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"Oliver's case was in some respects more interesting than Laura's, because, although far inferior in mental capacities, and slower in perceptions, he had an uncommonly sweet temper, an affectionate disposition, and a love of sympathy and of fun, the gratification of which made him happy at heart, and clad his handsome, honest face in perpetual smiles. But Laura, although comely and refined in form and attitude, graceful in motion, and positively handsome in features, and although eager for social intercourse and communion of thought and sentiment with her fellows, had not that truly sympathetic nature which distinguished Oliver. He might, and possibly did, unconsciously love her a little; but she never loved him, nor (as I believe) any man; and never seemed to pine for that closer relation and sympathy with one of the other sex, which ripens so naturally into real and sympathetic love between normal youth, placed in normal circumstances."

The story of Laura's life is a happy one. Womanhood found her a well-educated person, of astonishing activity. Reading, studying, writing letters, keeping a diary, sewing, knitting, making delicate lace, -- keeping all her own belongings in exquisite order, with the instinct of a born housewife; above all, talking. She was an inveterate talker, and her thirst for information was unquenchable.

It is a strong temptation to quote from my father's and her teachers' diaries.

"Is God ever surprised? "

"How did God tell the first man about himself?"

"Why can we not think how very long God has lived? "

"Why do I have two thoughts? Why do I not do what my conscience tells me is right? "

Briefly, as my father says, she was "happily brought at last into easy and free relation with her fellow creatures, and made one of the human family."

I remember my father's once testing the nameless sense which never failed to tell Laura of his presence.

She was alone in the big schoolroom of the Institution. Taking off his shoes, he crept softly and noiselessly into the room. Instantly she cried out "Doc! Doc! "the noise she always made when he appeared. She had different "noises "for her different friends, and could doubtless have been taught to articulate. My father regretted in later years that he had not made the attempt.

It was in October, 1837, that Laura Bridgman came to the Institution for the Blind, a child of seven years; there she spent the greater and the happier part of her life; and there, in 1889, she died.

I cannot better close this chapter than with one of her "poems."

LIGHT AND DARKNESS

"Light represents day.
Light is more brilliant than a ruby, even diamond.
Light is whiter than snow.
Darkness is night-like.
It looks as black as iron.
Darkness is sorrow.
Joy is a thrilling rapture.
Light yields a shooting joy through the human heart.
Light is sweet as honey, but
Darkness is bitter as salt and even vinegar.
Light is finer than gold and even finest gold.
Joy is a real light.
Joy is a blazing flame.
Darkness is frosty.
A good sleep is a white curtain.
A bad sleep is a black curtain."

NOTE. In all, my father received and instructed five blind deaf-mute children at the Perkins Institution; among them was Lucy Read, whose pathetic case is described by him in his reports for 1842. Lucy was happy at the Institution, and was making excellent progress in every way; but her mother, whose mental blindness equalled her child's physical infirmity, refused to allow her to remain.

The following letter relates to poor Lucy:

To Horace Mann
BOSTON (where else?) July 16, 1841.

MY DEAR MANN: -- . . . I have lost my Vermont girl, just as she was beginning to promise finely. Her parents have taken her home; her mother, a very ignorant and very nervous body, conceived a notion that the child would certainly die within a year, and that she should come back and die comfortably at home. She professed, indeed, some dissatisfaction at the child not being treated as Laura is (who is my child and lives with me), but the secret of the whole is she loves her daughter more warmly and blindly than does a cow her calf. She felt, as Scott says of Elspeth, "that to be separated from her offspring was to die."

She teased the father day and night, until the poor man, to make peace, came down for the child. He was very reluctant to take her with him, when he saw how she had improved, and once gave it up; but at last concluded that he "dared not face the old woman, without the child," and he has gone with her. Lucy evidently did not wish to go, for finding all was ready she wished her teachers and me to go also.

Poor thing! I fear they will not bring her back! But it is a great satisfaction to think we broke through the crust, and got at the living spring within: and it is clear we did so.

Ever truly yours,
S. G. HOWE.

In his Report for 1844, my father says that he has met in all ten blind deaf-mutes. Several of these were in England and on the Continent, and in every case he did all that he could to awaken interest in them and to insure their instruction. Whenever it was possible he began the instruction himself, giving several lessons in the presence of some person who, he hoped, would be moved to continue the work; as in the case of Margaret Sullivan, a girl of some twenty-three years of age, whom he found in the almshouse of Rotherhithe in England. He gave her some half-dozen lessons, beginning with the manual alphabet, and says that "she made more progress in two hours than Laura Bridgman did in two weeks." This was of course partly owing to the improved method he had devised, but he felt also that Margaret's natural intelligence and aptitude to learn were greater than Laura's.