soundless ears. Can we doubt that had he been
afflicted with blindness instead of deafness the tragedy of his life would
have been immeasurably relieved? What peace, could he have heard his Ninth
Symphony, would have slid into his soul. Blind Milton, sitting at his
organ, was a less tragic figure and probably a happier man than Milton with
a useless ear-trumpet would have been. Perhaps without the stimulus of the
organ he could not have fashioned that song which, as Macaulay says in his
grandiloquent way, "would not have misbecome the lips of those ethereal
beings whom he saw with that inner eye, which no calamity could darken,
flinging down on the jasper pavements their crowns of amaranth and gold."

It is probable that in a material sense blindness is the most terrible
affliction that can befall us; but I am here speaking only of its spiritual
effects, and in this respect the deprivation of hearing and speech seems to
involve a more forlorn state than the deprivation of sight. The one
affliction means spiritual loneliness: the other deepens the spiritual
intimacies of life. It was a man who had gone blind late in life who said:
"I am thankful it is my sight which has gone rather than my hearing. The
one has shut me off from the sun: the other would have shut me off from
life."

ON TAXING VANITY

That quaint idea of Sir Edward Clarke's that, as a revenue expedient in
time of war, we should impose a tax on those who have names as well as
numbers on their garden gates has a principle in it which is capable of
wide extension. It is the principle of taxing us on our vanities. I am not
suggesting that there is not also a practical point in Sir Edward's idea.
There is no doubt that this custom of giving our houses names is the source
of much unnecessary labour and irritation to other people--postmen,
tradesmen, debt collectors, and errand boys. Mr. Smythe--formerly Smith--of
236, Belinda Avenue, is easily discoverable, but what are you to do about
Mr. Smythe, of Chatsworth House, Belinda Avenue, on a dark night? How are
you to find him? There are 350 houses in Belinda Avenue, all as like as two
peas, and though Mr. Smythe has a number, he never admits it. Chatsworth
House is where he lives, and if you want him it's Chatsworth House that you
have to find.

The other night a friend of mine was called to the door at a late hour. It
was dark and raining and dismal. At the door stood a coal-heaver. "Please,
sir," he s