READING FOR THE BLIND.

[1880.]

To Mary C. Moore, teacher in the Perkins Asylum.

DEAR FRIEND,--It gives me great pleasure to know that the pupils in thy
class at the Institution for the Blind have the opportunity afforded them
to read through the sense of touch some of my writings, and thus hold
what I hope will prove a pleasant communion with me. Very glad I shall
be if the pen-pictures of nature, and homely country firesides, which I
have tried to make, are understood and appreciated by those who cannot
discern them by natural vision. I shall count it a great privilege to
see for them, or rather to let them see through my eyes. It is the mind
after all that really sees, shapes, and colors all things. What visions
of beauty and sublimity passed before the inward and spiritual sight of
blind Milton and Beethoven!

I have an esteemed friend, Morrison Hendy, of Kentucky, who is deaf and
blind; yet under these circumstances he has cultivated his mind to a high
degree, and has written poems of great beauty, and vivid descriptions of
scenes which have been witnessed only by the "light within."

I thank thee for thy letter, and beg of thee to assure the students that
I am deeply interested in their welfare and progress, and that my prayer
is that their inward and spiritual eyes may become so clear that they can
well dispense with the outward and material ones.