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.
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 César, 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 César, par Louis XI V., Dieu-Donné, 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 César 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 Mézieres:—
"Madame, tout asetheure (à cette heure), yn sy (ainsi) que je me vouloys mettre o lyt (au lit), est arycé (arrivé) Laval, lequel m'a aporté la serteneté (certitude) deu lèvemant du syège de Mésyères."
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'à ton éclat rien n'est pareil;
Mais quoi! tu pâlis
Auprès 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 Compiègne, 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 Napoléon Bonaparte. 8vo. 1821.
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— avery 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.
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 Eugénie. 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 Eugénie 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 Eugénie 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 Eugénie. 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 Eugénie 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 Eugénie'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 Eugénie in tears, and on her knees, with her work pinned behind her. "Eugénie," 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 Eugénie 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 Eugénie." 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.]