THE BLESSINGS OF THE BLIND
To the Editor of The Idler.
Dear Sir: Those who are blessed, as the saying is, with two eyes and the gift of sight, are much given to expressing sympathy with, and sorrow for, the blind. It would be churlish to quarrel with so unselfish a sentiment, for it is, indeed, very good-natured of those who are busily engaged in seeing the sights of the world to spare the time and the thought which they give to the sightless. Yet I often wonder if the blind do not sometimes question, as I do, if a great deal of this sympathy is not wasted?
I, Sir, am blind. Totally and irretrievably blind. I have been blind all my life, having been, as the Irish say, “dark” from my birth. Born blind, in fact. My “affliction,” as it is called, being natural, I was born with no blemish to betray my infirmity, and it has so happened upon several occasions that, beingthrown into the company of those who had not previously been warned of my condition, I have been compelled to make them acquainted with it myself. This information has invariably been the signal for apology and sympathetic pity. From which I infer that men generally feel that the blind are to be pitied and consoled. Also I have read a great deal of the hardship of being blind, though I have never, I confess, been quite able to see wherein that hardship lay. You are surprised, perhaps, to hear me say that I have “read” of this, but I assure you there is no reason to be surprised. If you are at all acquainted with the progress of science, as I suppose you are, you must have heard of raised type. Oh, yes, I read quite as naturally as you, yourself, though I accomplish with my fingers what you do with your eyes.
The result of my reading has been that I have come seriously to question the theory that sight is necessary to human happiness and efficiency. It has been borne in upon me that men possessed of two good eyes are often apparentlyunable to make use of them. I read that men often fall in love with women who seem, to all others, extremely ugly; and that women as often do the same by men. And not only that, but that they are quite frequently completely deceived in the characters of the persons whom they marry, women discovering their husbands to be bullies, and men finding their wives to be viragoes and shrews; and all this when the nuptial knot is tied hard and fast and the damage is beyond repair.
If eyes are really of as much use as those who see seem to think them, how is it possible that people should make such mistakes? Blind as I am, such a thing could never happen to me, nor do I think it could befall any sightless person; certainly not one who has been, as I have, blind from birth. I know the voice of a shrew the moment she opens her mouth, no matter how pleasantly she may speak at the moment. I can point out to you the drunkard, the hypocrite and the boor the moment I have heard them speak. In the tone of his voice every man carries his true certificate of character, be it goodor bad. An ill-tempered man may conceal his vice from you, who look only at his face and judge his speech by his words, but he can not deceive me, for I know him by his voice. I have been engaged in business for the last thirty years and I have never once been taken in by a swindler. I have never yet been mistaken in the character of a man with whom I dealt. How manyseeingmen can say as much?
Excepting the human being, we know of no such active or intelligent creature as the ant—the ant who lives in total darkness. Yet does he not build his cities and fight his battles as wisely as we do our own? I sometimes wonder if the possession of the power of sight is not a hindrance, rather than a help, in labor? The ant, who can not see at all, goes straight to his object. He is never distracted by the sight of things along the way. The fly, on the contrary, is possessed of a great many eyes; his head, in fact, is practicallyall eyes. Yet what is the fly but a parasite, a nuisance, a very vagabond of insects? Attracted hither and thither by everything that meets his gaze, he lights first uponone object and then upon another, without rhyme or reason save his overweening curiosity, until he finally falls into a trap and dies an ignoble death in a spider’s web, or caught fast upon a sticky paper. The fly has no social organization, no family life, no mating in any proper sense of the word. He pollutes all that he touches. His entire life is a life of destruction, as opposed to the ant’s, which is a life of construction.
According to the Grecian mythology, the largest race of men the world has ever known, theCyclops, had but a single eye, and that in the middle of the forehead. The stupidest of all characters of the Grecian myths wasArgus, who, though he had more eyes than all the gods and heroes together, yet allowedHermesto pipe him to sleep and so cut off his head. In the tail ofHera’speacock, his eyes were of as much use to him as in his own head.Eros, the god of love, was blind; yet he was of all the gods the most joyful. And in this, our own day, is notJusticeblind?
Is there, in all this, no significance? Is thereno hint of an understanding of the secret that, as he who would save his soul must first lose it, so he who would see must first be blind?
Men see, as we say, with the mind as well as with the eye. Men also see with the spirit. Saul never could see the truth and beauty of Christianity until he was stricken blind upon the road to Damascus. Butwhilehe was blind, hesaw, and so became Paul. Would Homer have been the giant of poets had he had his sight? I doubt it. Would Milton have attained his heights of inspiration, had he retained his vision? I can not believe it. For the man who has physical sight looks upon the earth and the works of men; but he who has only the spiritual sight, lifts up his eyes to God and His angels.
