However, I think the blind are happier than the deaf. There is less of the torture of Tantalus about their affliction. If they are surrounded by loving and considerate friends they have less to regret than the deaf; their embarrassments are not brought home so cruelly, for they do not see the consequences of their own blunders. I know a woman who was suddenly blinded, twenty-five years ago. She has lived usefully and happily with her family. Her children are now middle-age men and women, showing the wrinkles and the wear of life. Her husband and her brother have aged, but not for her. She only sees the old vision of youth and power. An illuminated silence would have given her all the signs of age creeping upon those nearest her, and would have destroyed her intimate part in the everyday family life. Her children never could have come to her, weeping, seeking her sacred confidences, had she been unable to hear them. Society has a more kindly feeling for the blind man than for the deaf—at least so it seems to us. You may find a good illustration of this at some party or social gathering in the country. The neighbors gather; very likely it is Winter and they come from lonely places, eager for human companionship. It is a jolly gathering. Perhaps a blind man and a deaf man of equal social importance, will enter the room simultaneously. The blind man hears the laughter and the happy chatter and at once enters into the spirit of the evening. The deaf man catches no happy contagion, he feels a melancholy irritation. He would have been far happier at home with his book, but his wife and daughter urged upon him the duty of coming to “enjoy himself” and—here he is. Half a dozen people rush to the blind man. He must be guided to a comfortable seat where a willing interpreter will quickly make him feel at home. He is told about the new red dress which Mrs. Jones is wearing, it is so becoming! Miss Foster is in blue, and her hair is arranged in the latest New York style. Henry Benson has shaved off his beard. John Mercer has a bandage on his hand where he cut it with the saw. The Chase girls have new fur coats. The blind man sees it through the eyes of his neighbor. It is a pleasure to sit unobtrusively and talk to him—it gives one a thrill of satisfaction to feel that the blind man is made happy. But who rushes to the deaf man for the privilege of being his interpreter? In all my experience I have known only one person to do this. As he looks about him for a vacant seat the deaf man sees few inviting hands or faces. If he is able to read facial expressions at all he soon fancies that there are many versions of the thought: “Oh, I hope that man will not sit near me!” Who desires to attract attention by screaming at the deaf man or to spend the evening writing out for him what others are saying?