ains 6,600 separate works in 56,000 volumes, supplemented by 4,000
pieces of music in 8,000 volumes--a total of 64,000 items, which number
is being added to every week as books are asked for by the various
blind readers. And in helping this great and good work, I realise now
that, to a certain extent, you are helping blind people _to see_. For
books do take you out of yourself, don't they? They do help you to
lose cognizance of your present surroundings, even if you be surrounded
perpetually by darkness, they do transplant you for a while into
another world--a world which you can _see_, and among men and women
whom, should the author be great enough, you seem to know as well.
Books are a blessing to all of us--but they are something more than a
blessing to the blind, they are a deliverance from their darkness. And
we can all give them this blessing, if we will--thank Heaven, and the
women who give their lives to the work of the National Library for the
Blind!--this blessing, which is not often heard of, is a work which
will grow so soon as it is known, a work the greatness and goodness of
which are worthy of all help.

_On Getting Away from Yourself_

I always feel so sorry for the blind, because it seems to me they can
never get away from themselves by wandering in pastures new. It is
trite to say that the glory of the golden sunsets, the glory of the
mountains and the valleys, the coming of spring, the radiance of
summer--all these things are denied them. They are. But their great
deprivation is that none of these things can help them to get away from
themselves, from the torments of their own souls, the haunting
dreadfulness of their own secret worries. We, the more fortunate, not
only can fill our souls with beauty by the contemplation of beautiful
things, but, when the tale of our inner-life possesses the torments of
Hell, we can turn to them in our despair because we know that their
glory will ease our pain, will help us to forget awhile, will give us
renewed courage to go on fighting until the end. But where all is
blackness, those inner-torments must assume gigantic proportions.
Nothing can take them away--except time and the weariness of a soul too
utterly weary to care any longer. But time works so slowly, and the
utter weariness of the soul is often so prolonged before, as it were,
the spirit snaps and the blessed numbness of indifference settles down
upon our hearts. People who can see have