His terrible affliction has never seemed to weaken his self-reliance or turn him aside from following the chosen pursuit of his life, but has rather strengthened his devotion to it and his capacity for it by concentrating all his faculties upon it.
His many years of blindness have given him not only the serious, patient, introspective look common to those who suffer like him, and their gentle, clearly modulated voice, but have also developed all his other faculties to such an extent as to largely replace the missing sense.
He can tell as much about an ordinary-sized steam launch, her lines, methods of construction, etc., by feeling, as others can by seeing, and he goes on inventing and building just as if his eyes were not closed forever. He is a tall, big-brained man, who couldn’t help inventing and working if he tried. Such a man would have to suffer the loss of more than one of his senses before his mental efficiency would be impaired. When he wanted to build some steam launches for the government, he went to the navy yard at Washington and felt of the government launches, to discover their shape and how they were made. Then he went to Bristol and made better launches suitable for the government’s use.
HAS HE A SIXTH SENSE?
He reads and understands the most delicate intonations and modulations of voices addressing him, as others read and understand facial expression. His sensitive fingers detect differences in metals, and follow, as if with a gift of perception, the lines of models submitted to him, and his mind sees even more clearly than by mere physical sight the intricacies of the most complicated machinery intelligently described to him, or over which his fingers are allowed to move. “That is a good stick,” he will say, examining a pile of lumber with his fingers. “Here’s a shaky piece, throw it out; it won’t do for this work,” may come next, or, “Saw off this end; it’s poor stock. The rest is all right.” On hearing him criticize, direct, and explain things within his province, a stranger finds it hard to believe he cannot see at least a little,—out of one eye.
SEEING WITH THE FINGERS
By the constant practice, he has, as he expresses it, learned to see with his hands, not quite so quickly, but he believes as perfectly, as he could with his eyes, and this means more than it does in the case of an ordinary blind man; for, by a touch, he can tell whether the graceful double curves of a boat’s bottom are in correct proportion, one with another, and then, by a few rapid sweeps of his hands, over all, he can instantly judge of the symmetry and perfection of the whole. Even more than this, he will give minute directions to the carpenters and mechanics, running his hand along the piece of work one had produced, will immediately detect the slightest deviation from the instruction he has given. If at all impatient, he will seize the plane or other tool, and do the work himself. And yet the world calls this man “blind!”
While skill plays a material part, one of John B. Herreshoff’s boats is a product of the mind, in a very great degree. Psychologists tell us that we do not see with our eyes, but with the brain proper. This blind man sees, and constructs, not that which is objective and real to others, but that which is evolved from a transcendental intelligence applied to the most practical purposes.
BROTHER NAT
One of the brothers, who has good eyes, is a prominent chemist in New York; and one who can see is Nat the designer for the boat-building.