LUCKY ACCIDENTS.
"As the unthought-on accident is guilty
Of what we wildly do, so we profess
Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies
Of every wind that blows."
"Winter's Tale," Act iv., Sc. 3.
Pascal, one day, remarked that if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter
the whole face of the world would probably have been changed. The same
idea may be applied to the unforeseen advantages produced by
accidents, some of which have occasionally had not a little to do with
determining the future position in life of many eminent men. Prevented
from pursuing the sphere in this world they had intended, compulsory
leisure compelled them to adopt some hobby as a recreation, in which,
unconsciously, their real genius lay.
Thus David Allan, popularly known as the "Scottish Hogarth," owed his
fame and success in life to an accident. When a boy, having burnt his
foot, he amused the monotony of his leisure hours by drawing on the
floor with a piece of chalk--a mode of passing his time which soon
obtained an extraordinary fascination for him. On returning to school,
he drew a caricature of his schoolmaster punishing a pupil, which
caused him to be summarily expelled. But, despite this punishment, his
success as an artist was decided, the caricature being considered so
clever that he was sent to Glasgow to study art, where he was
apprenticed in 1755 to Robert Foulis, a famous painter, who with his
brother Andrew had secretly established an academy of arts in that
city. Their kindness to him he was afterwards able to return when
their fortunes were reversed.
If Sir Walter Scott had not sprained his foot in running round the
room when a child, the world would probably have had none of those
works which have made his name immortal. When his son intimated a
desire to enter the army, Sir Walter Scott wrote to Southey, "I have
no title to combat a choice which would have been my own, had not my
lameness prevented." In the same way, the effects of a fall when about
a year old rendered Talleyrand lame for life, and being, on this
account, unfit for a military career, he was obliged to renounce his
birthright in favour of his second brother. But what seemed an
obstacle to his future success was the very reverse, for, turning his
attention to politics and books, he eventually became one of the
leading diplomatists of his day. Again, Josiah Wedgwood was seized in
his boyhood with an attack of smallpox, which was followed by a
disease in the right knee, some years afterwards necessitating the
amputation of the affected limb. But, as Mr. Gladstone, in his address
on Wedgwood's life and work delivered at Burslem, Oct. 26th, 1863,
remarked, the disease from which he suffered was, no doubt, the cause
of his subsequent greatness, for "it prevented him from growing up to
be the active, vigorous English workman, but it put upon him
considering whether, as he could not be that, he might not be
something else, and something greater. It drove him to meditate upon
the laws and secrets of his art."
Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. Being removed from school on
account of his health, it appears that a cold caught in the summer of
1660 while bathing, which produced a rheumatic affection of the
joints, accompanied by other ailments. He became unable to walk to
school, and he finally left in May, 1662. His self-training now began,
and Sacroborco's "De Sphæra" was lent to him, with the perusal of
which he was so pleased that he forthwith commenced a course of
astronomic studies. Accordingly, he constructed a rude quadrant and
calculated a table of the sun's altitudes, pursuing his studies, as he
said himself, "under the discouragement of friends, the want of
health, and all other instructors, except his better genius."[54]
Alluding to accidents as sometimes developing greatness, Mr. Smiles
remarks that Pope's satire was in a measure the outcome of his
deformity; and Lord Byron's club foot, he adds, "had probably not a
little to do with determining his destiny as a poet. Had not his mind
been embittered, and made morbid by his deformity, he might never have
written a line. But his misshapen foot stimulated his mind, roused his
ardour, threw him upon his own resources, and we know with what
result."
Again, in numerous other ways, it has been remarked, accidents have
taken a lucky turn, and, if not being the road to fortune, have had
equally important results. The story is told of a young officer in the
army of General Wolfe who was supposed to be dying of an abscess in
the lungs. He was absent from his regiment on sick leave, but resolved
to join it when a battle was expected, "for," said he, "since I am
given over I had better be doing my duty, and my life's being
shortened a few days matters not." He received a shot which pierced
the abscess and made an opening for the discharge, the result being
that he recovered and lived to eighty years of age.
Brunel, the celebrated engineer, had a curious accident, which might
have forfeited his life. While one day playing with his children and
astonishing them by passing a half sovereign through his mouth out at
his ear, he unfortunately swallowed the coin, which dropped into his
windpipe. Brunel regarded the mischief caused by the accident as
purely mechanical; a foreign body had got into his breathing
apparatus, and must be removed, if at all, by some mechanical
expedient. But he was equal to the emergency, and had an apparatus
constructed which had the effect of relieving him of the coin. In
after days he used to tell how, when his body was inverted, and he
heard the gold piece strike against his upper front teeth, was,
perhaps, the most exquisite moment in his whole life, the half
sovereign having been in his windpipe for not less than six weeks.
In the year 1784, William Pitt almost fell the victim to the folly of
a festive meeting, for he was nearly accidentally shot as a
highwayman. Returning late at night on horseback from Wimbledon to
Addiscombe, together with Lord Thurlow, he found the turnpike gate
between Tooting and Streatham thrown open. Both passed through it,
regardless of the threats of the turnpike man, who, taking the two for
highwaymen, discharged the contents of his blunderbuss at their backs;
but, happily, no injury was done, and Pitt had the good fortune to
escape from what might have been a very serious, if not fatal,
accident. Foote, too, met with a bad accident on horseback, which, at
the time, seemed a lasting obstacle to his career as an actor. Whilst
riding with the Duke of York and some other noblemen, he was thrown
from his horse and his leg broken, so that an amputation became
necessary. In consequence of this accident, the Duke of York obtained
for him the patent of the Haymarket Theatre for his life; but he
continued to perform his former characters with no less agility and
spirit than he had done before to the most crowded houses. Similarly,
on one occasion--a very important one--Charles James Matthews was
nearly prevented making his first appearance on the stage through
being thrown from his horse, but, to quote his own words, "the
excitement of the evening dominated all other feelings, and I walked
for the time as well as ever."
