Thus in many ways are the deaf made to suffer from popular misconceptions, and quite unnecessarily. Too long have designations been employed regarding them that call up undeserved associations. Too long have they been set down as a strange and uncertain body of human beings, removed in their actions, manners and modes of thought from the rest of society. The interests of the deaf require a different consideration and treatment. They demand that the deaf be regarded exactly as other people, only unable to hear. Theirs will be a great boon when they are looked upon no more as a distinct and different portion of the race, but entirely as normal creatures, equally capable and human as all other men.[145] FOOTNOTES: [136] Very often in the public mind the deaf and the blind are associated, the two classes sometimes becoming more or less merged the one into the other, and the problems of the one are not infrequently assumed to be those of the other. As a matter of fact, there is but one point of similarity in the two classes--both are "defective" in that they are deprived of a most important physical sense. The gulf that really separates the blind from the deaf is far deeper than that which lies between either of the two classes and the normal population. [137] In this connection it may be interesting to note the regard for the deaf as has been indicated by the deaf characters that have been created in fiction. Though not a large number are found, there is displayed towards them an attitude largely of kindly sympathy, in some cases mingled with wonder. Such characters appear in Lew Wallace's "Prince of India", where three deaf-mutes are instructed to speak; Scott's _Fanella_ in "Peveril of the Peak"; Dickens' _Sophy_ in "Dr. Marigold" (an unusually attractive and lovable character); Collins' _Madonna Mary_ in "Hide and Seek"; Caine's _Naomi_ in "The Scapegoat"; Haggard's "She"; Maarten's "God's Fool"; de Musset's "Pierre and Camille"; and elsewhere. Thomas Holcroft's "Deaf and Dumb; or the Orphan Protected" is an adaptation from the French play "Abbe de l'Epee" of J. N. Bouilly, in 1802, in which the founder of the first school for the deaf and his pupils are touchingly portrayed. Feigned characters are also found, as Scott's mute in "The Talisman"; in Moliere's "Le Medecin malgre Lui"; Jonson's "Epicoene"; and John Poole's "Deaf as a Post". Defoe has a character, _Duncan Campbell_, which is possibly based on one from real life, being referred to by Addison in the _Spectator_ and the _Tatler_. On the subject of the deaf in fiction, see _Silent Worker_, Dec., 1893; _Annals_, xxxix., 1894, p. 79; Indiana Bulletin of Charities and Corrections, June, 1897; _Athenaeum_, Feb., April, 1896.