Section 2 - The First Day

I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound. Now and then, I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently I asked a friend, who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, what she had observed. “Nothing in particular,” she replied. How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I, who cannot see, find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring, I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening nature after her winter’s sleep.
Occasionally, if I am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song. At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight? And I have imagined what I should most like to see if I were given the use of my eyes, say, for just three days. I should divide the period into three parts. On the first day, I should want to see the people whose kindness and companionship have made my life worth living.
I do not know what it is to see into the heart of a friend through that ‘window of the soul’, the eye. I can only ‘see’ through my fingertips the outline of a face. I can detect laughter, sorrow and many other obvious emotions. I know my friends from the feel of their faces.
How much easier, how much more satisfying it is for you who can see to grasp quickly the essential qualities of another person by watching the subtleties of expression, that quiver of a muscle, the flutter of a hand. But does it ever occur to you to use your sight to see into the inner nature of a friend? Do not most of you seeing people grasp casually the outward features of a face and let it go at that?
For instance, can you describe accurately the faces of five good friends? As an experiment, I have questioned husbands about the colour of the wives’ eyes, and often they express embarrassed confusion and admit that they do not know.
Oh, the things I should see if I had the power of sight for just three days!
The first day would be a busy one. I should call to me all my dear friends and look long into their faces, imprinting upon my mind the outward evidence of the beauty that is within them. I should let my eyes rest, too, on the face of a baby, so that I could catch a vision of the eager, innocent beauty which precedes the individual’s consciousness of the conflicts which life develops. I should like to see the books which have been read to me, and which have revealed to me the deepest channels of human life. And I should like to look into the loyal, trusting eyes of my dogs, the little Scottie and the stalwart Great Dane. In the afternoon I should take a long walk in the woods and intoxicate my eyes on the beauties of the world of nature. And I should pray for the glory of a colourful sunset. That night, I think, I should not be able to sleep.