I had never shown Edward Vance the dear sketch for which I had once so

keenly coveted his approval. So absorbed had I lately been in other

thoughts, that it lay by forgotten. One evening my mother desired

Hessie to bring it out and show it to him. I seldom looked at him, but

for a moment I now glanced at his face. His eyelids flickered, and a

strange expression passed over his countenance. It was admiration,

surprise, and something else--I knew not what; something strange and

unpleasant. The admiration, I jealously believed, was for Hessie's

face in its downcast beauty. He gazed at it long, but put it aside

with a few cold words of commendation. I felt, with an intolerable

pang, that even so he had put me aside, and thought no more about me.

But at different times afterward I saw him glance to where the sketch

lay.

That night my mother kept me with her after Hessie had gone to bed.

She questioned me anxiously; asked me if I had quarrelled with Edward

Vance. I said, "No, mother, why should we quarrel?"

By-and-by she said, "Grace, can it be that he has not asked you to be

his wife?"

I answered quickly, "Oh, no; it is Hessie whom he loves."

My mother looked puzzled and grieved, though I smiled in her face.

VI.

One evening I came home and found Hessie dull and out of humor. My

mother told me that Mr. Vance had called and mentioned that he was

about to leave town for some weeks. He had left his regards for me. I

knew by Hessie's face that he had said nothing to make her happy

during his absence.

Some evenings after, I found my mother sitting alone in the parlor,

and on going upstairs Hessie curled up on our bed with her face in the

pillows. I so loved this little sister, that I could not endure to see

her grieve without sharing her vexation. So I sat down by her side and

drew her head upon my shoulder. Sitting thus I coaxed her trouble from

her. She had been out walking, and had met Edward Vance in Kensington.

He had seen her. He had pretended not to see her. He had avoided her.

At first this seemed so very unlikely, I jested with her, laughed at

her, said she must have been mistaken. He had been delayed in London,

and had not recognized her. But Hessie declared vehemently that he had

purposely avoided her, and cried as though her heart would break.

Then I said: "Hessie, if he be a person to behave so, we need neither

of us trouble ourselves about him. We lived before we knew him, and I

dare say we shall get on very well now that he has gone." But Hessie

only stared and turned her face from me. She could not understand such

a view of the case. She thought I did not feel for her.

After that the weeks passed drearily. We heard no news of Edward

Vance; but he had not left London, for I saw him once in the street. I

told Hessie, for I thought it right to rouse her a little rudely from

the despondent state into which she had fallen. I tried, gently but

decidedly, to make her understand that we had looked on as a steadfast

friend one who for some reason had been tired of us, and made an

excuse to drop our acquaintance; and that she would be doing serious

injury to her self-respect did she give him one more thought.

For myself I mused much upon his {320} strange conduct. It remained an

enigma to me. A dull listlessness hung upon me, which was more

terrible than physical pain. I spent the days at home, because I could

not leave Hessie to mope her life away, and damp my mother's spirits

with her sad face. So I had not even the obligation of going out to

daily work to stimulate me to healthful action. Now, indeed, was my

life weary and burdensome for one dark space, which, thank God and his

gift of strong energy, was not of vast compass. So long as we

sacrifice ourselves for those we love, whether in reality or in

imagination, something sublime in the idea of our purpose--whether that

purpose be mistaken or not--is yet a rock to lean on in the weakest

hour of anguish. But when our eyes are opened, and we see that we have

only dragged others as well as ourselves deeper into misery, then

indeed it is hard to "suffer and be strong."

VII.

I had done nothing of late--nothing, although I had toiled

incessantly; for I did not dignify with the name of "work" the

soulless mechanical drudgery which had kept me from home during the

past months. My spirit had grovelled in a state of prostration,

stripped of its wings and its wand of power. I now knelt and cried:

"Give, oh, give me back my creative impulse!"

I had never since looked at the beloved sketch. I longed now to draw

it forth, and commence the picture while I stayed at home. But Hessie

shuddered when I spoke of it, and looked so terrified, pleading that

she could not stand for me, that I gave up the idea for the time. I

thought she had distressing memories connected with it, and I tried to

rid her of them by speaking cheerfully of how successful I expected

the picture to be, and what pleasure we should have in working at it.

I regretted bitterly that I had not commenced it long before, just

after I had made the sketch. I should then, perhaps, have had it

finished in time for the Exhibition drawing near. But that was

impossible now. I must wait in patience for another year. I did not at

that time even look between the leaves of the portfolio. Though I

thought it right to talk briskly and cheerily about it for both our

sakes, I had sickening associations with that work of my short,

brilliant day of happiness which Hessie, with all her childish

grieving, could hardly have comprehended.

I allowed some time to pass, and at last I thought Hessie's whim had

been indulged long enough. She must learn how to meet a shock and

outlive it. I did not like the idea of having ghosts in the house--

skeletons of unhealthy sentiment hidden away in unapproachable

chambers. The shadow should be hunted from its corner into the light.

The sketch must grow into a picture, which a new aspect of things must

despoil of all stinging associations.

I went to seek the sketch; but the sketch was gone. I sought it in

every part of the house; but to no purpose. It had quite disappeared.

I mentioned the strange circumstance to my mother in Hessie's

presence, and Hessie suddenly left the room. Then it struck me for the

first time that my sister had either destroyed it (which I could

hardly believe), or that some accident had happened to it in her

hands. I observed that she never alluded to it, never inquired if I

had found it. I did not question her about it. Indeed I felt too much

vexed to speak of it. I grieved more for its loss than I had believed

it remained in me to grieve at any fresh trial. I loved it as we do

love the creation on which we have lavished the most precious riches

of our mind, on which we have spent our toil, in which we have

conquered difficulty, striven and achieved, struggled and triumphed. I

should have loved it all my life, hanging in my own chamber, if no one

might ever see it but myself; and borne my {321} sorrows with a better

spirit, and tasted keener joys, while thanking God that I had been

permitted to call it into existence. I gloried too much in the work of

my own hands, and I was punished.

Never since have I tasted that vivid sense of delight in any

achievement of my own. I have worked as zealously, and more

successfully, but it has been with a humbler heart. And looking

backward, I now believe that it was my inner happiness which haloed my

creation with a beauty that was half in my own glad eyes.

VIII.

The succeeding few months were quiet, in the dullest sense of the

word. Strive as I would, the sunshine had gone from our home. Hessie

was no longer the bright Hessie of old days.

I tried to forget my dear sketch of "Enid," and made several attempts

to paint some other picture; but the Exhibition drew near, and I had

nothing done.

One bright May morning I read in the newspaper an account of the

Academy Exhibition. The list of artists and their works stirred me

with a strange trouble. Tears rose in my eyes and blotted out the

words. I spread the paper on the table before me, pressed my temples

with my fingers, and travelled slowly through the criticisms and

praises which occupied some columns. Why was there no work of mine

mentioned there? Why had I lost my time so miserably during the past

months? And questioning myself thus, I was conscious of two sins upon

my own head. The first was in glorying in and worshipping the creation

of my own labor: the second, in exalting myself upon an imaginary

pinnacle of heroism by a fancied self-sacrifice, and having brought

deeper trouble upon the sister whose happiness I thought to compass. I

wept the choking tears out of my throat and read on.

Something dazzled my eyes for a moment, and brought the blood to my

forehead. A picture was mentioned with enthusiastic praise; a picture

by E. Vance. It was called "Enid," and was interpreted by a quotation

from the poem; my passage--the subject of my lost sketch! A strange

idea glanced across my mind. I half smiled at it and put it away. But

all day I was restless; and that evening I proposed to Hessie an

expedition early next morning to see the pictures. My mother longed to

go with us; but as she could not, I promised to bring home a

catalogue, and describe each painting to the best of my memory.

With a feverish haste I sought out the picture of "Enid" by E. Vance.

Was I dreaming? I passed my hand across my eyes as though some

imaginary scene had come between me and the canvas. I did not feel

Hessie's hand dropping from my arm. I stood transfixed, grasping the

catalogue, and staring at the picture before me.

It was my "Enid." My own in form, attitude, tint, and expression. It

was the "Enid" of my dreams realized; the "Enid" of my labor wrought

to completion; the "Enid" of my lost sketch ennobled, perfected,

glorified.

My work on which I had lavished my love and toil was there, and it was

not mine.

Another, a more skilled, a subtler hand, had brought out its meaning

with delicate appreciation, ripened its original purpose, enriched the

subdued depths of its coloring, etherealized the whole by the purest

finish. But that hand had robbed me, with cruel cowardly deliberation.

It had stolen my mellow fruit; taken my sweetest rose and planted it

in a strange garden. I felt the wrong heavy and sore upon me. I

resented it fiercely. I could not endure to look at the admiring faces

around me. I turned away sick and trembling, while the blood pulsed

indignantly in my throat and beat painfully at my temples.

Why should he who had already so troubled my life enjoy success and

gold which should have been mine? {322} "O mother, mother!" I inwardly

cried, "how much would the price of this picture have done for you!"

And I thought of her yearnings for the scent of sea spray, and the

taste of sea breath, which the scanty purse forbade to be satisfied.

I sought Hessie, and found her sitting alone and very pale. I said,

"Come home, Hessie;" and she followed me, obeying like a child.

When we reached our house, I was thankful that my mother slept upon

the couch, for I needed a time to calm myself, and think and pray. I

threw away my bonnet, and sat down by our bedside. Hessie came and

crept to my feet.

"Grace," she sobbed, "can you ever forgive me? I gave him the sketch;

but I declare on my knees that I did not know why he wanted it."

For a moment I felt very harsh and stern, but my woman's nature

conquered. What were all the pictures in the world compared with my

little sister's grief? I bent over her, and wiped away the tears from

her face.

"Don't say any more about it, Hessie," I said; "I'd rather not hear

any more. I know that you meant to do me no wrong. It is with him that

the injustice lies. But, Hessie, I will only ask you one question: Can

you--do you think you ought to waste a regret on such a person?"

Hessie dried up her tears with more resolution than I had ever seen

her show before, and answered:

"No, no, Grace dear; I am cured now."

And then she put her arms about my neck, asking my pardon for all her

past wilful conduct; and in one long embrace all the estrangement was

swept away, and we two sisters were restored to one another. Hessie

went off to get tea ready with a cheerful step, and I to make the room

cosy and kiss my mother awake, when the fire glowed and the pleasant

meal was on the table. We both sat by her with bright faces, and told

her all about the pictures we could remember; all except one.

IX.

* * * * * *

I have outlived all that trouble about the picture of "Enid," and many

troubles beside; I have kissed my mother's dear face in her coffin. I

have won success, and I have won gold; and neither seem to me quite

the boons some hold them to be.

Hessie's early grief passed away like a spring shower. She is now a

happy wife; and I have at this moment by my side a little gold-haired

fairy thing, her child. My dear sister's happiness is secured; her

boat of life is safe at anchor. Edward Vance's shadow only crossed her

path and passed away. She never met him since the old days; I but

once. His career has strangely disappointed his friends.

