And it has been remarked in many cases in which men have gone blind that their cheerfulness so far from being diminished has by some miracle gained a new strength.  In no case of which I have had any knowledge has it apparently had the contrary effect.  The zest of living seems heightened.  Not long ago Mr. Galsworthy wrote to the Times a letter in which he spoke with pity of the unhappiness of the blind, and there promptly descended on him an avalanche of protest from the blind themselves.  I suppose there was never a man who seemed to have a more intense pleasure in life than the late Dr. Campbell, the founder of the Normal School for the Blind, who worked wonders in extending the range of the activities of the blind, and himself did such apparently impossible things as riding a bicycle and climbing mountains.

Nor was the case of Mr. Pulitzer, the famous proprietor of the New York World, less remarkable.  Night came down on him with terrible suddenness.  He was watching the sunset from his villa in the Mediterranean one evening when he said:  “How quickly the sun has set.”  “But it has not set,” said his companion.  “Oh, yes, it has; it is quite dark,” he answered.  In that moment he had gone stone blind.  But I am told by those who knew him that his vivacity of mind was never greater than in the years of his blindness.

My friend Mr. G.W.E.  Russell has a theory that the advantage of the blind over the deaf and dumb in this matter of cheerfulness is perhaps more apparent than real.  He points out that it is in company that the blind is least conscious of his misfortune, and that the deaf and dumb is most conscious of it.  That is certainly the case.  In conversation the sightless are on an equality with the seeing, while the deaf and dumb are shut up in a terrible isolation.  The fact that they see is not their gain but their loss.  They watch the movement of the lips and the signs of laughter, but this only adds to the bitterness of the prison of soundlessness in which they dwell.  Hence the appearance of gloom.  On the other hand, in solitude the deaf and dumb has the advantage.  All the colour and movement of life is before him, while the blind is not only denied that vision of the outside world, but has a restriction of movement that the other does not share.  Mr. Russell’s conclusion, therefore, is that while the happiest moments of the blind are those when he is observed, the happiest of the deaf and dumb are when he is not observed.

There is some measure of truth in this, but I believe, nevertheless, that the common impression is right, and that, judged by the test of the cheerful acceptance of affliction, the loss of sight is less depressing than the loss of hearing and speech.  And this for a very obvious reason.  After all, the main interest in life is in easy, familiar intercourse with our fellows.  I love to watch a golden sunset, to walk in the high beech woods in spring—­or, for that matter, in summer or autumn or winter—­to