When Augustine Thierry, having withdrawn himself from the world
and retired to his library, to investigate the origin, the
causes and the effects, of the early and successive Germanic
invasions, and, having passed six years “in poring with the
pertinacity of a Benedictine monk over worm-eaten manuscripts,
and deciphering and comparing black-letter texts,” had at
last completed his magnificent “History of the Conquest,” the
publication of which introduced a new era in French historical
composition, he had lost his sight. The most precious of the
senses had been sacrificed to his zeal in literary research.
The beauties of nature, and the records of scholarship were
thenceforth shut from him, and other eyes, to assist his future
efforts. Prodigious sacrifice! And yet not such he thought it;
for he said long afterward, in a letter to a friend: “Were I
to begin my life over again, I would choose the road that has
conducted me to where I now am. Blind and afflicted, without
hope and without leisure, I can safely offer this testimony, the
sincerity of which, coming from a man in my condition, can not
be called in question. There is something in this world worth
more than pleasure, more than fortune, more than health itself;
I mean devotion to science!” (Text.)--RICHARD S. STORRS.
(2835)
=Science Exposes Fraud=--See LIAR EXPOSED.