ht and beauty. In like manner, he who is deprived of the sense of
hearing is excluded from the world of music and of speech. What, then,
must be the condition of persons deprived of both of these senses? How
desolate and cheerless! Yet some such there are.

While on a visit to the Asylum for the Blind, in Boston, a few months
ago, I met two of this unfortunate class of persons--Laura Bridgman and
Oliver Caswell. Laura has been several years connected with the
institution.

LAURA BRIDGMAN, _the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Girl_.--So remarkable is the
case of this interesting girl, so full of interest, so replete with
instruction, and in every way so admirably adapted to illustrate the
subject of this chapter, that I proceed to give to my readers a sketch
of the method pursued in her instruction, together with the results
attendant upon it. My information in relation to her is derived from
both personal acquaintance and the reports of her case, though
principally from the latter source.

Laura was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on the 21st of December, 1829.
She is described as having been a very sprightly and pretty infant.
During the first years of her existence she held her life by the
feeblest tenure, being subject to severe fits, which seemed to rack her
frame almost beyond the power of endurance. At the age of four years her
bodily health seemed restored; but what a situation was hers! The
darkness and silence of the tomb were around her. No mother's smile
called forth her answering smile. No father's voice taught her to
imitate his sounds. To her, brothers and sisters were but forms of
matter which resisted her touch, but which hardly differed from the
furniture of the house save in warmth and in the power of locomotion,
and not even in these respects from the dog and the cat. But the
immortal spirit implanted within her could not die, nor could it be
maimed or mutilated; and, though most of its avenues of communication
with the world were cut off, it began to manifest itself through the
others. As soon as she could walk, she began to explore the room, and
then the house. She thus soon became familiar with the form, density,
weight, and heat of every article she could lay her hands upon. She
followed her mother, and felt of her hands and arms, as she was occupied
about the house, and her disposition to imitate led her to repeat every
thing herself. She even learned to sew a little and to knit.

Her affections, too,