She had no part to play in life.

In the midst of a world of light she was in a land of darkness, and she was in a world of silence in the midst of a land of sweet sounds.

She was a living and buried soul.
And of that soul itself what did Israel know?
He knew that it had memory, for Naomi had remembered her mother; and he knew that it had love, for she had pined for Ruth, and clung to her.

But what were love and memory without sight and speech?
They were no more than a magnet locked in a casket--idle and useless to any purposes of man or the world.
Thinking of this, Israel realised for the first time how awful was the affliction of his motherless girl.

To be blind was to be afflicted once, but to be both blind and deaf was not only to be afflicted twice, but twice ten thousand times, and to be blind and deaf and dumb was not merely to be afflicted thrice, but beyond all reckonings of human speech.
For though Naomi had been blind, yet, if she could have had hearing, her father might have spoken with her, and if she had sorrows he must have soothed them, and if she had joys he must have shared them, and in this beautiful world of God, so full of things to look upon and to love, he must have been eyes of her eyes that could not see.