For me, my life is calm and contented. I think the healthy-spirited

always make for themselves happiness out of whatever materials may be

around them; and I find rich un-wrought treasure on every side,

whithersoever I turn my eyes. My sister's glad smile is a blessing on

my life; and one rare joy is the bright-faced little lisper at my

side, who peers over my shoulder with spiritual eyes, and asks

mysterious questions about my work. And, standing always by my side

like an angel, bearing the wand of power and the wings of peace, I

have my friend, my beautiful art. She fills my days with purpose and

my nights with sweet rest and dreams. She places in my hands the means

of doing good to others. While illumining my upward path, she seems to

beckon me higher and yet higher. Looking ever in her dear eyes, I

bless God for the abundance of his gifts; and I muse serenely on the

time when she, the interpreter of the ideal here on earth, will

conduct me to the gates of eternal beauty.

------

{323}

From Once a Week.

IMPERIAL AND ROYAL AUTHORS.

BY S. BARING GOULD.

Is the present Emperor of the French aware that in publishing his _Vie

de Cesar_, he is treading a beaten path? that his predecessors on the

French throne have, from a remote age, sought to unite the fame of

authorship with the glory of regal position? and is he aware of the

fact, that their efforts in this quarter have not unfrequently been

accounted dead failures? Julius Caesar has already been handled by one

of them, and with poor success, for Louis XIV., at the age of sixteen,

produced a translation of the first book of the Commentaries of

Caesar, under the title _Guerre des Suisses, traduite dupremier livre

des Commentaires de Jules Cesar, par Louis XI V., Dieu-Donne, roi de

France et de Navarre_. This work, consisting of eighteen pages, was

printed at the royal press in folio, 1651.

Louis XIV., however, was not the first French monarch to try his hand

upon Julius Caesar; he had been preceded by Henry IV., who translated

the whole work, and did not give it up after the first book. Will the

present _Vie de Cesar_ reach a second volume? and, if it does, will it

extend to a fourth? Those who know best the occupations of the

imperial writer, say that it might be rash to feel sure beyond the

first volume, or to calculate on more than a second. Let us see

whether there is much novelty in the circumstance of a monarch

becoming an author. We shall only look at the emperors of Rome and the

kings of France. We know well enough that our own Alfred translated

Boethius, Orosius, and Bede, and that Henry VIII. won the title of

"Defender of the Faith" by his literary tilt with Luther; and that

James I. wrote against tobacco; and we are not disposed to revive the

dispute about the Eikon Basilike.

Let us then turn to the Roman emperors after Caesar, who was an author

himself, or neither Henry IV., nor Louis XIV., nor Louis Napoleon,

would have had much to say about him.

Augustus, we are told by Suetonius, composed several works, which he

was wont to read to a circle of friends. Among these were,

"Exhortations to the Study of Philosophy," which we have no doubt the

select circle listened to with possible edification, and probable

ennui. He wrote likewise his own memoirs in thirteen books, but he

never finished them, or brought them beyond the Cantabrian war. His

epigrams were written in his bath. He commenced a tragedy upon Ajax,

but, little pleased with it, he destroyed it; and in answer to the

select circle which asked, "What had become of Ajax?" "Ah! poor

fellow!" replied the emperor, "he fell upon the sponge, and perished;"

meaning that he had washed the composition off his papyrus.

Tiberius, says the same author, composed a lyric poem on the death of

Julius Caesar, but his style was full of affectation and conceits.

Claudius suffered from the same passion for becoming an author, and

composed several books of history, as well as memoirs of his own life,

and these were read in public, for the friendly circle was too narrow

for his ambition.

He also invented three letters, which he supposed were necessary for

the perfection of the alphabet, and he wrote a pamphlet on the

subject, before assuming the purple. {324} After having become

emperor, he enforced their use. He wrote also, in Greek, twenty books

of Tyrian, and eight of Carthaginian history, which were read publicly

every year in Alexandria. Nero composed verses, Domitian a treatise on

hair-dressing, Adrian his own life; Marcus Aurelius wrote his

commentaries, which are lost, and his moral reflections, and letters

to Fronto, which are still extant. Julian the Apostate was the author

of a curious work, the "Misopogon, or Foe to the Beard," a clever and

witty squib directed against the effeminate inhabitants of Antioch. A

few passages from this work will not be out of place.

"I begin at my face, which is wanting in all that is agreeable, noble,

and good; so I, morose and old, have tacked on to it this long beard,

to punish it for its ugliness. In this dense beard perhaps little

insects stroll, as do beasts in a forest; I leave them alone. This

beard constrains me to eat and to drink with the utmost

circumspection, or I should infallibly make a mess of it. As good luck

will have it, I am not given to kissing, or to receiving kisses, for a

beard like mine is inconvenient on that head, as it does not allow the

contact of lips. .... You say that you could twine ropes out of my

beard; try it, only take care that the roughness of the hair does not

take the skin off your soft and delicate hands."

Valentinian I. is said to have emulated Ausonius in licentious poetry.

Of the later emperors some have obtained celebrity by their writings.

Leo VI., surnamed the Wise, was the author of a very interesting and

precious treatise on the art of warfare. He also composed some

prophecies, sufficiently obscure to make the Greeks in after ages find

them apply to various events as they occurred. Constantine VI. was

also an eminent contributor to literature. This prince had been early

kept from public affairs by his uncle Alexander, and his mother Zoe,

so that he had sought pleasure and employment in study. After having

collected an enormous library, which he threw open to the public, he

employed both himself and numerous scribes in making collections of

extracts from the principal classic authors. The most important of

these, and that to which he attached his own name, consisted of a mass

of choice fragments, gathered into fifty-three books. This vast work

is lost, together with many of the books cited, except only two parts:

one treating of embassies, the other of virtues and vices. Constantine

also wrote a curious geographical account of the provinces of the

Greek empire, a treatise on the administration of government, and

another on the ceremonies observed in the Byzantine Court; a life of

the Emperor Basil, an account of the famous image of Edessa, and a few

other trifles.

Let us now turn to the French monarchs, and we shall find that they

began early to take the pen in hand; and, unfortunately, the very

first royal literary work in France was a blunder. King Chilperic

wrote a treatise on the Trinity, under the impression that he had a

gift for theological definition, and he signalized his error by

asserting that the word person should not be used in speaking of the

three members of the Trinity. Having burned his fingers by touching

theology, the semi-barbarian king attempted poetry with like success.

But his pretensions did not end there. He added the Greek letter u to

the Latin alphabet, and three characters of his own invention, so as

to introduce into that language certain Teutonic sounds. "He sent

orders," writes Gregory of Tours, "into every city of his kingdom,

that all children should be taught in this manner, and that ancient

written books should be effaced, and rewritten in the new style."

The great and wise Charlemagne, perceiving the glories of his native

tongue, and the beauties of his national poetry, carefully collected

the Teutonic national poems, and commenced a grammar of the language.

Robert II. {325} was not only a scholar, but a musician; he composed

some of the Latin hymns still in use in the Church, with their

accompanying melodies. His queen, Constantia, seeing him engaged on

his sacred poetry, one day, in joke, asked him to write something in

memory of her. He at once composed the hymn, _O constantia martyrum_,

which the queen, not understanding Latin, but hearing her name

occurring in the first line, supposed to be a poem in her honor.

Louis XI. is supposed to have contributed to the _Cent Nouvelles

nouvelles_, which collection, however much credit it may do him in a

literary point of view, is inexcusably wanting in decency.

A volume of poems by Francis I. exists in MS. in the Imperial Library.

It contains, among other interesting matter, a prose letter, and

another in verse, written from his prison to one of his mistresses.

The king was bad in his orthography, as may be judged from the

following portion of a letter written by him to his mother at the

raising of the siege of Mezieres:--

_"Madame, tout asetheure (a cette heure), yn sy (ainsi) que je me

vouloys mettre o lyt (au lit), est aryce (arrive) Laval, lequel m'a

aporte la sertenete (certitude) deu levemant du syege de Mesyeres."_

I presume a schoolboy would be whipped if he wrote as bad a letter as

this king.

Louis XIII. had, says his epitaph, "a hundred virtues of a valet, not

one of a master;" but he could write sonnets, and compose the music

for them. The best, perhaps, is that composed on, or for, Madame de

Hautefort,--

"Tu crois, bean soleil!

Qu'a ton eclat rien n'est pareil;

Mais quoi! tu palis

Aupres d'Amaryllis,"

--set to music which is charming. But Louis XIII. was more of a barber,

gardener, pastrycook, and farmer, than an author.

Louis XIV., beside his translation of Caesar's Commentaries, Book I.,

composed _Memoires historiques, politiques, et militaires;_ but his

writings were not remarkable, as his education had been so neglected

by his mother and Mazarin, that, according to La Porte, his valet, he

was not allowed to have the history of France read to him, even for

the sake of sending him to sleep.

Louis XV. wrote a little treatise on the course of the rivers of

Europe, and printed it with his own hands. It consisted of sixty-two

pages, and contained nothing which was not perfectly well known

before, as, for instance, that the Thames ran into the North Sea or

German Ocean, and that the Rhone actually fell into the Mediterranean.

In 1766 appeared a description of the forest of Compiegne, and guide

to the forest, by Louis, afterward Louis XVI., composed by the

unfortunate prince at the age of twelve.

Louis XVIII. wrote an account of a journey from Paris to Coblentz,

which was published in 1823.

This work was full of inaccuracies and mistakes, so that it became the

prey of critics.

Finally, Napoleon I. wrote much, but not in the way of bookmaking,

though he began a history of Corsica, which remained in MS. His

writings have been collected and published in five volumes, under the

title, _OEuvres de Napoleon Bonaparte._ 8vo. 1821.

----

{326}

From The Lamp.

HISTORY OF A BLIND DEAF-MUTE.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. CARTON,

HEAD OF THE INSTITUTE FOR THE

DEAF AND DUMB AT BRUGES, BY CECILIA CADDELL.

Anna, the deaf, dumb, and blind girl, whose story I am about to

relate, was born at Ostend, of poor but honest parents, in the year

1818. She was blind from her birth, but during the first years of her

infancy appeared to have some sense of hearing. This, unfortunately,

soon vanished, leaving her blind, deaf, and dumb; one of the three

persons thus trebly afflicted existing at this moment in the province

of West Flanders. Losing both her parents while still an infant, she

was brought up by her grandmother, who received aid for the purpose

from the "Commission des Hospices" of the town. To the good offices of

these gentlemen she is likewise indebted for the education she has

since received; for when I first proposed taking her into my

establishment, both her aunt and her grandmother were most unwilling

to part with her, fearing, very naturally, that strangers would never

give her the affectionate care which, in her helpless condition, she

so abundantly required; they only yielded at last to the

representations and entreaties of their charitable friends. Their love

for this poor child, who could never have been anything but an anxiety

and expense to them, was indeed most touching; and they wept bitterly

when they parted from her; declaring, in their simple but expressive

language, that I was taking away from them the blessing of their

house. They were soon satisfied, however, that they had acted for the

best; and having once convinced themselves of her improvement both in

health and happiness, they never, to the day of their death, ceased to

rejoice at the decision which they had come to in her regard. When

Anna was first entrusted to my care, her relations, and every one else

who knew her, supposed her to be an idiot, and this had been their

principal reason for opposing me in my first efforts for her

instruction. Poor themselves and ignorant, and earning their bread by

the labor of their own hands, they had had neither time nor thought to

bestow on the development of this intellect, closed as it was against

all the more ordinary methods of instruction; and the child had been

left, of necessity, to her own resources for occupation and amusement.

