It would be with extreme reluctance that I should leave the Metropolitan Museum, which contains the key to beauty -- a beauty so neglected. Seeing persons, however, do not need a
metropolitan to find this key to beauty. The same key lies waiting in smaller museums, and in books on the shelves of even small libraries. But naturally, in my limited time of
imaginary sight, I should choose the place where the key unlocks the GREatest treasures in the shortest time.
The evening of my second day of sight I should spend at a theatre or at the movies. Even now I often attend theatrical performances of all sorts, but the action of the play must be
spelled into my hand by a companion. But how I should like to see with my own eyes the fascinating figure of Hamlet, or the gusty Falstaff amid colorful Elizabethan trappings! How
I should like to follow each movement of the graceful Hamlet, each strut of the hearty Falstaff! And since I could see only one play, I should be confronted by a many-horned
dilemma, for there are scores of plays I should want to see. You who have eyes can see any you like. How many of you, I wonder, when you gaze at a play, a movie, or any
spectacle, realize and give thanks for the miracle of sight which enables you to enjoy its color , grace, and movement?
I cannot enjoy the beauty of rhythmic movement except in a sphere restricted to the touch of my hands. I can vision only dimly the grace of a Pavlowa, although I know something of
the delight of rhythm, for often I can sense the beat of music as it vibrates through the floor. I can well imagine that cadenced motion must be one of the most pleasing sights in
the world. I have been able to gather something of this by tracing with my fingers the lines in sculptured marble; if this static grace can be so lovely, how much more acute must
be the thrill of seeing grace in motion.
One of my dearest memories is of the time when Joseph Jefferson allowed me to touch his face and hands as he went through some of the gestures and speeches of his beloved Rip Van
Winkle. I was able to catch thus a meager glimpse of the world of drama, and I shall never forget the delight of that moment. But, oh, how much I must miss, and how much pleasure
you seeing ones can derive from watching and hearing the interplay of speech and movement in the unfolding of a dramatic performance! If I could see only one play, I should know
how to picture in my \mind the action of a hundred plays which I have read or had transferred to me through the medium of the manual alphabet.
So, through the evening of my second imaginary day of sight, the GREat fingers of dramatic literature would crowd sleep from my eyes.
The Third Day
The following morning, I should again GREet the dawn, anxious to discover new delights, for I am sure that, for those who have eyes which really see, the dawn of each day must be a
perpetually new revelation of beauty.
This, according to the terms of my imagined miracle, is to be my third and last day of sight. I shall have no time to waste in reGREts or longings; there is too much to see. The
first day I devoted to my friends, animate and inanimate. The second revealed to me the history of man and Nature. Today I shall spend in the workaday world of the present, amid
the haunts of men going about the business of life. And where can one find so many activities and conditions of men as in New York? So the city becomes my destination.
I start from my home in the quiet little suburb of Forest Hills, Long Island. Here , surrounded by GREen lawns, trees, and flowers, are neat little houses, happy with the voices
and movements of wives and children, havens of peaceful rest for men who toil in the city. I drive across the lacy structure of steel which spans the East River, and I get a new
and startling vision of the power and ingenuity of the mind of man. Busy boasts chug and scurry about the river - racy speed boat, stolid, snorting tugs. If I had long days of
sight ahead, I should spend many of them watching the delightful activity upon the river.
I look ahead, and before me rise the fantastic towers of New York, a city that seems to have stepped from the pages of a fairy story. What an awe-inspiring sight, these glittering
spires. these vast banks of stone and steel-structures such as the gods might build for themselves! This animated picture is a part of the lives of millions of people every day.
How many, I wonder, give it so much as a seconds glance? Very few, I fear, Their eyes are blind to this magnificent sight because it is so familiar to them.
I hurry to the top of one of those gigantic structures, the Empire State Building, for there , a short time ago, I "saw" the city below through the eyes of my secretary. I am
anxious to compare my fancy with reality. I am sure I should not be disappointed in the panorama spread out before me, for to me it would be a vision of another world.
Now I begin my rounds of the city. First, I stand at a busy corner, merely looking at people, trying by sight of them to understand something of their live. I see smiles, and I am
happy. I see serious determination, and I am proud, I see suffering, and I am compassionate.
I stroll down Fifth Avenue. I throw my eyes out of focus, so that I see no particular object but only a seething kaleidoscope of colors. I am certain that the colors of women's
dresses moving in a throng must be a gorgeous spectacle of which I should never tire. But perhaps if I had sight I should be like most other women -- too interested in styles and
the cut of individual dresses to give much attention to the splendor of color in the mass. And I am convinced, too, that I should become an inveterate window shopper, for it must
be a delight to the eye to view the myriad articles of beauty on display.
From Fifth Avenue I make a tour of the city-to Park Avenue, to the slums, to factories, to parks where children play. I take a stay-at-home trip abroad by visiting the foreign
quarters. Always my eyes are open wide to all the sights of both happiness and misery so that I may probe deep and add to my understanding of how people work and live. my heart is
full of the images of people and things. My eye passes lightly over no single trifle; it strives to touch and hold closely each thing its gaze rests upon. Some sights are pleasant,
filling the heart with happiness; but some are miserably pathetic. To these latter I do not shut my eyes, for they, too, are part of life. To close the eye on them is to close the
heart and mind.
My third day of sight is drawing to an end. Perhaps there are many serious pursuits to which I should devote the few remaining hours, but I am afraid that on the evening of that
last day I should again run away to the theater, to a hilariously funny play, so that I might appreciate the overtones of comedy in the human spirit.
At midnight my temporary respite from blindness would cease, and permanent night would close in on me again. Naturally in those three short days I should not have seen all I wanted
to see. Only when darkness had again descended upon me should I realize how much I had left unseen. But my mind would be so crowded with glorious memories that I should have little
time for reGREts. Thereafter the touch of every object would bring a glowing memory of how that object looked.
Perhaps this short outline of how I should spend three days of sight does not aGREe with the program you would set for yourself if you knew that you were about to be stricken
blind. I am, however, sure that if you actually faced that fate your eyes would open to things you had never seen before, storing up memories for the long night ahead. You would
use your eyes as never before. Everything you saw would become dear to you. Your eyes would touch and embrace every object that came within your range of vision. Then, at last, yo