Some men, again, have owed their success to the accidents of others. A
notable instance was that of Baron Ward, the well-known minister of
the Duke of Parma. After working some time as a stable-boy in Howden,
he went to London, where he had the good luck to come to the Duke of
Parma's assistance after a fall from his horse in Rotten Row. The Duke
took him back to Lucca as his groom, and ere long Ward made the ducal
stud the envy of Italy. He soon rose to a higher position, and became
the minister and confidential friend of the Duke of Parma, with whom
he escaped in the year 1848 to Dresden, and for whom he succeeded in
recovering Parma and Placenza. Indeed, Lord Palmerston once remarked,
"Baron Ward was one of the most remarkable men I ever met with."
It was through witnessing an accident that Sir Astley Cooper made up
his final decision to take up surgery as his profession. A young man,
having been run over by a cart, was in danger of dying from loss of
blood, when young Cooper lost no time in tying his handkerchief about
the wounded limb so as to stop the hemorrhage. It was this incident
which assured him of his taste for surgery. In the same way, the story
is quoted of the eminent French surgeon, Ambrose Paré. It is stated
that he was acting as stable-boy to an abbé at Laval when a surgical
operation was about to be performed on one of the brethren of the
monastery. On being called in to assist, Ambrose Paré not only proved
so useful, but was so fascinated with the operation that he made up
his mind to devote his life to the study and practice of surgery.
Instances of this kind might be enumerated, being of frequent
occurrence in biographical literature, and showing to what unforeseen
circumstances men have occasionally owed their greatness.
A romance which, had it lacked corroborative evidence, would have
seemed highly improbable, is told of the two Countesses of Kellie. In
the latter half of the last century, Mr Gordon, the proprietor of
Ardoch Castle--situated upon a high rock, overlooking the sea--was one
evening aroused by the firing of a gun evidently from a vessel in
distress near the shore. Hastening down to the beach, with the
servants of the Castle, it was evident that the distressed vessel had
gone down, as the floating spars but too clearly indicated. After
looking out in vain for some time, in the hope of recovering some of
the passengers--either dead or alive--he found a sort of crib, which
had been washed ashore, containing a live infant. The little creature
proved to be a female child, but beyond the fact that its wrappings
pointed to its being the offspring of persons in no mean condition,
there was no trace as to who these were.
The little foundling was brought up with Mr. Gordon's own daughters,
and when she had attained to womanhood, by an inexplicable
coincidence, a storm similar to that just mentioned occurred. An
alarm-gun was fired, and this time Mr. Gordon had the satisfaction of
receiving a shipwrecked party, whom he at once made his guests at the
Castle. Amongst them was one gentleman passenger, who after a
comfortable night spent in the Castle, was surprised at breakfast by
the entrance of a troop of blooming girls, the daughters of his host,
as he understood, but one of whom specially attracted his attention.
"Is this young lady your daughter, too?" he inquired of Mr. Gordon.
"No," replied his host, "but she is as dear to me as if she were."
He then related her history, to which the stranger listened with eager
interest, and at its close he not a little surprised Mr. Gordon by
remarking that he "had reason to believe that the young lady was his
own niece." He then gave a detailed account of his sister's return
from India, corresponding to the time of the shipwreck, and added,
"she is now an orphan, but if I am not mistaken in my supposition, she
is entitled to a handsome provision which her father bequeathed to her
in the hope of her yet being found."
Before many days had elapsed, sufficient evidence was forthcoming to
prove that by this strange, but lucky, accident of the shipwreck, the
long lost niece was found. The young heiress keenly felt leaving the
old castle, but to soften the wrench it was arranged that one of the
Misses Gordon should accompany her to Gottenburg, where her uncle had
long been settled as a merchant.
The sequel of this romance, as it is pointed out in the "Book of
Days,"[55] is equally astonishing. It seems that among the Scotch
merchants settled in the Swedish port, was Mr. Thomas Erskine--a
younger son of a younger brother of Sir William Erskine, of Cambo, in
Fife--an offshoot of the family of the Earl of Kellie--to whom Miss
Anne Gordon was married in the year 1771. A younger brother, named
Methven, ten years later married Joanna, a sister of Miss Gordon. It
was never contemplated that these two brothers would ever come near to
the peerage of their family--there being at one time seventeen persons
between them and the family titles; but in the year 1797 the baronet
of Cambo became Earl of Kellie, and two years later the title came to
the husband of Anne Gordon. In short, "these two daughters of Mr.
Gordon, of Ardoch, became in succession Countesses of Kellie in
consequence of the incident of the shipwrecked foundling, whom their
father's humanity had rescued from the waves."
FOOTNOTES:
[54] See "Dictionary of National Biography," xix., 242.
[55] "The Two Countesses of Kellie," ii. 41, 42.