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"Has no one told you, 'In the Country of the Blind the
One-Eyed Man is King?'"
"
What is blind?" asked the blind man, carelessly, over his
shoulder.
Four days passed and the fifth found the King of the Blind
still incognito, as a clumsy and useless stranger among his
subjects.
It was, he found, much more difficult to proclaim himself than
he had supposed, and in the meantime, while he meditated his
coup d'etat, he did what he was told and learnt the manners
and customs of the Country of the Blind. He found working and
going about at night a particularly irksome thing, and he decided
that that should be the first thing he would change.
They led a simple, laborious life, these people, with all the
elements of virtue and happiness as these things can be understood
by men. They toiled, but not oppressively; they had food and
clothing sufficient for their needs; they had days and seasons of
rest; they made much of music and singing, and there was love among
them and little children. It was marvellous with what confidence
and precision they went about their ordered world. Everything, you
see, had been made to fit their needs; each of the radiating paths
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