Some sage has said: "For a thousand men who can speak, there is only one who can

think; for a thousand men who can think, there is only one who can see." To see

and to think is to get your milk from your own cow.

 

When the one man in a million who can see comes along, we call him Master. Old

Mr. Holbrook, of "Cranford," asked his guest what color ash-buds were in March;

she confessed she did not know, to which the old gentleman answered: "I knew you

didn't. No more did I--an old fool that I am!--till this young man comes and

tells me. 'Black as ash-buds in March.' And I've lived all my life in the

country. More shame for me not to know. Black; they are jet-black, madam."

 

"This young man" referred to by Mr. Holbrook was Tennyson.

 

Henry Ward Beecher said: "I do not believe that I have ever met a man on the

street that I did not get from him some element for a sermon. I never see

anything in nature which does not work towards that for which I give the

strength of my life. The material for my sermons is all the time following me

and swarming up around me."

 

Instead of saying only one man in a million can see, it would strike nearer the

truth to say that none of us sees with perfect understanding more than a

fraction of what passes before our eyes, yet this faculty of acute and accurate

observation is so important that no man ambitious to lead can neglect it. The

next time you are in a car, look at those who sit opposite you and see what you