Few, indeed, and trivial these resources were! Blind, and fearing even

to move without assistance; deaf, and incapable of hearing a syllable

of the conversation that was going on around her; dumb, and unable to

communicate her most pressing wants save by that unearthly and

unwilling cry which the deaf mutes are compelled to resort to, like

animals in the moment of their utmost need,--the child had remained day

after day seated in the same corner of the cottage. Knowing nothing of

the bright sunshine, or the green field, or the sweet smell of

flowers; nothing of the sports of childhood or its tasks; night the

same as day in her estimation, excepting for its sleep; winter only

distinguished from summer by the sharper air without, and the

increased heat of the wood-piled fire within--no wonder that she

seemed an idiot. Her only amusement--the only thing approaching to

occupation which her friends had been able to procure her--consisted,

at first, in a string of glass beads. These Anna amused herself by

taking off and {327} putting on again at least twenty times a day; and

this and the poor meals, which she seemed to take without appetite or

pleasure, were the only breaks in the twelve long hours of her

solitary days. Some charitable person at last made her a present of a

doll; and with this doll she played, after her own fashion, until she

was twenty years of age. She never, in fact, lost her taste for it

until she had succeeded in learning to knit; then it was cast from her

with disdain, and she never afterward recurred to it for amusement.

Notwithstanding her enforced inaction, she managed to tear her clothes

continually. Perhaps, poor child, she found some relief from the

tedium of her daily life in this semblance of an occupation, for she

had an insuperable objection to changing her tattered garments; and it

was a long time before we could induce her to do so with a good grace.

Once, however, accustomed to the change, she seemed to take pleasure

in it, delighted in new clothes, and used often to come of her own

accord to beg that the old ones might be washed. There was nothing

very prepossessing in her external appearance; at first it was almost

repulsive. She was of the ordinary height of a girl of her age; but

her hands were small and thin, from want of use, as those of a little

child. When she first came to my establishment her head was bowed down

on her neck from weakness; she had sore eyes; her face was covered

with a cutaneous eruption; she walked with difficulty, and appeared to

dislike the exertion excessively. Afterward, care and good feeding

improved her very much. She acquired strength; and the skin disease

which had been her chief disfigurement entirely disappeared. I have no

intention of describing all that she did and said (by signs), or all

the pains and trouble that she cost us in the early months of her

residence among us. During that time, however, I kept a journal of her

conduct; which, as a history of her mental development, is so curious,

that I venture to lay some extracts from it before my readers, the

remainder being reserved for future publication.

I must begin by explaining my ideas as to the proper method to be

pursued in instructing these unfortunates. I try, in the first place,

to put myself in the place of a person deaf, blind, and dumb; and then

ask myself, "What do I know, what can I know, in such a state?" In my

first course of instruction, therefore, I make it a rule never to give

the word until certain that the thing which that word expresses has

been clearly understood. In the case of Anna there was an additional

difficulty. Not only had she no' preconceived idea of the use or

nature of a word, but her blindness prevented her seeing the

connection between it and the substance it was intended to represent.

Nor would it be sufficient for her full instruction that she should

learn by the touch to distinguish one word from another; she would

also require to be taught the elements of which words were themselves

composed. If I began by giving her words alone, she would never have

learned to distinguish letters. If, on the other hand, I commenced

with letters, without attaching any especial idea to them, she would

have been disgusted, and have left off at the second lesson. A letter,

in fact, would have been nothing but a letter to her; for there would

be no means of making her comprehend that it was but the first step

toward the knowledge I was desirous of imparting. I resolved,

therefore, neither to try letters by themselves nor whole words in the

first lesson which I gave her. It was in the Flemish language, of

course; but the method I pursued would be equally applicable to any

other.

In order to give, at one and the same moment, the double idea of a

letter and a word, I chose a letter which had some resemblance to the

form I intended it to express, and gave it the significance of an

entire word. For {328} this purpose I fixed upon the letter _O_, and

made her understand that this letter signified mouth, in fact it is

one of the four letters which express the word in Flemish--_mond_,

mouth. Afterward I took a double _o(00)_, which are the first letters

in the Flemish, _oog_, eye. One O, then, signified mouth; two meant

eyes. The lesson was easy; she caught it in a moment; and thus, with

two words and two ideas attached to them, her dictionary was

commenced. It was quite possible, however, that as these letters

represented, to a certain extent, the objects of which they were the

expression, she might fall into the error of supposing that all

letters did the same; and in order to prevent this mistake, I

immediately added the letter _R_ to her collection.

This not only became a new acquisition for her dictionary, but, by

forming with the two previous letters the Flemish word _oor_ (ear), it

became an easy transition between the natural expression dependent on

the form, which she had already acquired, and the arbitrary, dependent

on the spelling, which it was my object she should acquire. Proceeding

on this principle, and always taking care to commence the lesson from

a point already known, we lessened the difficulties, and made rapid

progress. A cap, an apron, a ribbon, or gown, always interest the sex;

and, like any other girl, Anna valued them extremely. I took care

likewise often to choose words expressive of anything she liked,

especially to eat; and it was by the proper use of these words that

she first convinced me how completely she had seized upon the meaning

of my lessons. Whenever she was desirous of obtaining any little

dainty, she used to point to the word in her collection; and of course

it was given to her immediately. Poor child! her joy, when she found

she could really make herself understood, was very touching; and her

surprise was nearly equal to her joy.

A person born blind does not naturally make signs; for a sign

addresses itself to the sight, and of the faculty of sight they have

no conception. A sign in relief, however--a sign which they can

distinguish by the touch, and by means of which they can communicate

with their fellow-men--must come to these benighted intelligences like

a message of mercy from God himself. We always gave Anna the object,

in order to make her comprehend the word--the substance, to explain

the substantive. One day, not long after her arrival, her instructress

gave her the word _egg_, placing one at the same time before her; and

Anna immediately made signs that she wished to eat it. She offered me

at the same moment a small piece of money, which some one had given

her, as if for the purpose of buying the food. The bargain was made at

once; and she ate the egg, while I pocketed the money. I quite

expected she would try this over again, for she had some money, and

was fond of eggs. The very next day, in fact, she searched the word

out in her vocabulary, and brought it to her instructress, with an air

that quite explained her meaning. I placed an egg before her; she

touched it--touched the word; coaxed and patted the egg; and at last

burst into a fit of laughter, caused, no doubt, by pleasant

astonishment at having so easily obtained her wish. I hoped and

expected that she would propose to purchase, for I was anxious to find

out if she had any real notion of the use of money. My hopes were

fulfilled, for she offered at once her price of two centimes, with the

evident intention of making a purchase. Much to her astonishment,

however, this time I took both the money and the egg. At first she

laughed, evidently thinking that I was only joking. I gave her time to

comprehend that I was serious, and that, having taken both, I meant to

keep them. She acquiesced at last with regard to the egg; it was mine,

and I had a right to keep it if I liked; but she was indignant that I

did not return the money. She asked for it in {329} every way she was

capable of asking, and grew at last both red and angry at the delay. I

had tried her sufficiently. It was high time to prove myself an honest

man; so I gave her back her money, and she restored me to her good

graces. I was happy indeed to find so clear a sense of justice, so

complete a knowledge of the value of "mine" and "thine," in a creature

so defective in her animal organization.

Once in possession of a little stock of words, Anna was never weary of

augmenting it, and she soon found out a way of compelling us, almost,

to satisfy her wish. She would take the hand of her mistress, and with

it imitate the action of writing, by making points upon the paper with

the finger. If her wishes were complied with, she was delighted; but

if, to try her, the mistress pretended to hesitate, then Anna took the

matter into her own hands, and positively refused to do anything else.

Every other employment suggested to her would be indignantly rejected,

and she would persist in asking over and over again for the word she

wanted, never resting or letting any one else rest until she got it.

The nuns, of course, always ended by complying with her desires; and

it would be hard to say which felt most delight,--the blind girl, who

had succeeded in adding to her small stock of knowledge, or the

religious, who by the aid of Providence had enabled her to do so.

A mother who hears for the first time the low stammering of her child

can alone form a conception of all one feels at such a moment, for God

is very good; and when he imposed upon society the task of instructing

the ignorant, he attached an ineffable delight to the accomplishment

of that duty.

When Anna knew how to read and understand about forty substantives, I

taught her the manual alphabet, and from that moment I could test her

knowledge with unfailing exactitude. She first read the word with her

fingers, and then repeated it by means of the dactology; it was a

lesson in reading and writing both. She was soon sufficiently advanced

to venture upon verbs. I began with the imperative mood; not only

because it is the simplest form of the verb, but also because I myself

would have to use it in giving her the lesson. She seized with

wonderful facility upon the relative positions of the substantive and

verb.

I always made her perform the action signified by the verb which she

had learned, and thus the lesson became quite an amusement to her.

However silly in appearance might be the association between the verb

and substantive, she never failed to apprehend it; and when told to do

anything ridiculous or out of the common way, she enjoyed the fun, and

never failed to execute the commission to the best of her ability. If

I told her to walk upon the table, she would take off her shoes, climb

up, and walk cautiously upon it; if told to eat the chair, after a

minute's hesitation as to the best manner of complying with the order,

she would take it up and pretend to devour it. One day she was

terribly embarrassed by some one writing the following phrase: "Throw

your head on the floor." She read the sentence over and over again to

make sure that she was not mistaken, laughed very much, and then

suddenly growing serious, shook her head, as much as to say, the thing

was absolutely impossible. At last, however, and as if to finish the

business, she took her head in both her hands, and made a gesture, as

if to fling it on the floor. Having done this, she evidently felt that

nothing more could be expected from her, and showed herself both

pleased and proud at having understood the phrase, and found so easy a

method of getting out of the difficulty.

She distinguished very readily between the verbs "to lay down" and "to

throw down," clearly comprehending that the one action was to be {330}

done with vivacity, the other with caution; and it was curious to

watch her perplexity when commanded to throw down anything liable to

be broken. She knew well what would be the consequence of the command,

and you could see the questioning that went on in her own mind as to

how it could be accomplished with least damage to the article in

question. She would begin by feeling all along the ground, and trying

to form an exact idea of the distance it would have to fall; and then

at last she would throw it down with a mixture of care and yet of

caution, which showed she was perfectly aware of the mischief she was

doing.

