The strong contrast they presented would at once have struck the most
superficial observer; but a physiognomist, regarding them closely,
would have defined their particular characteristics by saying,
that if the Frenchman was "all eyes," the Englishman was "all ears."

In fact, the visual apparatus of the one had been singularly
perfected by practice. The sensibility of its retina must
have been as instantaneous as that of those conjurors who
recognize a card merely by a rapid movement in cutting the pack
or by the arrangement only of marks invisible to others.
The Frenchman indeed possessed in the highest degree what may
be called "the memory of the eye."

The Englishman, on the contrary, appeared especially organized
to listen and to hear. When his aural apparatus had been once
struck by the sound of a voice he could not forget it, and after ten
or even twenty years he would have recognized it among a thousand.
His ears, to be sure, had not the power of moving as freely
as those of animals who are provided with large auditory flaps;
but, since scientific men know that human ears possess, in fact,
a very limited power of movement, we should not be far wrong
in affirming that those of the said Englishman became erect,
and turned in all directions while endeavoring to gather
in the sounds, in a manner apparent only to the naturalist.
It must be observed that this perfection of sight and hearing
was of wonderful assistance to these two men in their vocation,
for the Englishman acted as correspondent of the Daily Telegraph,
and the Frenchman, as correspondent of what newspaper,
or of what newspapers, he did not say; and when asked,