A little girl was blind from birth. Her mother would sit with her at the window and describe what she saw. In the spring she spoke of the tulips pushing out of the ground, the budding trees, the greening grass. In the summer she described the fullness of the vegetation, the squirrels playing in the trees. The fall, the changing colors of the leaves, the wispy clouds. The winter, the drifting snows, the frost on the window pane.

The little girl had an operation on her eyes, and she could see. When her mother came into the room, she said, "Mother, why didn’t you tell me it was so beautiful?" Her m…