Transitional stages can be both shocking and rewarding, especially when you stand between sight and blindness or between blindness and sight. When I realized that I would see after fifteen years of blindness, the shock seemed salutary enough to begin a detailed journal of my reactions, in Braille, and then as the pages became more legible by hand. Later, when the weak eyes had become reluctantly and gradually accustomed to the printed page, I began to read books for the blind. There was some coercion. It wasn't just the excitement of regaining sight. I need to understand what happened to me, losing my sight and regaining it. Maybe other people's experiences could tell me what was going on in me. But it was not Homer, Sampson, Helen Keller, or John Milton who helped me most. Rather, it was modern people who were dealing with a complex and sordid world.