this only adds to the bitterness of the prison of soundlessness in which
they dwell. Hence the appearance of gloom. On the other hand, in solitude
the deaf and dumb has the advantage. All the colour and movement of life is
before him, while the blind is not only denied that vision of the outside
world, but has a restriction of movement that the other does not share. Mr.
Russell's conclusion, therefore, is that while the happiest moments of the
blind are those when he is observed, the happiest of the deaf and dumb are
when he is not observed.

There is some measure of truth in this, but I believe, nevertheless, that
the common impression is right, and that, judged by the test of the
cheerful acceptance of affliction, the loss of sight is less depressing
than the loss of hearing and speech. And this for a very obvious reason.
After all, the main interest in life is in easy, familiar intercourse with
our fellows. I love to watch a golden sunset, to walk in the high beech
woods in spring--or, for that matter, in summer or autumn or winter--to see
the apples reddening on the trees, and the hedgerows thick with
blackberries. But this is the setting of my drama--the scenery of the play,
not the play itself. It is its human contacts that give life its vivacity
and intensity. And it is the ear and tongue that are the channels of the
cheerful interplay of mind with mind. In that interplay the blind man has
full measure and brimming over. His very affliction intensifies his part in
the human comedy and gives him a peculiar delight in homely intercourse. He
is not merely at his ease in the human family: he is the centre of it. He
fulfils Johnson's test of a good fellow: he is "a clubbable man."

And even in the enjoyment of the external world it may be doubted whether
he does not find as much mental stimulus as the deaf-and-dumb. He cannot
see the sunset, but he hears the shout of the cuckoo, the song of the lark,
"the hum of bees, and rustle of the bladed corn." And if, as usually