of being obliged to remain forever thus; you will suddenly be
overwhelmed by a mental agony, by terror; it will seem to you impossible
to resist, that you must burst into a scream, that you must go mad or
die. But, poor boys! when you enter the Institute of the Blind for the
first time, during their recreation hour, and hear them playing on
violins and flutes in all directions, and talking loudly and laughing,
ascending and descending the stairs at a rapid pace, and wandering
freely through the corridors and dormitories, you would never pronounce
these unfortunates to be the unfortunates that they are. It is necessary
to observe them closely. There are lads of sixteen or eighteen, robust
and cheerful, who bear their blindness with a certain ease, almost with
hardihood; but you understand from a certain proud, resentful expression
of countenance that they must have suffered tremendously before they
became resigned to this misfortune.

"There are others, with sweet and pallid faces, on which a profound
resignation is visible; but they are sad, and one understands that they
must still weep at times in secret. Ah, my sons! reflect that some of
them have lost their sight in a few days, some after years of martyrdom
and many terrible chirurgical operations, and that many were born
so,--born into a night that has no dawn for them, that they entered
into the world as into an immense tomb, and that they do not know what
the human countenance is like. Picture to yourself how they must have
suffered, and how they must still suffer, when they think thus
confusedly of the tremendous difference between themselves and those who
see, and ask themselves, 'Why this difference, if we are not to blame?'

"I who have spent many years among them, when I recall that class, all
those eyes forever sealed, all those pupils without sight and without
life, and then look at the rest of you, it seems impossible to me that
you should not all be happy. Think of it! there are about twenty-six
thousand blind persons in Italy! Twenty-six thousand persons who do not
see the light--do you understand? An army which would employ four hours
in marching past our windows."

The master paused. Not a breath was audible in all the school. Derossi
asked if it were true that the blind have a finer sense of feeling than
the rest of us.

The master said: "It is true. All the other senses are finer in them,
because, since they must replace, among them, that of sight