Achievements of Famous Invalids.
Some of the Most Distinguished Workers in the Fields of Literature and Music Have Won Their Triumphs While Defying Disease—Many Examples of Extraordinary Longevity.
An original article written for The Scrap Book.
Ill health and infirmity do not always prevent the accomplishment of great things, and the list of invalids who have been famous for excelling in their chosen field is long and brilliant. Naturally such persons usually have been restricted to the quieter pursuits. Literature seems to have been the field wherein most of them have found congenial occupation, though there have been great invalids in other professions, also.
The long battle of Robert Louis Stevenson against the malady which finally conquered him, is well known to every one. He traveled about, from place to place, searching for the spot where he could hope to live at least long enough to do some of the work which it lay in him to do, until, at last, in the Samoan Islands, in the South Seas, he found the haven for which he had been searching. There the heroic struggle went on for the four last years of his life, and there he was buried high on the peak of Mount Væa, above his island home.
Probably no famous writer suffered for a longer period than did Alexander Pope, who was stricken, when only a child of ten, with a malady which deformed his body and robbed him of health and comeliness, leaving him to forty-six years of invalidism. His constant study and work, combined with this physical infirmity, made his life “one long disease.”