The moment she thoroughly understood the imperative, we had only to

add her name or that of one of the sisters to produce the indicative;

and then, by changing Anna into I, she passed easily to the pronouns,

as thus: "Strike the table;" "Anna strikes the table;" "I strike the

table." I had at first omitted the article; but I soon perceived my

mistake. We have no means of teaching a deaf-mute the reason for

preceding a substantive by an article; and still more impossible would

it be to give any plausible explanation of the distinction between the

genders. Habit does this for each of us when we learn our mother

tongue; and habit and frequent repetition did it so well for Anna,

that now she rarely, if ever, makes any mistake.

When she had advanced thus far, I made her observe that by adding the

letters _en_, which constitute our Flemish plural, several of the same

sort of substantives were intended to be expressed; and passing from

this to numbers, I gave her a lesson in numeration. She readily seized

upon both ideas; and constant practice soon made her perfect in their

application.

Verbs such as _jeter_, to throw down, _poser_, to lay down, naturally

introduced the use of prepositions to express the mode in which the

verb acts upon the substantive. This enabled me to make various

combinations with words known to her already; and I found it of great

use to place the same word in such different positions in a phrase as

to alter entirely, or at least modify, the meaning.

The last lesson which she received was to make use of and understand

the meaning of the pronouns "my," "your," "our," and the conjunction

"and." We have also made her comprehend the use and meaning of

adjectives expressive of forms, as "square," "round," etc., as well as

the physical and mental state of being implied in the words "good,"

"bad," "sick," "well," etc. She makes such phrases as the following,

and reads them easily when they are given to her in writing: "Give me

my knitting;" "My work is on the table;" "My apron is square."

One last observation I must make about the pronouns. The third person

singular or plural would have been difficult to Anna, since, being

blind, she could not have distinguished whether the action spoken of

had been done by one person or by several; by "him," in fact, or by

"they." The pronouns which she can most readily comprehend are the

first and second; and to these I generally confine her. For "he" or

"they" I have substituted "one:" "One strikes the table."

Anna might have been taught the others; but she would often probably

have been mistaken in their application, and would perhaps have ended

by supposing that there was no positive rule in their regard, and that

they might be used as it were at random.

People only learn willingly what they can clearly comprehend; and if

children dislike instruction, the fault is almost always with the

master. If the latter would but bring his intelligence to the level of

his pupils, he might be almost certain of their attention.

To sum up the whole, I will give the order in which I taught her the

different parts of speech necessary for the knowledge of a language.

The substantive, because, being itself an object, it falls more

immediately beneath the {331} recognition of the senses; the verb,

because by the verb alone we speak, and without it there could be no

language; the preposition, because it indicates the nature of the

action expressed by the verb; and finally, the adjective and the

adverb. I had many reasons for keeping back these two last to the end.

Neither of them is essential to a phrase which can be complete without

them. Anna would have been much retarded in her progress if I had

stopped to teach her the attributes of words, when words themselves

were what she wanted. She could learn language only by use and habit;

and it was of the highest importance that she should acquire that

habit as speedily as possible. I threw aside, therefore, without

hesitation, all that could embarrass her progress, and confined

myself, in the first instance, to such things as it was absolutely

essential she should know, in order to be able to converse at all. It

may be asked why I taught her to make phrases by means of whole words,

instead of giving her the letters of the alphabet and teaching her to

make words themselves. The result of the mode I did adopt must be my

answer. Anna has already a clear idea of language; all her

acquisitions in the way of words are classed in her mind as in a

dictionary, and ready to come forth at a moment's notice. The reason

for this rapid progress is very plain. It is far less troublesome to

take a whole word, and put it in the grammatical order it ought to

occupy, than to be obliged to make the word itself by means of

separate letters. She had need of all her attention to learn the

elements of a phrase; and it would have been imprudent to weaken that

attention by directing it also to learn the elements of words. I

divided difficulties in order to overcome them: this was the secret of

my method, and the cause of its success. My lessons were also almost

or entirely an amusement to her; and sometimes I composed a phrase

which she first read, and acted afterward. Sometimes it was I who

performed the action, while she gave me an account of what I had done

in writing.

It was a lesson at once in reading and in writing, in hearing and in

speaking; and the moment we had got thus far, communication by means

of language was established between us. I had given my lessons at

first by words or phrases written in a book; but now, to test more

perfectly the knowledge she had acquired, and to prevent her reading

becoming a mere matter of form and guess-work, I cut all her phrases

into words, gummed them upon cardboard, and threw them pell-mell into

a box, from which she had to take out every separate word that she

required for a phrase. This new exercise vexed her very much at first;

but if it was tedious, it was also sure. By degrees she became

accustomed to it, and at last seemed to prefer it to the book,

probably because it admitted of greater facilities for varying her

phrases. Nevertheless it was troublesome work; and I was curious to

see if Anna would seek, of her own accord, to arrange her words in

such a way as to avoid the trouble of hunting through the whole mass

for every separate one she wanted. It seemed not unlikely, for she was

very ingenious; and so, in fact, it happened.

From time to time I observed that she put aside certain words, and

kept them separate from the others; and it was impossible to mistake

her exultation when these selected words were called for in her

lesson. Of course I saw them as she put them by; and, in order to

encourage her, I managed to introduce them pretty often into our

conversations. Acting also upon this hint, I had a drawer divided into

small compartments placed in the table at which she took her lessons.

Each compartment was intended for a separate class of words, but she

was permitted to arrange them according to her own ideas; and the

moment a word had been examined and understood, she placed it in the

compartment to which she imagined it belonged. Nouns, pronouns, verbs,

articles--each {332} had their separate partition; but I observed, with

delight, that when I gave her the verb "to drink," instead of placing

it with the other verbs, she put it at once into the compartment she

had destined for liquids. Having remarked that it was always employed

with these substantives, it naturally struck her that its proper place

would be among them. To casual observers this may seem but a trifling

thing to mention, but it was an act of reasoning; and in their

half-mutilated natures the whole power of instruction hangs so

entirely on the capacity for passing by an act of reason from one fact

to another, from the known to that which is still unknown, that every

indication which a pupil gives of possessing such capacity is hailed

with delight by her teacher as an assurance of further progress.

Without it he knows that instruction would be impossible.

When Anna was first introduced into my establishment, she evidently

comprehended that she had fallen among strangers. She brought us her

poor playthings, and insisted on our examining them attentively, for

she was a baby still; a baby of twenty years of age indeed, but as

anxious to be caressed and as requiring of notice as a child of two

years old. When led in the evening to her bedside, she immediately

began to undress herself, and the next morning rose gaily, showing

herself much pleased with the good bed in which she had passed the

night. She made a little inclination of the head to the sister who

waited on her, as if to salute her. At breakfast we observed that she

ate with more cleanliness and propriety than is usual among the blind.

Her first regular lesson was to knit; and we found it far less

difficult to teach her the stitch itself than to habituate her to work

steadily for a long time together. She had evidently no idea of making

it the regular occupation of the day. She would begin by knitting a

little; then she would undo or tear up all that was already done; and

this would happen regularly over and over again at least twenty times

a day. It was weary work at first; but after a time we managed to turn

this dislike for continuous occupation into a means of teaching her

more important things. The moment she threw aside her work, we took it

up, and pretended to insist upon her continuing it; and then at last,

when we saw that she was quite vexed and wearied out by our

solicitations, we used to offer her her letters. She would take them,

and, evidently to avoid further worry, begin to study them; but the

letters, like the knitting, were soon flung aside, and then the work

once more was put into her hands. In this way, and while she fancied

she was only indulging in her own caprices, we were advancing steadily

toward our object--training her to occupation, and giving her the

means of future communication with her fellow-creatures. We also

discovered that it was quite possible to pique her out of her idle

habits; for one day in the earlier period of her education, when she

happened to be more than usually idle and inattentive, her mistress

led her toward a class of children busily employed in working, and

said to her by signs, "These little children work; and you, who are

twice their size, do you wish to sit there doing nothing?" From that

time we had less trouble with her; and once she had learned to knit

well and easily, this kind of work seemed to become a positive

necessity to her. She delighted in feeling with her fingers the

progress she was making, and the needles were scarcely ever out of her

hands. When Sunday came, she asked as usual for her knitting, and was

terribly disappointed when she found that it was withheld. I took the

opportunity to give her an idea of time--a very important point in her

future education; so I said to her, "You shall not knit _to-day;_ but

after having slept once more--_to-morrow_ in fact--the needles shall

be given to you again." I foresaw this to be an explanation that would

need repeating; and {333} accordingly, the very next Sunday, she asked

again for her knitting, and was again refused. She was vexed at first,

but grew calm directly I had assured her she should have it "on the

morrow."

Many weeks afterward, and when she seemed quite to understand that

work on this day was forbidden, she came with a very serious

countenance and demanded her knitting; then bursting into a fit of

laughing, made signs that she knew she was not to knit on that day,

but that to-morrow she should have her work again. She obtained a

knowledge of the past and future much sooner than she did of the

present, using the signs expressive of the two first long before she

made an attempt even at the latter.

It was a matter of great importance that she should understand them

all; therefore I not only introduced them over and over again in our

conversations, in order to render her familiar with them, but I

watched her carefully to see that she made a right use of them in her

communications with her companions. A circumstance at last occurred

which satisfied me that she was perfect in the lesson. On the feast of

St. Aloysius Gonzaga she went with the other children to a church

where the festival was being celebrated. On her return she expressed

her gratitude for the pleasure she had received, and the next morning

I observed that she told every one she met that "yesterday she had

been to such a church;" while the day afterward I perceived that in

telling the same story she made the sign of "yesterday" twice over--a

proof how perfectly she comprehended the nature and division of time.

For a long time after she began to reside with us, she never mentioned

either her grandmother or aunt, probably because she was so completely

absorbed by the lessons of her new existence as to have no time to

think of them. Gradually, however, they came back to her recollection,

and then she spoke of them with gratitude and affection. She began

also to compare her present state with her past, evidently considering

the change for the better in her physical and mental being as due to

the care that has been bestowed on her here. She has twenty little

ways of expressing her gratitude. "My face was all over blotches," she

says by signs; "I could neither write nor walk; now I can hold myself

upright, and I can read, and know how to knit." This consciousness,

however, does not at all interfere with her affection for her

grandmother; and when the old woman died she grieved for some time

bitterly. What idea does the word "death" bring to the mind of this

child? I know not; but when we told her about her grandmother, her

mistress made her lie down on the floor, and then reminded her of a

child who had died in the establishment about a year before; after

which we explained to her that the body would be laid in the ground,

and be seen upon earth no more. She wept a great deal at first; but

suddenly drying her tears knelt down, making signs to her mistress and

companions that they should do the same; and, that there might be no

mistake about her meaning, she held up her rosary, to show them they

must pray. She did not forget her poor grandmother for a considerable

time, and every morning made it a point to inquire from her companions

if they also had remembered her that day. One of her aunts died about

the same time, leaving to Anna as a legacy a portion of her wardrobe.

Anna's attention instantly became concentrated upon this new

acquisition, and gowns and handkerchiefs underwent a minute and

searching examination. The gowns pleased her exceedingly; so also did

some woollen pelerines, which she instantly observed must be intended

for the winter. At that moment she was a complete woman, with all a

woman's innate love of dress and desire for ornamentation. "Are there

not also ear-rings?" she asked, anxiously; and being answered in the

negative, she expressed clearly, by her gestures, that it was a pity:

it was quite a pity.

