"Of what use to you," said my father, "is that window you had cut in your library this spring, that looks to the west?"
"Of very little use," said Mr. Ricardo, "for my wife sits in it all the time."
"Ah, Mr. Ricardo!" said I, laughing.
"Well, now," said he, but his face gave way a little, "how are you any better off than those people?"
"I don't wish to make myself an example, sir; but put them down here this evening, and what would they see in all this that we have been enjoying?"
"They would see what you see, I suppose. They had reasonably good eyes—they were not microscopes or telescopes."
"Precisely," said my father. "They would see what mere ordinary vision could take in, without the quick discernment of finely trained sensibilities, and without the far-reaching and wide views of a mind rich in knowledge and associations. Where cultivated senses find a rare mingling of flavours, theirs would at best only perceive the difference of stronger or fainter—of more or less sweet."
"Senses literal or figurative, do you mean?"
"Both," said my father. "You rarely find the one cultivated without the other."
"You may find the other without the one," said Mr. Ricardo. "I knew a man once who had no aptness for anything but judging of wines, and he was curious at that. He did it mostly by the sense of smell, too. All the mind the man had seemed to reside in his nose."