But to enjoy the happiness of being nearsighted the eyeglasses and spectacles should be dispensed with and life viewed through the natural organs alone. Then it is, as already remarked, that we get the impressionist effect, which is the only one worth having. The man with what are called good eyes perceives all the details, and consequently all the coarse and ugly particulars of the life, still and in motion, about him, and all its faults and shortcomings. After all, what we want is feeling; the thousand intricacies of form we do not need or desire; give us the general effects and our spirit transfigures them. Give us figures, incidents and scenes in vague and poetic mass, and the most delightful and thrilling emotions are aroused. These are the results obtained by the nearsighted man. To him there is very little that is ugly in life, and especially is it true that all women are beautiful. As I go through the streets I meet at every turn the most exquisite girls, of whose features, indeed, I know little in detail, but there comes to me a general effect of brilliant eyes, lovely complexions and entrancing hair. Every figure is elegant and each walks with the step of a goddess. There are some old women, but none middle-aged or faded; I know not that most distressing of mortal wrecks, the woman “well preserved.” I catch a swift glimpse of a face at a window, or one flashes from a carriage—it is always fair; in the crowded thoroughfares of the shopping districts the tall and picturesque hats, covered with flowers; the soft gowns, the ribbons of myriad colors flit by, giving me but a glimpse, and ravish me. Still more enchanting are these graceful beings at night by the electric light, or vaguely disclosed in the wan beams of the moon. Natural scenery has a charm which the unhappy man who is not nearsighted can never know. Everything looks uncertain, dim, hazy and very often mystical; colors affect the eye with a delicious softness; there are no keen and cruel contrasts; distant woods and skies, with the multitude of intermingled hues in summer, and the browns and grays of autumn and winter, fall tenderly upon the vision. The changes of light upon the mountain side, and, still more vividly, the seashore, early in the morning or at sunset, stir the deepest sources of sentiment. The nearsighted eye is never photographic; the lines and colors are everywhere mingled and confused, and in both rest and action there is a delicious complexity and indefiniteness.