{334}

Anna soon came to understand that I was her master, and she attached

herself in consequence more strongly to me than to any one else, for

she perfectly appreciated the service she has received. One day after

a lesson, at which I had kept her until she thoroughly understood it,

she showed herself more than usually grateful. She took my hand and

kissed it repeatedly, gratitude and affection beaming in her face, and

then, drawing her mistress toward her, she made her write, "I love M.

Carton." I, on my part, was enchanted to find that she thus, of her

own accord, asked for words to express the sentiments of the heart;

and I felt not a little proud of being the object by whom this latent

feeling had first been called into expression. But if Anna loves me,

she also fears me. In the beginning of her education, I was the only

person about her who had strength enough to prevent her scratching or

kicking--exercises to which she was rather addicted when put in a

passion. She likewise knew that it was I who imposed any penance on

her, and that when she was compelled to remain without handkerchief or

cap in the schoolroom, it was to M. Carton she was indebted for the

humiliation. One day, in a fit of anger, she tore her cap; and her

mistress, as soon as she was calm enough to understand her,

remonstrated with her, telling her at the same time that I should be

informed of her misdeeds. To escape the punishment which she knew must

follow, she had recourse to the other children, acknowledged her fault

to them, and begged them to kneel down and join their hands, in order

to obtain her pardon. Not one of the children, whether among the blind

or deaf mutes, misunderstood her signs, and this was one of the

actions of Anna which astonished me the most. Some one was foolish

enough once to tell her that I was going away for some days, and she

took advantage of the chance to behave extremely bad. They made the

sign by which she understands that they mean me, and by which they

generally contrived to frighten her into submission; but it was all in

vain. She laughed in the face of her mistress, and told her she was

quite aware that I should not be back for three days. They have taken

good care ever since not to let her know when I am absent, though it

probably would make no difference now, for her character has

completely changed since those early days, and it is six months at

least since she has indulged in anything like a fit of passion. After

me, her greatest affection is reserved for my friend, M. Cauwe. She is

quite delighted when he comes, and feels his face all over to make

sure that it is he. If she has a new dress, he must feel and remark

it; if she learns a new phrase, or a new kind of work, it must be

shown to him immediately, in order that she may receive his praise;

and if by any chance his visit has been delayed, she is sure to

perceive it, and to inquire into the cause of his absence.

Anna is also very fond of all the younger deaf and dumb children. She

takes them on her knees, carries them in her arms, pets and punishes

them, and adopts a general and motherly air of kindness and protection

toward them. One of them the other day happened to be in an

exceedingly troublesome and tormenting mood. Anna could not keep her

quiet, or prevent her teasing; and at last, rather than lose her

temper, and strike her, as she would formerly have done, she left her

usual place, and went to sit at the opposite side of the room. In

fact, she never now attempts to attack any of her companions, though

she does not fail in some way or other to pay back any provocation she

has received. She takes nothing belonging to others, but attaches

herself strongly to her own possessions, and is particularly indignant

if they attempt to meddle with her objects for instruction. One of the

blind children happened to take a sheet of her writing in points, in

order to try and read it; but Anna was no {335} sooner aware of the

theft than she angrily reclaimed it. The next day the same child

begged as a favor that she would lend her a sheet, in order to

practise her reading; but Anna curtly refused, observing, that

yesterday she had taken it without leave, and that to-day she

certainly should not have it, even for the asking. Anna's chief pet

and charge among the little children is a child, blind, and maimed of

one arm, called Eugenie. When this little thing was coming first to

the establishment Anna was told of it, and the expected day named for

her arrival. She immediately set to work and made all sorts of

arrangements in her own mind for the reception of the new child. The

mistress would, of course, teach it to read; but it would have a seat

beside Anna, and with the companion whom she already had, there would

be three to walk and amuse themselves together. It so happened that

Eugenie did not arrive on the expected day. Anna was quite downcast in

consequence; and when at last it did appear, it instantly became the

object of all her tenderest petting and endearment. She led it to its

seat, tried to make it understand all that it would have to do and

learn, and at last, when she touched its little arm, and found that it

was maimed, and incapable of being used, she burst into tears, and was

for a long time inconsolable. I tried to find out the cause of her

grief, and in what she considered the greatness of the child's

misfortune to consist, and she immediately directed my attention to

the fact that the child would never be able to learn to knit. The

power of occupation had been such an inestimable boon to herself, that

she naturally felt any inability on that score to be the most

intolerable misfortune that could befall a human being. When we

assured her that Eugenie would be able to knit as well and easily as

she did herself, she became calm. The next day, however, she was

discovered trying to knit with both hands shut, as if they had been

maimed like the blind child's, and she immediately made her mistress

observe that in such a state she could neither knit, blow her nose,

nor dress herself, ending all by expressing the immense happiness she

felt at possessing the free use of her hands. Providence has provided

an antidote to every misfortune. The blind child pities the deaf-mute,

the deaf-mute sighs over the blind, and the blind, deaf, and dumb girl

feels her heart filled with inexpressible compassion for one deprived

of the free use of her hands. Anna kept her word, and took great care

of the little Eugenie. She placed herself indeed somewhat in the

position of a mother to the child, watched over its conduct, examined

its work, and went so far as occasionally to administer a slight

correction.

If the weather was cold, she never went to bed herself without feeling

that Eugenie was well covered up, and giving her her blessing; a good

deed she always took care to make known to me in the morning. When

first the little thing came it was rather refractory and disinclined

to submit to rules, and the mistress acquainted Anna with the fact.

"Does not she like to knit?" asked Anna. "It is not with that,"

answered the mistress, "but with her reading lesson, that she will not

take pains." Anna immediately went over to the child, to try and

persuade her to fulfil her duty. She took her hand, laid it on the

book, remained for at least a quarter of an hour persuading and

encouraging her; and then, perceiving that she had begun to be really

attentive, bade her get up and ask pardon of her mistress for her past

disobedience.

Another day she examined the child's knitting, and finding it badly

done, shook her head gravely, in sign of disapprobation. She then took

Eugenie's hand, made her feel with her own fingers the long loose

stitches she had made; and making her kneel down in the middle of the

room, pinned the work to her back, with threats of even more serious

punishment in the future. Just then the {336} mistress joined the

class, and found Eugenie in tears, and on her knees, with her work

pinned behind her. "Eugenie," she asked, "what are you doing there,

and why do you cry?" "The deaf and dumb girl has punished me because

my knitting was badly done," said the child; "and she says, when M.

Carton comes in, he will throw a glass of water in my face." In order

to prevent this terrible assault, the mistress advised her to ask

pardon of Anna, which she immediately did; but the latter felt it due

to the dignity of the situation to allow herself to be entreated a

long time before she consented to grant it.

But though Anna considered it a part of her duty to punish Eugenie for

her idleness, she was always otherwise very gentle to the child. In

giving her a lesson, her mistress, with a view of testing her

knowledge of the verb in question, once bade her "strike Eugenie."

Anna behaved very prettily on this occasion. Before she would perform

the act required, she took the blind child's hand and laid it on the

letters, in order to show her that if she struck her, it was not

because she was angry with her, but simply because that phrase had

been given to her as an exercise in language. On another occasion one

of the blind children disturbed the arrangement of her words in their

separate cases, and one or two of them were lost. Anna wept bitterly;

and not content with doing everything in her own power to discover the

author of the mischief, she asked her mistress to assist in her

researches. The guilty one was found out at last, and, in the heat of

the moment, Anna demanded that she should be punished; but yielding

afterward to the natural goodness of her heart, she went herself and

interceded for the little criminal. "She is blind, like myself," she

said, by way of excuse; and then embraced her with great cordiality in

token of forgiveness. From that time, however, she became suspicious,

and scarcely dared to leave her place for fear of a similar

misfortune. Some one, seeing this, advised her to keep her letters in

her pocket. "Very pleasant indeed!" she answered, bursting into a fit

of laughter; "and a nice way, certainly, of preventing confusion! No;

I will ask M. Carton to give me a lock and key for my box, and then no

one can touch them without my knowing it." This was accordingly done;

and the key once safe in her pocket, Anna could leave her property in

perfect security that it would not be injured or stolen in her

absence.

Anna likes dainty food, and is very fond of fruit. I suspected,

however, when first she came, that she had not an idea of the way in

which it was procured. She had been so shut up in her old home, that

nature was still an unexplored page to her; and blind, deaf, and dumb

as she was, it was only through the fingers that even now this poor

child could ever be taught to read and comprehend it. It is not

difficult, therefore, to imagine her astonishment and joy at each new

discovery of this kind which she makes. One day I led her to an

apricot tree, and made her feel and examine it all over. She dislikes

trees extremely, probably because in her solitary excursions she must

have often hurt herself against them. She obeyed me, however, though

very languidly and unwillingly at first; but I never saw such

astonishment on any face before as I did on hers, when, after a short

delay, I took her hand and laid it on an apricot. She clasped her

hands delightedly together, then made me touch the fruit, as if she

expected that I also would be astonished; and then recommenced her

examination of the tree, returning over and over again, with an

expression of intense joy over all her person, to the fruit she had so

unexpectedly discovered. I permitted her at last to pull the fruit and

eat it, and she kissed my hand most affectionately, in token of

gratitude for the immense favor I had conferred upon her. After

classtime she returned alone to the garden; {337} and as I foresaw

that the discovery of the morning would not be sterile, but that, once

put on the track, she would continue her explorations on her own

account, I watched her closely. So, in fact, it happened.

She was no sooner in the garden than she began carefully to examine

all the plants and trees around her, and it was amusing beyond

anything to watch her making her way cautiously among the cabbages,

touching the leaves and stems, and trying with great care and prudence

to discover if this plant also produced apricots. I suffered her to

continue this exercise for a little time in vain; then coming to the

rescue, after making her comprehend that cabbages, though good in

themselves to be eaten, did not bear apricots, I led her to various

kinds of fruit-trees growing in the garden. I did not name any of them

to her then, for I knew that in time she would learn to distinguish

one from the other, and she had still so much to discover of nature

and her ways, that I did not like to delay her by dwelling on

distinctions which were, comparatively speaking, of little consequence

to her in that early stage of her education. This little course of

botany we continued throughout the year. She was taught to observe the

fall of the leaf, encouraged to examine the tree when entirely bereft

of foliage, and when the spring-buds began to swell she was once more

brought to touch them, and made to understand that they were about to

burst again into leaf and flowers. The moment the leaves were visible

she inquired of one of her companions if the tree was going to bear

fruit likewise; and received for answer that it would certainly do so

whenever the weather should become sufficiently warm. Satisfied with

this information, she waited some time with patience; but a few very

warm days chancing to occur in the month of May, she reminded her

companion of what she had been told, and inquired eagerly if the fruit

was at last come.

