The Happiness of Being Different

Remembering Dickens through the words of his character Master Humphry, one of the best descriptions of autistics follows:

” We are men of secluded habits, with something of a cloud upon our fortunes, whose enthusiasm, nevertheless, has not cooled with age, whose spirit of romance is not yet quenched, who are content to ramble through the world in a pleasant dream, rather than ever waken again to its harsh realities. We are alchemists who would extract the essence of perpetual youth from dust and ashes, tempt coy Truth in many light and airy forms from the bottom of her well, and discover one crumb of comfort or one grain of good in the commonest and least-regarded matter that passes through our crucible. Spirits of past times, creatures of imagination, and people of today are alike the objects of our seeking, and, unlike the objects of search with most philosophers, we can insure their coming at our command”.