Over the Fireside with Silent Friends

Excerpt

FOREWORD

BY SIR ARTHUR PEARSON, BART., G.B.E.

Those who buy "Over the Fireside" will purchase for themselves the real joy of mentally absorbing the delightful thoughts which Mr. Richard King so charmingly clothes in words. And they will purchase, too, a large share of an even greater pleasure—the pleasure of giving pleasure to others—for the author tells me that he has arranged to give half of the profits arising from the sale of this book to the National Library for the Blind, thus enabling that beneficent Institution to widen and extend its sphere of usefulness.

You will never, perhaps, have heard of the National Library for the Blind, and even if it so happens that you are vaguely aware of its existence, you will in no true degree realise all that it means to those who are compelled to lead lives, which however full and interesting, must inevitably be far more limited in scope than your own. Let me try to make you understand what reading means to the intelligent blind man or woman.

Our lives are necessarily narrow. Blind people, however keen their understanding, and however clearly and sympathetically those around them may by description make up for their lack of perception, must, perforce, lead lives which lack the vivid actuality of the lives of others. To those of them who have always been blind the world, outside the reach of their hands, is a mystery which can only be solved by description. And where shall they turn for more potent description than to the pages in which those gifted with the mastery of language have set down their impressions of the world around them?

And for people whose sight has left them after the world and much that is in it has become familiar to them, reading must mean more than it does to any but the most studious of those who can see. Some are so fortunate as to be able to enlist or command the services of an intelligent reader, but this is not given to any but a small minority, and even to these the ability to read at will, without the necessity of calling in the aid of another, is a matter of real moment, helping as it does to do away with that feeling of dependence which is the greatest disadvantage of blindness.

All this Mr. Richard King knows nearly as well as I do, for he has been a splendidly helpful friend to the men who were blinded in the War, and none know better than he how greatly they have gained by learning to read anew, making the fingers as they travel over the dotted characters replace the eyes of which they have been despoilt.

Disaster sometimes leads to good fortune, and the disaster which befell the blinded soldier has given to the service of the blind world generally the affection and sympathy which Mr. Richard King so abundantly possesses. Your reading of this book—and if you have only borrowed it I hope that these words may induce you to buy a copy—will help to enable more blind folk to read than would otherwise have been the case, and thus you will have added to the happiness of the world, just as the perusal of "Over the Fireside" will have added to your own happiness....