The Blind Musician

In this sketch, called by Korolenko “a psychological study,” the author has attempted to analyze the inner life of the blind. He has undertaken to lay before the reader not only the psychological processes in the mind of the blind, but their suffering from the lack of sight as well, uncomplicated by any untoward circumstances.

To accomplish this he has placed his hero in most favorable, nay, almost exceptional conditions. The subjects for this study are a blind girl, whom the author had known as a child; a boy, a pupil of his, who was gradually losing his sight; and a professional musician, blind from his birth, intellectually gifted, scholarly, and refined.

Upon the completion of my translation, I submitted it to Mr. M. Anagnos, of the Perkins Institution for the blind, and received from him the following note, which he has kindly permitted me to make public:—

My Dear Madam,—I have read, with due care and deep interest, your translation of Vladimir Korolenko’s book, entitled “The Blind Musician,” and I take great pleasure in being able to say that the story, although very simple both in form and substance, is conceived and elaborated with a masterly skill. It is ingenious in construction, artistic in execution, and full of imaginative vigor. The author shows a keen appreciation of what is charming and beautiful in Nature and a fine power of analysis. His ideas on the intellectual development and physical training of the blind are correct, and cannot but deepen the interest of the reader in the various phases of the story. That some of his psychological observations, derived from the study of a limited number of cases, represent individual characteristics or idiosyncrasies which cannot be applied to all persons bereft of the visual sense, in no wise detracts from the value of the work.