But this I know: one must have had them all once--brains, ears, eyes,
and the rest--on earth. 'Il faut avoir passe par la!' or no
after-existence for man or beast would be possible or even conceivable.

One cannot teach a born deaf-mute how to understand a musical score,
nor a born blind man how to feel color. To Beethoven, who had once heard
with the ear, his deafness made no difference, nor their blindness to
Homer and Milton.

Can you make out my little parable?

* * * * *

Sound and light and heat, and electricity and motion, and will and
thought and remembrance, and love and hate and pity, and the desire to
be born and to live, and the longing of all things alive and dead to get
near each other, or to fly apart--and lots of other things besides! All
that comes to the same--'C'est comme qui dirait bonnet blanc et blanc
bonnet,' as Monsieur le Major used to say. 'C'est simple comme bonjour!'

Where I am, Gogo, I can hear the sun shining on the earth and making
the flowers blow, and the birds sing, and the bells peal for birth and
marriage and death--happy, happy death, if you only knew--'C'est la clef
des champs!'

It shines on moons and planets, and I can hear it, and hear the echo
they give back again. The very stars are singing; rather a long way off!
but it is well worth their while with such an audience as lies between
us and them; and they can't help it....