A Man's World

ss came un

n the desk, the page was suddenly obscured by a dancing spider-web-a dizzying contortion of black and white-growing

rd against my eyes, I do not know. I had read somewhere of a man going blind with just such symptoms. It

hought for a few minutes, my eyes still s

calm and commonplace. "Will you give me the Eye and

e answer. "It must b

ern industry has robbed our life of all humanity, has turned us into mechanisms. Such talk makes me think of the sudden

"tell me something cheerf

ing sympathy has come out of the mac

esk, at the whole eye-straining mass of faded pr

ork a lot in thi

strong lig

ted in

ade me sit down near the electric

he cruel ray into my eye. Back somewhere in the brain

he oth

moment, holding m

aid gruffly, and I

over my eyes, laid me down on the lounge and lectu

ope is

esit

l me the

l never be strong. You'll have to give up books. You must keep your eyes bandaged-comple

rivate room and good treatment, so he put me into a

you will hear a thousand sounds you never heard before, even familiar sounds will be fearsome. Every jolt, eve

ped and I heard

Come out and

and stumbled as I stepped out. I would have fallen h

st, Mister," he said. "You'

was afraid of-getting

The house surgeon, to me only a voice, was nervously cheerful. He kept saying, "It'll be all right." "It'll be all right." He seemed to be dancing about in a

last. "She is day nurse in your

It was met and grasped by something I knew to be a ha

to meet yo

lly being glad to meet nurses, she l

ts of adventures in this terra incognita. Everything is cushioned so you can't bang your shins, but watch out f

w. A servant

first bit of explorin

with an utter stranger whose existence was only manifested by this apparently erratic v

, Miss Wright, comes on pretty soon, at six. She'll bring you your supper. When you wake up i

e strange bed, that I first felt the awful void

d me find the way to my mouth. She was considerate, and tried to be cheering. But I did not like her. Always her very efficiency reminded me o

at last I decided that I would not be so hungry before breakfast time. After much futile fumbling I found the bell above my bed. In a few minutes Miss Barton's voice-even after all these years, I think of it as t

ime. I came to figure my days in relation to her. During the

ed into my friend, Ann. It began I think when she discovered how utterly alone I was. The second da

e to see you to-morrow?" Miss

think of

write some letters

ven't any

you some friend

touch with him. My only relations with people had been technical, by correspondence. I did not want to trouble even Prof. Meer with my purely personal misfortunes. This seemed utterly impious to Miss Barton. What

t. How fragmentary was my contact with her! No one who has not been deprived of sight can realize how large a part it plays in the relationships of life. I could only hear. There was always the creak of th

n and embroidery designer had brought up the children. A brother was an engineer and the older sister a school teacher. But there had not been enough money to send Ann to medical college. Nursing was as near as she had been able to get towards her ambition. But what could not be given her she intende

h as sight has never given me of anyone. I did not, any more than she, know how she was to get her research laboratory. But I could not dou

ics and the deeper things of life. It woke again in me all the old questionings and aspirations of prep. school days-the things I had hidden away from in my book-filled library. She was the first person I had met since the doctor at school who showed me what she thought of

based on variations from the type. Efforts to sustain or conserve the type she called "reactionary" and "invasive." She insisted on the desirability of "absolute freedom to vary from the norm." The authority she quoted with greatest reverence was

r of life, she flared up. It was-and th

as the ant. An ant that lived alone would be a non-ant. You've been a non-man. It's good your eyes wen

nurses were barren enough-when not actually insulting. After listening by the hour to Mrs. Stickney's endless little troubles, it was a relief for her, I think, to come to my room and ta