their thoughtful kindness. Eminently happy was she made, while each in rotation answered with the lips her question given by the hand, I alternately officiating as interpreter to her, or critic to them, if an explanation chanced to be erroneous. Never can I forget the varied expression of intelligence, naïveté, irony, or love that would radiate from her beautiful hazel eyes on these occasions. It was such intercourse that suggested the following poetical reply to a question once asked in the institution of the Abbé Sicard, at Paris: "Les Sourds Muets se trouvent-ils malheureux?"[1]
Oh, could the kind inquirer gaze
Upon thy brow with gladness fraught,
Its smile, like inspiration's rays,
Would give the answer to his thought.
And could he see thy sportive grace
Soft blending with submission due,
And note thy bosom's tenderness
To every just emotion true;
Or, when some new idea glows
On the pure altar of the mind,
Behold the exulting tear that flows,
In silent ecstasy refined;
Thine active life, thy look of bliss,
The sparkling of thy magic eye,
- ↑ "Are the deaf and dumb unhappy?"