In this way, during all that summer, she found constant amusement in

watching the progress of the different fruit-trees, and I found her

one day examining a pear with great attention. She had not met with

one before, so it was quite a discovery to her, and she begged me to

let her have it in order that she might show it to her mistress and

learn its name. With all her love of fruit, however, I must record it

to the honor of this poor child that she never attempted to touch it

without permission; and that having been guided once to a tree by one

of her deaf-mute companions, and incited to gather the fruit, she made

a very intelligible sign that it must not be done without an order

from me. On another occasion I gave her a bunch of currants and told

her to eat them, but the moment she touched them she discovered that

they were not ripe, and made signs to me that she "must wait for a few

days longer, and that then they would be good to eat."

Her delicacy of touch is in fact surprising. I have often effaced her

letters, and flattened them with my nail until it seemed impossible to

discover even a trace of them, and yet with her finger she has never

failed in following out the form. She often also finds pins and small

pieces of money, and picks them up when walking. She is very proud on

these occasions, and takes good care to inform any one who comes near

her of the fact. She is very active now, and always ready to go and

look for any thing or person that she wants; and if she does not

succeed in finding them, she engages one of her companions to aid her

in the search. She seemed indeed always to suspect that we knew better

than she did what was passing around us; though it was probably some

time before she asked herself what the nature of her own deficiency

might be. A day came, however, upon which she obtained some clearer

knowledge on the subject; and this was the way it happened.

She had dropped one of her knitting-needles, and after a vain attempt

to {338} find it for herself, she was obliged to have recourse to her

mistress, who immediately picked it up and gave it back to her. Anna

appeared to reflect earnestly for a moment, and then drawing the

sister toward her writing-table, she wrote: "Theresa," naming one of

the pupils of the institution--"Theresa is deaf; Lucy is deaf; Jane is

blind; I am blind and deaf; you are--;" and then she presented her

tablets to the sister, in order that the latter might explain to her

the nature of that other faculty which she possessed, and which

enabled her to find so easily anything that was lost.

This was a problem which had evidently occupied her for a long time;

and with her head bent forward and fingers ready to seize the

slightest gesture, Anna waited eagerly for the answer by which she

hoped the mystery would be solved to her at last. In a second or two

the embarrassment of the mistress was nearly equal to the eagerness of

the pupil; but after a minute's hesitation she, with great tact,

resolved to repeat the action which had caused Anna's question. Making

the blind-mute walk down the room with her, she desired her once more

to drop her needle and then to pick it up again, after which she wrote

upon the board, "The needle falls; you touch the needle with your

hand; you pick it up with your fingers." Anna read these words with an

air which seemed to say, "I know all that already; but there must be

something more;" and so there was.

Her mistress made her once more drop her needle; and then, just as

Anna was stooping to pick it up, she dragged her, in spite of the poor

girl's resistance, so far from it that she could not touch it either

with her hands or feet. "It is ever so far away," Anna said, in her

mute language; and stooping down to the floor, she stretched out her

hand as far as ever it would go in a vain attempt to reach it. The

sister waited until she was a little pacified, and then wrote: "The

needle falls." Anna answered: "Yes." "The needle is far off," the

sister wrote again; and Anna replied: "Alas, it is." "Sister N. cannot

touch the needle with her hand." "Nor I either," Anna wrote in answer.

"Sister N. can touch the needle with her eyes." Then followed a mimic

scene, in which the thing expressed by words was put into action. Anna

understood at last; but, evidently in order to make certain that she

did, she desired the sister to guide her hand once more to the fallen

needle. Her mistress complied with her request, and Anna was

convinced. The experiment was repeated over and over again. Anna threw

her needle into various places, and then asked the sister if she could

touch it without stooping. "Yes," replied her mistress; "I touch the

needle with my eyes." "Can you pick it up with your eyes?" asked Anna.

The sister made her feel that her eyes were not fingers; and then once

more picking up the needle she gave it to Anna, to be satisfied that

she at last understood the nature of the faculty which her

instructress possessed and which was wanting in herself.

From that time she invariably made a distinction between the blind

children and those who were merely deaf-mutes. She had always hitherto

been ready enough to avenge herself on any of her companions who

struck her, whether accidentally or on purpose. Now if she found it

was a blind child who had done so, she would of her own accord excuse

her, saying, "She is blind; she cannot touch me with her eyes when I

am at a distance from her." In the same manner, if she lost anything,

she would ask the first deaf-mute whom she met to help her to look for

it, while she never attempted to seek a similar service from any of

the children whom she knew to be blind. She showed her knowledge of

the difference between the two classes most distinctly upon one

occasion, when her knitting having got irretrievably out of order, she

communicated her perplexity to the {339} blind child at her side. The

latter wanted to take it from her in order to arrange it; but Anna

drew it back, and, touching first the eyes of the child and then her

own, as if she would have said, "You also are blind, and can do no

better than myself," she waited quietly until she could give it to the

mistress to disentangle for her.

Anna delights in telling her companions all her adventures, though she

takes care never to mention her faults or their punishment. She will

acknowledge the former if taxed with them, but she does not like to be

reminded either of the one or of the other. "I have done my penance,"

she says: "it is past; you must not speak of it any more." With this

exception she tells all that she has done or intends to do; and she is

enchanted beyond measure when she can inform them that she has

succeeded in playing a trick on her mistress. She will tell the story

with infinite glee, and always contrives exceedingly well to put the

thing in its most ridiculous light before them.

She was fond of milk, and observed, or was told, one day that a cup of

milk had been given to a child who was sick. The next morning, while

in chapel, she burst into tears. Her mistress led her from the class,

and asked what was the matter. She coughed, showed her tongue, held

out her hand, that the mistress might feel her pulse; in fact she was

as ill as she could be, and excessively thirsty. A cup of milk was

brought; and the medicine was so good, that five minutes afterward she

managed to eat her breakfast with an excellent appetite. During the

recreation that followed, she took care to explain to her companions

the means by which she had procured herself the milk. A few days

afterward she recommenced the comedy, and played it so well, that,

thinking she really was ill, her mistress desired her to go to bed.

This was more than she wished for; but she went upstairs, trusting, no

doubt, that something would happen to extricate her from the dilemma.

Her mistress went to see her; and finding her sitting on the side of

the bed, asked why she did not get into it, as she had been desired.

"Madame," said Anna, "it is very cold, but I should get warm if you

would give me a cup of milk; that would cure me in no time; and a

little bread and butter with it would also do me good." The sister

then perceived how the case really stood, and answered promptly, "If

you will get into bed you shall have the milk, but not the bread and

butter. If, on the contrary, you prefer to go downstairs, you shall

have the bread and butter, but not the milk. Which do you choose?"

"Both," quoth Anna. But as both were not to be had, she was obliged to

content herself with the amusement of telling her intended trick to

her companions, which she did with many regrets that it had not been

successful.

But though Anna likes to tell all these little schemes and adventures

to any one who will listen to her; and though, if taxed with them by

her mistress, she is quite ready to acknowledge them with a laugh, it

is far otherwise when the action itself contains anything seriously

contrary to honesty or justice. In that case she takes good care to be

silent on the subject; and if silence is impossible, she endeavors, in

all manner of ways, to explain it away or excuse it.

One day she entered the schoolroom before any of the other pupils, and

finding that a piece of wire, belonging to the pedal of the piano, was

loose, she broke it quite off, put it into her pocket, and returned

triumphantly to her place. Her mistress, happening to be in the room

at the moment, saw the whole affair, and placed herself in her way, in

order that Anna might know she had been observed. She then asked her

what she had put in her pocket, and Anna instantly replied that it was

her beads. Her mistress gave her to understand that she was trying to

deceive her, and made her touch, as a {340} proof, the other end of

the wire which she had broken. She was evidently confused, and became

as red as fire, but with marvellous adroitness managed to let the wire

slip out of her pocket to the ground. She had, of course, no idea that

it would make a noise in falling; and fancying that she had concealed

the theft, continued positively to deny it. In order still better to

prove her innocence, she then knelt down and began feeling all over

the floor, until she had found the wire which she had dropped, and

holding it up in triumph, said, by signs, "I will ask M. Carton to

give it to me that I may make it into a cross for my beads."

In this way she is always being ingenious in finding excuses for her

faults. Her mistress once complained of her knitting, and she

immediately held up her needles, which were bent, as if she would have

said, "How is it possible to knit with such needles as these?" Another

day, feeling more idle than usual, and wishing to remain in bed, she

made them count her pulse, and begged by signs that they would send

immediately for M. Verte, the physician of the house. We knew well it

was only a trick to stay a little longer in bed, and she was the first

to acknowledge it as soon as she had risen.

I like to watch her when she fancies herself alone, as I then often

find in her most trivial actions a something interesting or suggestive

for her future improvement. I discovered her once alone in the

class-room and busily engaged in examining every corner of the desks.

All at once she went toward the black table on which the deaf-mutes

write their exercises, and taking a piece of chalk, began to trace

lines upon it at random. I was curious to know what discovery she was

trying to make, and in a few minutes I perceived it. As soon as she

had traced her lines, she passed her hands over them to see if she

could read them. She was aware that her companions read upon this

board; and as she knew of no other method of reading than by letters

in relief, she naturally supposed that the lines she had traced would

be sufficiently raised to enable her to do so. For a few minutes she

continued thus trying to follow with her finger the chalk-lines she

had made; but finding considerable difficulty in doing so, she at last

returned to her book, compared the letters in it with the lines on the

board, and evidently pronounced a verdict in favor of the former. I

could see, in fact, that she was quite delighted with its apparent

superiority, and she never attempted to write on the black-board

again.

She often makes signs that seem to indicate an inexplicable knowledge

of things of which it is impossible she can naturally have any real

perception. She was born blind; she can look at the sun without

blinking, and the pupil of the eye is as opaque as the skin.

Nevertheless her mistress happening to ask her one night why she had

left off her work, she answered that it was too dark to work any

longer, and that she must wait for a light. [Footnote 76] In chapel,

also, she has evidently impressions which she does not receive

elsewhere. She likes to go there; often asks to be permitted to do so,

and while in it always remains in an attitude and with an expression

of face which would indicate a profound consciousness of the presence

of God. One of her companions once told her that I was ill. Anna

perceived that the child was crying: "I will not cry," she said

immediately, "but I will pray;" and she actually did go down on her

knees, and remained in that position for nearly a quarter of an hour.

She told me this herself, and I was enchanted; for who can doubt that

God held himself honored by the supplicating attitude of his poor

mutilated creature? And yet what passes in the mind of this child

during the moments which she spends in the attitude of prayer? What is

her idea of {341} God? What is the language of her heart when she thus

places herself in solemn adoration in his presence? What is, in fact,

her prayer? I know not; it is a mystery yet a mystery--which I trust

she will some day find words to explain to me herself. One thing alone

is certain;--there is _that_ in her heart and mind which has not been

placed there by man, and which tells her there is a Father and a God

for her in heaven.

[Footnote 76: She possibly may have learned the expression from some

of the deaf-mutes not blind.--TR.]

CONCLUSION.

