written, and added worse to that; and with the commentary of
the body it seemed not unfriendly either to hear or say.
Indeed, letters are in vain for the purposes of intimacy; an
absence is a dead break in the relation; yet two who know each
other fully and are bent on perpetuity in love, may so
preserve the attitude of their affections that they may meet
on the same terms as they had parted.

Pitiful is the case of the blind, who cannot read the
face; pitiful that of the deaf, who cannot follow the changes
of the voice. And there are others also to be pitied; for
there are some of an inert, uneloquent nature, who have been
denied all the symbols of communication, who have neither a
lively play of facial expression, nor speaking gestures, nor a
responsive voice, nor yet the gift of frank, explanatory
speech: people truly made of clay, people tied for life into a
bag which no one can undo. They are poorer than the gipsy,
for their heart can speak no language under heaven. Such
people we must learn slowly by the tenor of their acts, or
through yea and nay communications; or we take them on trust
on the strength of a general air, and now and again, when we
see the spirit breaking through in a flash, correct or change
our estimate. But these will be uphill intimacies, without
charm or freedom, to the end; and freedom is the chief
ingredient in confidence. Some minds, romantically dull,
despise physical endowments. That is a doctrine for a
misanthrope; to those who like their fellow-creatures it must
always be meaningless; and, for my part, I can see few things
more desirable, after the possession of such radical qualities
as honour and humour and pathos, than to have a lively and not