our souls would only be gainers by the
perfection of our bodies were they wisely dealt with,' says Professor
Wilson in his _Five Gateways_. 'And for every human being we should aim
at securing, so far as they can be attained, an eye as keen and piercing
as that of the eagle; an ear as sensitive to the faintest sound as that
of the hare; a nostril as far-scenting as that of the wild deer; a tongue
as delicate as that of the butterfly; and a touch as acute as that of the
spider. No man ever was so endowed, and no man ever will be; but all men
come infinitely short of what they should achieve were they to make their
senses what they might be made. The old have outlived their opportunity,
and the diseased never had it; but the young, who have still an undimmed
eye, an undulled ear, and a soft hand; an unblunted nostril, and a tongue
which tastes with relish the plainest fare--the young can so cultivate
their senses as to make the narrow ring, which for the old and the infirm
encircles things sensible, widen for them into an almost limitless
horizon.'

Take heed what you hear, and take heed how you hear.




CHAPTER IV--EYE-GATE