Extract of a letter from M. Carton, announcing the death of the blind

mute, Anna Timmermans, after a residence of twenty-one years in his

establishment at Bruges:

BRUGES, Sept. 26, 1859.

GENTLEMEN,--I write to you in deep affliction, for death hath this

day deprived me of my blind mute, Anna Timmermans, whom you may

remember to have seen at my establishment last year.

She was just forty-three years of age; and twenty-one of these had

been passed at my asylum. God has taken her from this life to bestow

upon her a better, and his holy will be done! It was a great mercy

to her, but I shall regret her all my lifetime, even while rejoicing

at her present happiness, and feeling most thankful for that love

and knowledge of Almighty God to which, through all the physical

difficulties of her position, he enabled her to attain. She loved

him indeed with all the _naivete_, and invoked him with the simple

confidence of a child; and the last weeks of her life were almost

entirely devoted to earnest entreaties that he would call her to

himself.

You are the first to whom I announce my loss, because of all those

persons who have visited my house, you seem best to have

comprehended the painful position of a deaf-mute, and the exquisite

sensibility which they are capable of feeling toward any one who

shows them sympathy and affection. I have already described Anna as

she was when she came first among us--a girl twenty-one years of age,

with the stature of a woman and the habits of a child. I need not

recall her to your remembrance as she appeared to you last year, a

woman thoughtful beyond the common, and endowed with such true

knowledge of God and of religion, that you deemed it no indignity to

ask her prayers, and were pleased by her simple promise never to

forget you.

Thanks be to God for his great goodness toward his poor, afflicted

child! She not only learned to know him and to love him, but we were

enabled by degrees to place her in still closer communication with

him, by means of those sacraments which he has appointed to convey

grace to the soul. The last confession which she made previous to

receiving extreme unction reminds me of all the difficulty we had

long ago experienced in persuading her to make her first.

"It will soon be Easter," said one day to her the sister appointed

to prepare her for this duty. "It will soon be Easter, and then you

and all of us will have to go to confession."

"What is confession?" asked Anna. "It is to tell our sins to the

priest," explained the sister; "and to ask pardon of them from God."

"But why should we do that?" quoth Anna.

"Because," replied the sister, "God himself has commanded us to

confess our sins. You will have to do it, therefore, like the rest

of us; and when you go to confession, you must say in your heart to

God, 'I am sorry for my sins. Forgive me, O my God; and I promise I

will sin no more.'"

"And what are the sins I must confess?" asked Anna. She was standing

in the midst of her class, who had all assembled to receive

instruction, at the moment when she put the question.

"You have been in a passion," replied the sister; "you must confess

{342} that. You have broken M. Carton's spectacles. You have torn

the cap of Sister So-and-so. You have scratched one of the blind

children;--and you must mention all these things when you go to

confession."

"All these things are past and gone," replied Anna, resolutely;

"when I broke M. Carton's spectacles, I was made, for my punishment,

to kneel down; and," she continued, lightly passing one hand over

the other, as if rubbing out something, "that was effaced. When I

tore Sister So-and-so's cap, I was not allowed any coffee; and,"

repeating the action with her hands, "that was effaced. When I

scratched the blind child, I went to bed without supper; and that

was effaced. I will not, therefore, confess any of these things."

"But, Anna," replied the sister, "we are all obliged to go to

confession. I am going myself, as well as you."

"Oui da! Have you, then, also, been in a passion, my sister? Have

you broken M. Carton's spectacles, torn our sister's cap, and

scratched a blind child?"

Anna asked these questions with an immense air of triumph, and

waited the answer with a wicked smile, which seemed to say she had

put the sister in a dilemma. Not one of the class misunderstood the

little malice of her questions. Indeed, the uncharitable surmise as

to the nature of their mistress's conduct appeared so piquant to all

of them, that they unanimously insisted on its receiving a reply. It

is not difficult, indeed, to imagine their amusement, for they were

all daughters of Eve; and, beside, the best of children have an

especial delight in embarrassing their superiors. Altogether it was

a scene for a painter.

"I have not been in a passion; God forbid!" replied the poor sister,

gently. "And I have not scratched or done injury to any one; but I

_have_ done so-and-so, and so-and-so." And here, with the greatest

_naivete_ and humility, the sister mentioned some of her own

shortcomings. "I have done so-and-so and so-and-so, and am going to

confess them; for I know I have sinned by doing these things; but I

hope God will pardon me, and give me grace not to offend him again

in like manner."

When the children heard this humble confession, they one by one

quietly left the class, like those in the gospel, beginning with the

eldest; but Anna, even while acknowledging herself defeated, could

not resist the small vengeance of giving the sister a lecture on her

peccadilloes.

"Remember, my sister, you are never again to do so-and-so and

so-and-so. You must be very sorry, and promise to be wiser another

time. And above all other things, you must go to confession to

obtain God's pardon."

"And you?" asked the sister, as her only answer to this grave

exhortation.

"And I also will go to confession," replied Anna, completely

vanquished at last by the tenderness and humility of the good

religious.

From that time, in fact, Anna went regularly to confession; and so

far from having any difficulty in persuading her to do so, she often

reminded us herself when the time was approaching for the

performance of that duty.

During the winter preceding her death she grew weaker from day to

day; and her loss of appetite, extreme emaciation, and inability to

exert herself, all convinced us that we were about to lose her. She

herself often spoke about dying, though for a long time she would

not permit any one else to address her on the subject. If any of the

sisters even hinted at her danger, she would grow quite pale, and

turn off the conversation; and even when she alluded of her own

accord to the symptoms that alarmed her, it seemed as if, like many

other invalids, she did so in order to be reassured as to her state.

She became convinced at last, however, that she could not recover,

and from that moment her life was one uninterrupted act of

resignation {343} to the will of God, submission to his providence,

and hope and confidence in his mercy. These sentiments never forsook

her even for a moment. "I suffer," she used to say,--"I suffer a

great deal; but Jesus suffered more;" and, embracing her crucifix,

she would renew all her good resolutions to suffer patiently, and

her earnest entreaties for grace to do so.

Previous to receiving the last sacraments, Anna disposed of

everything belonging to her in favor of her companions, and then

causing them all to be brought to her bedside, she kissed each one

affectionately, and bade her adieu. After that she refused to see

any of them again, seeking only the company of the sisters, and of

that one in particular who best understood the silent language of

the fingers. "Let us speak a little," the poor sufferer would often

say, "of God and heaven;" and then would follow long and earnest

conversations full of faith and hope and love, confidence in the

mercies of Almighty God, and gratitude for his goodness.

During these communications Anna would become quite absorbed, as it

were, in the love of God; her poor face would brighten into an

expression of absolute beauty; and she seemed to lose all sense of

present suffering in her certain hope and expectation of the joy

that was about to come in on her soul.

"A little more," she would often say, when she fancied the

conversation was about to finish; "speak to me a little more of God.

I love him and he loves me. O my dear sister, will you not also come

soon to heaven, and love him for evermore?"

Her agony commenced on the morning of the 26th of September, and she

expired about noon, so quietly that we scarce perceived the moment

in which she passed away (safe and happy, as I trust) to the

presence of her God.

I recommend her to your good prayers; and I trust that she also will

sometimes think of us and pray for us in heaven.

----

{344}

From Macmillan's Magazine.

TWILIGHT IN THE NORTH.

"UNTIL THE DAY BREAK, AND THE SHADOWS FLEE AWAY."

Oh the long northern twilight between the day and the night,

When the heat and the weariness of the world are ended quite;

When the hills grow dim as dreams; and the crystal river seems

Like that River of Life from out the Throne where the blessed walk in white.

Oh the weird northern twilight, which is neither night nor day,

When the amber wake of the long-set sun still marks his western way;

And but one great golden star in the deep blue east afar

Warns of sleep and dark and midnight--of oblivion and decay.

Oh the calm northern twilight, when labor is all done,

And the birds in drowsy twitter have dropped silent one by one;

And nothing stirs or sighs in mountains, waters, skies--

Earth sleeps--but her heart waketh, till the rising of the sun.

Oh the sweet, sweet twilight, just before the time of rest,

When the black clouds are driven away, and the stormy winds suppressed:

And the dead day smiles so bright, filling earth and heaven with light--

You would think 'twas dawn come back again--but the light is in the west.

Oh the grand solemn twilight, spreading peace from pole to pole!--

Ere the rains sweep o'er the hill-sides, and the waters rise and roll,

In the lull and the calm, come, O angel with the palm--

In the still northern twilight, Azrael, take my soul.

----

{345}

From Chambers's Journal.

A NIGHT IN A GLACIER.

Nothing is more common than to hear the wish expressed among ordinary

tourists "to see Switzerland in the winter;" and nothing is more

disappointing than its fulfilment. To _see_ Switzerland then is just

what you cannot do; all that is visible is one vast sheet of blinding

snow, unrelieved by a particle of color; and the view is not even

grand--it is simply monotonous. However, in April, 1864, I made the

experiment of choosing that month, instead of the conventional August,

for a mountaineering ramble; and having been weather-bound at least

half a dozen times, in various places, found myself in the same

miserable predicament, at the hospice of the Great St. Bernard. It was

terribly wearisome work. We had exhausted all our small-talk, had

discussed all the celebrated passages of the Alps, from that of

Hannibal with his vinegar-cruets to that of Macdonald with his

dragoons; had worked the piano to death by playing derisive waltzes;

had elicited fearful wheezings from the harmonium, and blundered

inappropriate marches on the organ--when, early on the third morning,

two momentous events occurred. In the first place, the weather had

become suddenly fine; and in the second, the news had arrived that a

party of Italian wood-carvers had reached St. Remy, on their passage

to the Rhone valley, and that two of their number had left the main

body on the previous evening, avowing their intention of making their

way to a little stone hut, which is used in summer as a dairy for the

supply of the hospice, and passing the night there. This hut, however,

had been visited that morning, and found to be untenanted; and as the

traces of the two wanderers had been obliterated by the snow during

the night, the messenger had been sent forward to obtain assistance in

the search for them.

Though the unusually large fall of snow in the winter of 1863-64 made

mountain-climbing singularly easy in the past autumn (Mont Blanc was

ascended by more than seventy tourists in the latter year), yet in the

spring the passes were rendered more than usually difficult by the

loose snow which the sun had not yet been powerful enough to solidify

by regelation. Most travellers who cross in summer must have noticed a

line of stout posts about ten or twelve feet high, which are placed on

the most elevated points of the path, so that their summits, which the

snow rarely reaches, may serve as landmarks in the winter; but at this

time the posts were entirely covered, and it was not without great

difficulty that the man who brought the news had been able to find his

way to the Hospice. There was no time to be lost. Abandoning their

usual costume for a dress more suited to do battle with the elements,

four of the "fathers" were soon ready to start, two of them

shouldering knapsacks of provisions, one bearing a stout rope, and the

fourth carrying an axe, with which to cut steps, if necessary, in the

ice. Just as they were leaving, it was discovered that the last-named

implement had a crack in its handle, which would most probably cause

it to break short off when brought into active service; and as some

delay would be caused by fitting a fresh handle, Pere Christophe, to

whose cordial politeness few travellers are not indebted, came to ask

for the loan of my axe for the day. "Perhaps, however," he said, "as

monsieur is used to glacier expeditions, he would like to accompany us

in our search, and so to carry his axe himself?"--a proposal {346} with

which I eagerly closed, promising that my preparations should not

delay them above five minutes.