The shepherd lad who has never traveled beyond his native valley dreams a beautiful dream of the world that lies beyond the hills that hem him in. But the tourist lives a life of constant disillusion, for he finds in distant lands, where he had thought to find the abiding-place of Romance, the same humdrum lifeof the commonplace that he left at home.
We who are blind, Mr.Idler, are the shepherd boys of this life. Enclosed in our valley of darkness by the everlasting shadow of our endless night, we dream of the world that lies beyond as a place of beauty and happiness. For us there is no sad disillusion. For us there is no rude awakening from the delights of fancy. For us the sky is always fair and the earth is always sweet. For us the woods are thronged with nymphs and the grasses with the little people of fairyland. We do not know the gloom of age or the horror of decay. We do not know the sight of death.
Do not imagine, Sir, that because we can not see, we can not create images. We can, we do. We dream of the earth as fair as other men may dream of heaven. Because we have never seen beauty, to us all things are beautiful. When I walk in the garden, the scent of the rose rises to my nostrils with a sweetness which is but intensified because I can not see the blossom whence it springs. I finger its fragile petals, and I rejoice in its beauty of form, for youmust know that one canfeelbeauty as well as see it. I lean my head against the friendly and sturdy oak and I hear the beating of his heart. For to me all these thingslive. What does it signify that they can not see, or hear, or speak?Ican not see; am I the less a man for that? I learn that nowadays it is possible to communicate with people who are born not only blind, but deaf and dumb as well. That it is possible to teach them to read and to speak, even as I was taught to read and speak. Is it not possible, then, that some day, if we will only try, we may be able to break through the long silence that has separated us from our brothers and sisters of the woods and fields? Already, we who are blind can almost understand the whispered syllables of the rustling leaves and the waving grass. May not some other, one perhaps more closely shut in with God than we, reach downward as well as upward, and bring about theuniversalunderstanding? I hope it may be so.
My wife, who had the sweetest voice of any girl I ever knew, is as fair to me to-day asupon the day when I first fell in love. Her voice, if anything, has grown more pleasant as she has grown older. She, too, is blind, and together we enjoy a state of happiness which comes as near to being perpetual youth as it is possible for mortals to attain. How infinitely better this seems to me, than to be compelled, day after day, to watch the fading of that flower of my early love! To observe anxiously the lines of care creeping into that dearly beloved countenance; to see the snow of many winters slowly whiten her soft smooth hair! What a kindness of the good God is this, that she remains forever young to me, as I do to her, and that our passion knows nothing of the insidious poison of departing comeliness!
Curiously enough, our only child, the dearly beloved son who was the fruit of our attachment, has a perfect vision. And this, Mr.Idler, odd as it may seem to you who are accustomed to look upon this matter from a different point of view, is the one worry of my life. Many a night have I lain awake, listening to the gentlebreathing of my wife at my side, and turned over and over in my mind the dangers which he must face because of his condition. Often have I prayed God that He might watch over him and turn aside his eyes from the ugliness, the sin and the temptation, which his mother and I have mercifully been spared! It is hard, in any case, to have the child grow up and go out into the world. But it is infinitely more hard to know that he is almost as though he were of another race of beings, and that he must endure the sight of pain, of misery, of squalor, of poverty and of age! That he must be subject to temptations for which I can not prepare him, having never met with them myself.
I once read a story of a man who became mysteriously possessed of the power to read the thoughts of all those with whom he came in contact. At first he was transported into the seventh heaven of delight, reveling in the sense of his new-found power. But soon he came to realize what a curse had fallen uponhim. Turn where he would, he found the minds of men filled with envy, malice and evil. The fairest faces served to hide from others, but not from him, the most ignoble minds. Beneath the frankest and most friendly manner he often read the secret hatred and jealousy. Confronted upon all sides with the evidence of the wickedness and baseness of his fellows, he was at last driven to despair, and by one desperate act destroyed both his power and his life.
Mr.Idler, were I suddenly to be granted the gift of sight, I think that I should feel like that. It is hard enough to read of some things. I should not care to look upon them.
There have been those who, hearing me speak so of sight, have answered, “That is because you have never been able to see. You do not know what a blessing sight is, because you have never enjoyed it!” Sometimes I comfort myself with the thought that it is like that with our son. He can see, but he was born that way and he will never know the difference. Gradually he will grow used to looking upon things which I could not endure to behold. God haschosen to give him the harder part; may He grant him the strength to bear it!
I am, Sir, your sincere friend,Noel Nightshade.