Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/350

306 Kindness is the sunshine of the spiritual world; so it is little wonder that Gwynplaine quite dazzled poor Dea. To the crowd, which has too many heads to have a thought, and too many eyes to have a clear vision,—to the crowd who, superficial themselves, judge only by the surface, Gwynplaine was a clown, a merry-andrew, a mountebank, a grotesque creature, very little more or less than a beast. The crowd knew only the face. For Dea, Gwynplaine was the saviour who had gathered her up in his arms in the tomb, and borne her out of it; the consoler who made life tolerable; the liberator, whose hand guided her through that labyrinth called blindness. Gwynplaine was her brother, friend, guide, support; the personification of heavenly power, the husband, winged and resplendent. Where the multitude saw the monster, Dea recognized the archangel. This was because Dea, being blind, could see the soul.