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 longings¹; there is too much to see. The first day I devoted² to my friends, animate³ 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, havens⁴ of peaceful rest for men who toil⁵ 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 ingenuity⁶ of the mind of man. Busy boasts chug and scurry⁷ about the river - racy speed boat, stolid⁸, snorting tugs⁹. If I had long days of sight ahead, I should spend many of them watching the delightful¹⁰ 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 spires¹¹. these vast banks of stone and steel-structures such as the gods might build for themselves! This animated¹² 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 panorama¹³ 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 compassionate¹⁴.

I stroll down Fifth Avenue. I throw my eyes out of focus, so that I see no particular object but only a seething¹⁵ kaleidoscope of colors. I am certain that the colors of women's dresses moving in a throng¹⁶ 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 splendor¹⁷ of color in the mass. And I am convinced, too, that I should become an inveterate¹⁸ window shopper, for it must be a delight to the eye to view the myriad¹⁹ 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 misery²⁰ 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 miserably²¹ 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 hilariously²² funny play, so that I might appreciate the overtones of comedy in the human spirit.

At midnight my temporary respite²³ 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 descended²⁴ 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, you would really see, and a new world of beauty would open itself before you.

I who am blind can give one hint to those who see -- one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied²⁵ to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty²⁶ strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile²⁷ sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish²⁸ each morsel²⁹, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense: glory in all the facets³⁰ of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which Nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful.