Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 11, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume III

TRUTH OF INTERCOURSE
yet two who know each other fully and are bent on
perpetuity in love may so preserve the attitude of
their affections that they may meet on the same
terms as they had parted.
Pitiful is the case of the blind, who cannot read
the face ; pitiful that of the deaf, who cannot follow
the changes of the voice. And there are others also
to be pitied ; for there are some of an inert, un-
eloquent nature, who have been denied all the
symbols of communication, who have neither a lively
play of facial expression, nor speaking gestures, nor
a responsive voice, nor yet the gift of frank, explana-
tory speech : people truly made of clay, people tied
for life into a bag which no one can undo. They
are poorer than the gipsy, for their heart can speak
no language under heaven. Such people we inust
learn slowly by the tenor of their acts, or through
yea and nay communications ; or we take them on
trust on the strength of a general air, and now and
again, when we see the spirit breaking through in a
flash, correct or change our estimate. But these will
be uphill intimacies, without charm or freedom, to
the end ; and freedom is the chief ingredient in
confidence. Some minds, romantically dull, despise
physical endowments. That is a doctrine for a mis-
anthrope ; to those who like their fellow-creatures
it must always be meaningless ; and, for my part, I
can see few things more desirable, after the posses-
sion of such radical qualities as honour and humour
and pathos, than to have a lively and not a stolid
countenance ; to have looks to correspond with
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