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Excerpt from:
Ninth Annual Report Of The Trustees Of The Perkins Institution And Massachusetts Asylum For The Blind
LAURA BRIDGMAN has become extensively known. Human sympathies are always ready to be poured out in proportion to the amount of human suffering. The privation of any one sense is supposed to be a dreadful calamity, and calls at once for our sympathy with the sufferer; but when a human being is known to be deaf, dumb, blind, without smell, and with imperfect taste, that being excites the tender compassion of all who feel, and becomes an object of great curiosity to those who reflect, as well as feel. When the supposed sufferer is a child -- a girl -- and of pleasing appearance, the sympathy and the interest are naturally increased....