It is not at all necessary that the blind should so lose their dignity or individuality, as to allow themselves to be addressed in word or tone at all different from that directed to other people, and, as an illustration of this point, I may be pardoned for relating an incident of my school life.

A gentleman once called at our Institution in Baltimore, and, immediately after his introduction to a group of blind girls, of which I was one, he said:  “Ladies, how would you manage to select a husband?”

Flaming with indignation, I impulsively replied:  “Sir!  We do not deal in such merchandise?” and smarting with a sense of the indignity, I immediately left his presence.

I was afterward called to account by our worthy Superintendent to whom the person in question preferred a complaint of rude treatment.  Begging permission to explain the situation, I respectfully enquired of our official in case this same gentleman were thrown for the first time in the presence of an equal number of society ladies, who could see if it would be possible for him to address a similar remark to them, without being charged with rudeness and presumption, or if it were not even questionable whether he would dare to address them in such a way at all—­and we, although blind, felt that we had the right to demand the same deference and respect.  It is almost needless to say that I was fully exonerated from all blame, and honorably discharged from the presence of my interrogator.

In the course of my travels I am ofttimes asked if I desire my meals sent to my room, presupposing, as would be naturally inferred, the possibility of great awkwardness in my manner of eating; hence I invariably decline this offer of privacy, as there need be nothing in our manner of eating at all outre or disagreeable.

It is of course necessary to have a graceful attendant, and my first great care is to instruct my guide in all the phases of table ministration, which are more varied and important than is discernible to those who can see.

I also take great pains to instruct them in the art of walking with me properly; never allowing them to tell me how to proceed, but to give me a tacit understanding of their movements in order to direct my own, and this system in my own experience has been reduced to a science.

Many persons feel that it is far more sad and terrible to have once possessed sight, and afterward to become blind, than never to have seen at all, but I cannot agree with them, and will never cease to be grateful that until I was twelve years old, I could grasp, through sight, the unfolding beauties of nature and art, which are now so often reproduced that I can see all the manifold loveliness spread out before me, and for a season forget that I am blind.  Those who are born in blindness, are, to a great extent, denied this pleasure, for it is almost impossible through the imagination to form any adequate conception of “things seen.”