The genial influences of spring wake her lone heart to gladness, and she gathers the first flowers, and even the young blades of grass, and inhales their freshness with a delight bordering on transport. Sometimes, when apparently in deep thought, she is observed to burst into laughter, as if her associations of ideas were favourable, not only to cheerfulness, but to mirth. The society of the female pupils at the Asylum is soothing to her feelings, and their habitual kind offices, their guiding arm in her walks, or the affectionate pressure of their hands, awaken in her demonstrations of gratitude and friendship. One of them was sick, but it was not supposed that amid the multitude that surrounded her, the blind girl would be conscious of her absence. A physician was called, and she was made to understand his profession by placing a finger upon her pulse. She immediately arose, and led him with the earnest solicitude of friendship to the bedside of the invalid, placing her hand in his with an affecting confidence in the power of healing. As she has herself never been sick, it is the more surprising that she should so readily comprehend the efficacy and benevolence of the medical profession.
Julia Brace is still an inmate of the Asylum at Hartford. She leads a life of quiet industry, and apparent contentment. Some slight services in the domestic department supply the exercise that health requires, and the remainder of the time she chooses to be employed in sewing or knitting. Visitants often linger by her side, to witness the mystical process of threading her needle, which is accomplished rapidly by the aid of her tongue. So, the tongue that hath never spoken is still in continual use.
Her youth is now past, and she seems to make few, if any, new mental acquisitions. Her sister in calamity, Laura Bridgman, of the Institution for the Blind in Boston, has far surpassed her in intellectual attainments, and excites the wondering admiration of every beholder. The felicity of her position, the untiring philanthropy of her patron, Dr. Howe, and the constant devotion of an accomplished teacher, have probably produced this difference of result, more than any original disparity of talents or capacity.
Julia, in her life of patient regularity, affords as strong a lesson as can be given of the power of industry to soothe privation and to confer content. While employed she is satisfied, but if at any time unprovided with work, her mind preys upon itself, not being able to gather ideas from surrounding objects, and having but a limited stock of knowledge to furnish material for meditation. If this poor heart which is never to thrill at the sound of a human voice, or be lifted up with joy at the fair scenery of earth, and sky and waters, finds in willing diligence a source of happiness, with how much more gladness should we turn to the pursuits of industry, who are impelled by motives and repaid by results which she must never enjoy!
Dear young friends, who can see the smile on the faces of those whom you love, who can hear their approving voices, who can utter the words of knowledge, and rejoice in the glorious charms of nature, who know also that life is short, and that you must give strict account of it to God, how faithfully and earnestly should you improve your time! You who have the great, blessed gift of speech, be careful to make a right use of it. Yes: speak kind, and sweet, and true words, and so help your own souls on their way to Heaven.
Laura Bridgman.
THE DEAF, DUMB, AND BLIND GIRL, AT THE INSTITUTION FOR THE BLIND, IN BOSTON
Where is the light that to the eye
Heaven's holy message gave,
Tinging the retina with rays
From sky, and earth, and wave?
Where is the sound that to the soul
Mysterious passage wrought,
And strangely made the moving lip
A harp-string for the thought?
All fled! all lost! Not even the rose[1]
An odour leaves behind,
That, like a broken reed, might trace
The tablet of the mind.
That mind! It struggles with its fate,
The anxious conflict, see!
As if through Bastile-bars it sought
Communion with the free.
Yet still its prison-robe it wears
Without a prisoner's pain;
For happy childhood's beaming sun
Glows in each bounding vein.
And bless'd Philosophy is near,
In Christian armour bright,
To scan the subtlest clew that leads
To intellectual light.
Say, lurks there not some ray of heaven
Amid thy bosom's night,
Some echo from a better land,
To make the smile so bright?
The lonely lamp in Greenland cell,
Deep 'neath a world of snow,
Doth cheer the loving household group
Though none around may know;
And, sweet one, hath our Father's hand
Plac'd in thy casket dim
Some radiant and peculiar lamp,
To guide thy steps to Him?