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I am affectionately yours.

Institution for the Blind.

MANY things are dark to sorrow, but not all; even blindness has its morning and its evening. -- True, at night we cannot see the stars in their blue homes, nor the sun at morn; yet they both have many voices, and when the eye is turned away, the ear affords new avenues to the heart, through which the spirit, though a prisoner, may become elevated and happy.

New-York Institution for the Blind seems a paradise, where purity dwells, peace and content rule all hearts, and love is our guardian angel. -- The murmur of the Hudson blends with the breeze, and high in the new-leafed trees birds sing the hours away. It is a home of flowers, where blind girls wander in angel innocence, now twining garlands in their hair, now bowing their heads to smell and kiss the blossoms, they may not pluck; and with thankful lips they speak of him who placed them there.

The sun has veiled his splendors behind the hills, save here and there a truant beam lingering, as if reluctant to quit the world, till my poor eyes have seen their light. School duties are over, all are abroad, each to his favorite diversion. Eddy, the blind Pole, (better known as the blind prodigy,) is at the organ. Haydn's Creation is now a creation of his own. The spirit of its author is on him; he is the personation of genius; the sightless spirit of lovely sounds. Here comes my little friend Cynthia, the blind poetess, to tend her plants. Whispers are on her lips low and sweet as angel lutes; her thoughts go in rhymes. A copy of her Poems has lately been published, a thank-offering to her friends, which like herself, every where meets a warm reception.

Now the air all around rings with the school-girl's merry laugh -- the old servant who has been in the Institution since it was founded, from years and respect has long had the title of Mr. --- is with them at the swing. "Ride fareless, my pretty craturs," says he, "and if the swang comes down, I'll be after catching your swate souls, all in my arms, to be sure."

A school like this is a world by itself, the manners and customs of which are as unlike the real world as possible. A few evenings since, I chanced to be in the little girls' sitting-room; the subject of their innocent conversation, then happened to be, the birds. "The Canary is the sweetest singer in the world," says Cassy. "That may be," says Lizzy, "but its feathers are not half so soft and pretty as the grasshopper's." "Psha," says one more experienced, "the grasshopper is not a bird." "It is," says Lizzy; "I have felt them fly against my head, many a time, though my little hands could never catch one; and sister Mary used to say they were a beautiful green, and she wished I could see them."

Another time little Matta says to Angy, "Do you know that, when you speak a lie, the guilty feeling comes out all over your face, so that those who see you know that you are telling a story?" "No," says Angy, "I do not think it, though I have heard mamma say to little brother, You are guilty, I can see it in your eyes; and you know my eyes are closed, and she never said so to me." "Well, it is so," says Matta, "and that is the way God sees our hearts, and knows all we are thinking."

The past and the present are as the two sides to a pane of glass -- we cannot see the one, without seeing the other; now, I remember the morning when Mr. Loder left me here. In Rochester I was always surrounded by the best of friends, by whom my every wish was anticipated; but here it was not so, and more than ever I felt that I was blind and in the world alone. Two long days wore away -- then came the Sabbath -- and a Sabbath in a strange land is a lonely day indeed; during the morning service, I heard nothing. My thoughts were far away over the current of years -- my soul turned back upon itself, and in my heart I said; "to die is nothing, but to live and not see, is misfortune." When all had left the Chapel but myself, I began groping my way back to the parlor. There all were social and happy, as mortals may be, but my heart was too full for words or tears. Presently a tread was heard inside the door; "Oh! Mr. Dean, Mr. Dean," exclaimed every voice, "have you come? we are glad to see you. Have you brought a book? what is it? and how long will you read to us?" Mr. Dean is one of the Managers, and a kind father to us all; and though a man of business and his residence in town, yet he finds time to visit us every day, and the interviews are to us all lights in a dark place. In a few days he brought his daughter to see me, to whose kindness I owe much happiness. Her friendship has been to me what Mungo Park's flower was to him in the Desert.

After seven months' confinement to the walls of an Institution, can you imagine with what transport I received through her an invitation to pass a little time in the family of Mrs. Allen, of Newark, New Jersey, the city of Elms. Her home is "seated soft among the trees." Mrs. A. has seen many years; her heart is the home of pious emotions, and to know her is to love her.