Elizabeth Gilbert and Her Work for the Blind

by Frances Martin

But the handsome, healthy baby was sightless; one eye was entirely and the other partly destroyed, the throat ragged and certain to be always delicate, ears and nose also affected. A childhood of much suffering was inevitable—and then?

It was the father who bore the first brunt of this sorrow. It was he who listened to the pathetic appeal of the little one, "Oh, nursie, light a candle," to her entreaty to be taken "out of the dark room," to the softly-whispered question, "If I am a very good 'ittle girl may I see my dolly to-morrow?" He had been full of courage, hope, and resource at the most critical times, but he was broken-hearted now, and would rush weeping from the child's bedside.

It was not until July, by that time a fifth baby was in the nursery, that the parents took their little Bessie to London, and there, as Mr. Wintle's diary tells, the case was pronounced to be hopeless. The renowned oculist of that day, Mr. Alexander, told them that there was no possibility of sight; the eyes were destroyed, the child was blind. Dr. Farre, whom they also consulted, showed much sympathy with the parents in their affliction, and they looked upon him as a friend raised up to advise and comfort them. Many years later they appealed to him on behalf of their blind child, and reminded him of the encouragement and help he had given them. It was doubtless he who suggested that blindness should be made as little as possible of a disability to the child, what other help could he give in such a case?—that she should be trained, educated, and treated like the other children; that she should share their pleasures and their experience, and should not be kept apart from the mistaken notion of shielding her from injury.

It was with these views that the parents returned to Oxford, and it was these that they consistently carried out henceforward. There was no invention, no educational help for the blind which they did not inquire into and procure; but these were only used in the same way that one child might have one kind of pencil and another child another pencil.

The sisters who were nearest her own age speak of Bessie as gay and happy, "so like the others that it is difficult to pick her out from them." Surviving friends who remember the Gilbert children, the sisterhood, as the eight little girls came ultimately to be called, say that the group is ineffaceably stamped upon the memory, but that there was nothing special to attract attention to the individual members of it. And yet the figure of the blind child does emerge, distinct and apart, and the reminiscences of youth and childhood are numerous enough to manifest the interest with which every part of her career was followed in her own family.

The parents had decided that she was to be treated exactly like her sisters. When she came into a room they were not to give her a chair; she was to find one for herself. Dr. Gilbert specially could not endure to have it suggested that she could not do what the others did. "Let her try," he would say. So Bessie tried, and, ordinarily, succeeded. He was specially anxious that she should behave like the others at table, should be as particular in eating and drinking as they were, and should manage the food on her plate without offence to others. He encouraged her in ready repartee and swift intellectual insight. When the father joined his children in their walks it was always Bessie who took his hand. She invariably sat by him at breakfast, and when the children went in to dessert it was Bessie who sat by his side and poured out his glass of wine. "How do you know when it is full?" some one asked. "By the weight," she replied. The father, we may be sure, was training her in the transfer of the work of one sense to another, and helping her to supplement the lost eyesight by touch and sound, raising her up to the level of other children; and his initiative was followed in the family.

A special tie between the father and his blind child was always recognised. If any favour was to be asked it was Bessie who was sent to the father, and also if any difficulty arose amongst the children they would say, "We will tell Bessie," "We will ask Bessie."

There seems to have been no jealousy of her influence, no opposition to it. The sisters thought it her right to be first, and looked upon it as a great distinction, honour, and privilege to have a blind sister. It was their part to make her feel as little as possible the difference between herself and them, and to help her to be as independent as they were. She was taught to dress herself unaided as early as the other children. She was full of fun, and enjoyed a romping game; she would much rather risk being knocked over than allow any one to lead her by the hand when they were all at play. She was passionate as a child, liable to sudden violent outbursts of anger; and as there were a good many passionate children together, she was quite as often mixed up in a quarrel as any of the others.

One incident remembered against her was that at seven or eight years old she seized one of the high schoolroom chairs and hurled it, or intended to do so, at a governess who had offended her. Another was that when she was somewhat younger, at the close of their daily walk, she and a little sister hurried on to enjoy the luxury of ringing the front door bell. It was just out of reach, and the little girls on tiptoe were straining to get at it. An undergraduate, passing by, thought to do them a kindness and pulled the bell. Bessie stamped with anger, and turned upon him a little blind passionate face: "Why did you do it? You knew I wanted to ring."

"A most affectionate nature, unselfish, generous, but passionate and obstinate; so obstinate no one could turn her from the thing she had resolved on," says one of the sisters.