The messenger had arrived at eight in the morning; and in less than

half an hour afterward, we were making our way over the lake on the

Italian side of the pass. Two of the renowned dogs were with us; but

their proceedings did not confirm the idea which had long ago been

produced on my childish mind by the well-known print of a St. Bernard

dog, with a bottle of wine and a basket of food round its neck,

scratching away the snow under which a wayfarer was supposed to lie

buried. For finding lost travellers, indeed, they are, as I was

assured by the monks, in no-wise adapted; their function, and a most

important one it is, is to find the direct path up and down the pass,

when it is covered with snow, and in this duty they are unrivalled.

Fortunately, the frosts had been very severe, so that we were able to

tramp cheerily over the crisp snow, instead of having to undergo the

fatigue of sinking up to our knees at every step. But probably the

poor fellows down below wished that the frost had been lighter, and

our walk heavier. The scene was grand in its wildness. Huge clouds

hung along the mountain-sides at our feet, now whirling boisterously,

now creeping sullenly along; and rough gusts of wind dashed the snow

with blinding coldness into our faces, and produced on ears and nose a

tingling terribly suggestive of frost-bites. It was unusual, M.

Christophe said, for the fathers themselves to go out in search of

travellers; the latter generally waited at the house of refuge near

the Cantine, or that near St. Remy, and a servant was sent down with a

dog to lead them up; but in cases like the present, where search must

be made in different directions, it was of advantage to have three or

four people with local knowledge to join in it. Beside, the expedition

was a relief to the ordinary monotony of convent life; though the

kindness of English travellers had done much for the comfort of the

brethren, in supplying them with musical instruments, books, and

similar means of recreation. The circumstances under which the Prince

of Wales sent them their piano were curious enough. He had bought one

of the dogs, which, being quite young and very fat, was given into the

charge of a porter to carry down. The man stupidly let it fall, and it

was killed on the spot. The prince (this was some time ago) burst into

tears, and was almost inconsolable; but the monks, on hearing of the

loss, sent another dog, which the prince received while at Martigny;

and when he reached Paris, he forwarded, as a royal acknowledgment for

the gift, one of Erard's best piano-fortes, which has been the great

cheerer of their winter evenings, and on which they set no small

store.

Pleasantly chatting after this fashion, my friend beguiled the way to

the house of refuge, which we reached before ten o'clock, and where we

found collected about five-and-twenty people, waiting to be led up to

the hospice. Leaving them in charge of one of the monks, we proceeded

along the valley where the _vacherie_ of the hospice is situated,

toward the Col de la Fenetre, in search of the man and woman who were

missing. It appeared that they were natives of the Val de Lys, which

descends from Monte Rosa toward Italy, and the inhabitants of which

have, from time immemorial, held themselves aloof from all

communication with their neighbors, and have formed of their little

community a sort of nation within a nation, to which a native of

Alagna or St. Martin would have no more chance of being admitted by

marriage, than a reformer of the franchise would of being elected a

member of the Carlton Club. So we discovered that the two lost sheep,

presuming on their fortunate accident of birth, had been sneering at

the others as having been "raised" in the country of cretins and lean

pigs, and had excited such a storm of abuse about their ears, that,

finding themselves only two to twenty, they {347} had beaten a

retreat, and decided to sleep at the cow-hut. At this we arrived in

about half an hour; but it was evident that it had not been tenanted

for some weeks by anything but marmots, of which we saw a couple

scudding along with that awkward mixture of scratch and shuffle which

is their ordinary mode of locomotion. From here we each made casts, to

use the hunting phrase, in different directions, especially trying

places which lay on the leeward side of rocks, and on which,

therefore, any tracks might not have been effaced by the night's snow.

A diabolical yell, which was the result of an attempt to imitate the

_joedel_ of the Oberland guides, met with no human response, but was

taken up, as it seemed, by a chorus of imps in the depths of the

mountain; and by the multiplying echoes so common in Switzerland was

carried on from crag to crag, till it appeared to be lost only at the

top of the valley. We fixed on a point about a mile off at which to

reunite, as what was snow in the lower part of the valley would be ice

higher up, and would probably be crossed by crevasses, among which it

would be dangerous to go singly, and without the protection of the

rope. Presently there came a shout from the extreme left of our

quartett, and we saw the young _marronnier_ (that is, a half-fledged

monk or deacon) standing on the top of some rocks, and indulging in

various contortions and gesticulations, which we interpreted as a

summons for our help; and when we reached him, he wanted it badly

enough, for right before him were the objects of our search; but how

to get at them was a problem which required all our skill and all our

strength for its solution.

He had come to where the glacier joined the rocks over which our

course had hitherto been, when his progress was stopped by a

_bergschrund_ or deep chasm between a nearly perpendicular wall of

rock on one side, and a wall of ice on the other, inclined at an angle

of probably sixty-five degrees. On reaching this, we could see the

fugitives about fifty feet below us, and were relieved by the

assurance that they were neither of them seriously injured, except by

the cold, which had made them unable to do anything to extricate

themselves. It was evident that nothing could be done from the side of

the rocks, so we made our way as quickly-as-possible along the side of

the bergschrund, to cross on to the glacier. This involved a long

detour; but the bergschrund was too wide to be jumped, and far too

steep to be scaled, while the insecurity of the snow-bridges over it

was apparent. At last we found one that seemed solid, and M.

Christophe led the way upon it boldly, but had scarcely reached the

middle, when it suddenly broke down; and but for the rope--that great

protection of mountaineers--he would have had very little chance of

seeing the hospice again. As it was, I was the chief sufferer, for I

happened to be second in line, and had my waist (round which the rope

was tied in a slip-knot) reduced to wasp-like proportions by the jerk

of a man of fourteen stone falling in front, and the counteracting

strain which my rear-rank man forthwith put on behind. At last we

crossed, and hastily made our way to the scene of action. I have

estimated the angle of the ice-wall at sixty-five degrees, and

tremendous as that inclination is, I believe I have rather understated

it, though, as my clinometer was left behind, I could only compare it

mentally with the well-known ice-wall on the Strahleck, which seemed

about fifteen degrees less. Our rope was about ten feet too short to

reach the bottom, so the axe was brought into requisition to cut steps

for that distance, and to carve out a ledge which should give us

secure hand-hold as well. This done, we let down the rope; but the

man's fingers were so benumbed with the night's exposure, that he was

unable to tie it round his wife; and though she offered to attach it

to him first, he refused to be drawn up until after her. This

punctilio seemed rather misplaced, as it involved {348} the descent of

one of our number; but you cannot argue with a man who has spent the

night in the heart of a glacier; so the lightest of our party lost no

time in descending, which was only difficult from the piercing cold

that was beginning to get the better of us, and which was so

benumbing, that cutting the five-and-fifty steps for the descent was a

rather formidable task.

The appearance of the girl's face--she was scarcely more than a girl--

was one to fix itself in the memory. It was white--almost as white as

the snow which had so nearly formed her cold winding-sheet; stains of

blood were on the blue lips, which she had involuntarily bitten

through in that night's agony. Her large Italian eyes seemed

fascinated by the wall of snow at which she glared; and even now, when

rescue was certain, she could only burst into a flood of tears, and

repeatedly ejaculate _"gerettet!"_ (saved!) having again sunk into the

crouching position from which the question as to the rope had roused

her. The tears indeed gave relief to the heart over which a shadow of

a terrible death had for long hours been brooding. The shortness of

our rope caused the only difficulty in the ascent; but we managed to

hew out a sort of stage on the ice at which we could rest with her,

while the two younger monks carried the rope to the top, and then

completed her restoration to the upper day. The husband's ascent was

rather harder of achievement, as his chilled limbs made him as

helpless as a child in arms, without reducing his weight in the same

proportion; but after some awkward slips, it was managed; and having

refreshed the inner man, we made our way painfully toward the hospice,

obliging the husband to walk, in spite of the agony which it caused

him, as the only means of saving his limbs. We then learned that on

the previous evening they had started for the chalet, the situation of

which was well known to them, but had been completely enveloped in a

cloud of thick mist which had risen from the valley, and had obscured

their way; that after numerous turnings, they had decided, just before

darkness came on, to make their way up the St. Bernard valley, knowing

that in time they must come to the hospice, but that they had actually

mistaken for it the valley leading up to the Col de la Fenetre, which

is nearly at right angles to the other, and had come upon the

bergschrund at a point where there was fortunately a huge cornice of

snow. On this they must have unwittingly walked, as they believed, for

many yards, when it suddenly gave way with that terrible rushing sound

at which most explorers of the great ice-world have shuddered once or

twice in their lives. Fortunately, an immense mass of snow gave way,

and its bulk broke their fall, and saved them from being dashed with

fatal violence against the rocks. They were warmly clad, and had the

courage to keep in motion during nearly the whole night, performing an

evolution corresponding to the goose-step of the volunteers, as they

dared not change their ground in the darkness.

When the gray morning showed that there was no possibility of their

extricating themselves, and the snow fell, which they knew would hide

their track, the husband sank down in despair, saying: "Nun bedeckt

mich mien Grabtuch" (Now my shroud is covering me)--and two hours of

inaction were sufficient to allow the cold to seize his hands and

feet. It was curious to observe how, as we gleaned the story from

husband and wife, each praised the other's endurance, and depreciated

his or her own. They had only been married at Gressonnay St. Giacomo

four days before, and were on their way to the celebrated wood-carving

manufactory at Freyburg. We had nearly reached the hospice, having had

hard work in helping our friend to walk, and in beating his fingers

smartly to restore circulation, when the girl, who had refused our aid

_en route_, suddenly gave a shriek and fainted away. The cause of this

had not to be sought for long. Our path had led {349} us close by the

Morgue, in which, as is well known, the rarity of the air preserves

the corpses so thoroughly that they retain for years the appearance of

only recent death. There, placed upright against the wall, is the

ghastly row; and one figure--that of a woman with a child in her arms--

is especially noticeable for having preserved not only the features,

but even the expression which marked the last agony of despair. To see

these, you must generally wait some moments before your eyes get

accustomed to the dim light in which they are; but on this occasion,

the glare reflected from the snow threw the whole interior of the

charnel-house into full view, and the revulsion of feeling was too

much for the poor girl, who had so narrowly escaped a similar fate.

She was borne into the hospice, and soon recovered; and on the

following morning, both were able to resume their journey, though it

was feared by the monks, who had had large experience of frostbites,

that one of the man's fingers would be sacrificed. They were profuse

in their gratitude, and left, determined that the superiority of the

inhabitants of the Val de Lys over all other Piedmontese, Italians,

and Savoyards, was not best maintained by spending a night in a

bergschrund.

----

From The Month.

CONSTANCE SHERWOOD.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

BY LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON.