Of all obstacles that can stand in the way of courageous conquest, one
of the most fatal, in the opinion of many, is blindness. Yet it is not
necessary that the loss of the eyes should be the fatal handicap it is
almost universally considered. It is a mistake to feel that when a
worker has anything seriously and permanently wrong with his eyes he
cannot be expected longer to perform tasks that are normal for one who
has the full use of all his five senses. In fact, when we hear that a
man is going blind we are apt to dismiss with a sigh his chance for
continuing productive labor of any sort; we feel that there is little
left for him but sitting resignedly in a chimney corner and listening to
others read to him or patiently fingering the raised letters provided
for the use of the blind.
In protest against this error a novelist has taken for his hero a young
man who lost his sight. His friends pitied him, talked dolefully to him,
promised to look after him in the days of incapacity. Of course he sank
lower and lower in the doleful dumps. Then one came into his life who
never seemed to notice his blindness, who talked to him as if he could
see, who encouraged him to do things by taking it for granted that they
would be performed. Her treatment proved effective; before long the
blind man was learning self-reliance, and was well on the road to
achievement.
The story was true to life for, times without number, blind men and
women have shown their ability to work as effectively as if they could
see. More than two hundred years ago a teacher in London named Richard
Lucas lost his eyesight. Many of his friends thought that he would, of
course, give up all idea of being a useful man; in that day few thought
of the possibility of one so afflicted doing anything worth much. But
the young man thought differently. He listened to others as they read to
him, and completed his studies. He became the author of a dozen volumes,
and was among the leaders of his day. One of his greatest works was the
book "An Enquiry after Happiness." He knew how to be happy, in spite of
his affliction, so he could teach others to follow him.
A little earlier there lived on the farm of a poor Irishman the boy
Thomas Carolan. When he was five years old, he had smallpox, a disease
that was much more virulent in those days than it is to-day because the
treatment required was not understood. As a result the boy lost his
sight. Soon he showed a taste for music, and he was able to take a few
lessons, in spite of the poverty at home. As a young man he composed
hundreds of pieces of music, and it has been said of him that he
contributed much towards correcting and enriching the style of national
Irish music.
Another youthful victim of smallpox was Thomas Blacklock, the son of a
bricklayer in Scotland. "He can't be an artisan now," his friends said.
But it did not occur to them that he could be a professional man. His
father read him poetry and essays. When he was only twelve the boy began
to write poetry in imitation of those whose verses he had heard. After
his father's death, when the blind boy was but nineteen, he was more
than ever dependent on himself. By the help of a friend he was enabled
to go to school for a time. Then he became an author, and, later, a
famous preacher. Often, as he walked about, a favorite dog preceded him.
On one occasion he heard the hollow sound of the dog's tread on the
board covering a deep well, and just in time to avoid stepping on the
board himself. The covering was so rotten that he would surely have
fallen into the water.
As a boy Francis Huber, of Geneva, Switzerland, was a great student. He
insisted on reading by the feeble light of a lamp, or by the light of
the moon, even when he was urged not to do so, and the result was
blindness. A few years later he married one who rejoiced to be "his
companion, his secretary and his observer." He became the greatest
authority of his day on bees, although he knew nothing of the subject
until after his misfortune. The strange thing is that all his
conclusions were based on observation. Among other things he studied the
function of the wax, the construction of their combs, the bees' senses
and their ability to ventilate the hive by means of their wings. In
recognition of his work he was given membership in a number of learned
societies. His name must always be connected with the history of early
bee investigation.
Not long after the close of the American Revolution James Holman, a
British naval officer, lost his eyesight while in Africa. He was then
about twenty-five years old. Later he became one of the best known
travelers of his day. The world was told of his travels in lectures and
in books, and others were also inspired to travel. "What is the use of
traveling to one who cannot see?" he was asked at one time. "Does every
traveler see all he describes?" he replied. He said that he felt sure he
visited, when on his travels, as many interesting places as others, and
that, by having the things described to him on the spot, he could form
as correct a judgment as his own sight would have enabled him to do.
In 1779 Richmond, Virginia, gave birth to James Wilson, who lost his
sight when he was four years old, because of smallpox. He was then on
shipboard, and was taken to Belfast, Ireland, where he grew to manhood.
When a boy he delivered newspapers to subscribers who lived as far as
five miles from the city. When fifteen he used part of his earnings to
buy books which he persuaded other boys to read to him. At twenty-one he
entered an institution for the blind, for fuller instruction. Then he
joined with a circle of mechanics in forming a reading society. One
friend promised to read to him every evening such books as he could
procure. The hours for reading were from nine to one every night in
summer and from seven to eleven every night in the winter. "Often I
have traveled three or four miles, in a severe winter night, to be at my
post in time," he said once. "Perished with cold and drenched with rain,
I have many a time sat down and listened for several hours together to
the writings of Plutarch, Rollins, or Clarendon." After seven or eight
years of this training, he was "acquainted with almost every work in the
English language" his biographer says, perhaps a little extravagantly.
His education he used in literary work.
B. B. Bowen was a Massachusetts boy just a century ago. When a babe he
lost his sight. In 1833 Dr. Howe--husband of Julia Ward Howe--selected
him as one of six blind boys on whom he was to make the first
experiments in the instruction of the blind. Later he wrote a book of
which eighteen thousand copies were sold.
Another of the men who proved the loss of sight was not a bar to
successful work was Thomas R. Lounsbury, the Yale scholar whose studies
in Chaucer and Shakespeare made him famous. Toward the close of his busy
life he was engaged in a critical study of Tennyson, preparatory to
writing an exhaustive book on the life of the great poet. He did not
live to complete the work, but he left it in such shape that a friend
was able to put it in the hands of the publishers.
In the Introduction to the biography this friend told of the courageous
manner in which Professor Lounsbury faced threatening blindness and
continued his writing in spite of the danger. We are told that his eyes,
never very good, failed him for close and prolonged work. "At best he
could depend upon them for no more than two or three hours a day.
Sometimes he could not depend upon them at all. That he might not
subject them to undue strain, he acquired the habit of writing in the
dark. Night after night, using a pencil on coarse paper, he would sketch
a series of paragraphs for consideration in the morning. This was almost
invariably his custom in later years. Needless to say, these rough
drafts are difficult reading for an outsider. Though the lines could be
kept reasonably straight, it was impossible for a man enveloped in
darkness to dot an _i_ or to cross a _t_. Moreover, many words were
abbreviated, and numerous sentences were left half written out. Every
detail, however, was perfectly plain to the author himself. With these
detached slips of paper and voluminous notes before him, he composed on
a typewriter his various chapters, putting the paragraphs in logical
sequence."
Francis Parkman, the historian who made the Indian wars real to
fascinated readers, was a physical wreck on the completion of "The
Oregon Trail," when he was but twenty-five years old. He could not write
even his own name, except with his eyes closed; he was unable to fix his
mind on a subject, except for very brief intervals, and his nervous
system was so exhausted that any effort was a burden. But he would not
give up. During the weary days of darkness he thought out the story of
the conspiracy of Pontiac and decided to write it. Physicians warned him
that the results would be disastrous, yet he felt that nothing could do
him more harm than an idle, purposeless life.
One of his chief difficulties he solved in an ingenious manner. In a
manuscript, published after his death, his plan was described:
"He caused a wooden frame to be constructed of the size and shape of a
sheet of letter paper. Stout wires were fixed horizontally across it,
half an inch apart, movable back of thick pasteboard fitted behind
them. The paper for writing was placed between the pasteboard and wires,
guided by which and using a black-lead crayon, he could write not
illegibly with closed eyes."
This contrivance, with improvements, he used for about forty years of
semi-blindness.
The documents on which he depended for his facts were read to him,
though sometimes for days he could not listen, and then perhaps only for
half an hour at a time. As he listened to the reading he made notes with
closed eyes. Then he turned over in his mind what he had heard and
laboriously wrote a few lines. For months he penned an average of only
three or four lines a day. Later he was able to work more rapidly and he
completed the book in two years and a half. No publisher was found who
was willing to bear the expense of issuing the volume, and the young man
paid for the plates himself.
Friends thought that now he would have to give up. His eyes were still
troubling him, he became lame, his head felt as if great bands of iron
were fastened about it, and frequently he did not sleep more than an
hour or two a night. Then came the death of his wife, on whom he had
depended for some years. At one time his physician warned him that he
had not more than six months to live. But when a friend said that he had
nothing more to live for, he made the man understand that he was not
ready to hoist the white flag.
He lived for forty-five years after it was thought that he could never
use his eyes again, and during all this time he worked steadily and
patiently, accomplishing what would have been a large task for a man who
had the full use of all his powers.
An Englishman was told by his physician he could never see again. For a
time the news weighed heavily upon him. Afterward he said: "I remained
silent for a moment, thinking seriously, and then, summoning up all the
grit I possessed, I said, 'If God wills it, He knows best. What must be
will be. And,' I added, putting my hand up to a tear that trickled down
my face, 'God helping me, this is the last tear I shall ever shed for my
blindness.'" It was. He secured the degrees of doctor of philosophy and
master of arts. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and
the Chemical Society. He made many valuable scientific discoveries and
inventions, saved a millionaire's life, and received the largest fee
ever awarded any doctor--$250,000.
To these men difficulties were a challenge to courage. They accepted the
challenge and proved themselves superior to circumstances. Thus their
lives became a challenge to the millions of their countrymen who read of
their triumph.