If Sir Walter Scott had not sprained his foot in running round the room when a child, the world would probably have had none of those works which have made his name immortal. When his son intimated a desire to enter the army, Sir Walter Scott wrote to Southey, "I have no title to combat a choice which would have been my own, had not my lameness prevented." In the same way, the effects of a fall when about a year old rendered Talleyrand lame for life, and being, on this account, unfit for a military career, he was obliged to renounce his birthright in favour of his second brother. But what seemed an obstacle to his future success was the very reverse, for, turning his attention to politics and books, he eventually became one of the leading diplomatists of his day. Again, Josiah Wedgwood was seized in his boyhood with an attack of smallpox, which was followed by a disease in the right knee, some years afterwards necessitating the amputation of the affected limb. But, as Mr. Gladstone, in his address on Wedgwood's life and work delivered at Burslem, Oct. 26th, 1863, remarked, the disease from which he suffered was, no doubt, the cause of his subsequent greatness, for "it prevented him from growing up to be the active, vigorous English workman, but it put upon him considering whether, as he could not be that, he might not be something else, and something greater. It drove him to meditate upon the laws and secrets of his art."
Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. Being removed from school on account of his health, it appears that a cold caught in the summer of 1660 while bathing, which produced a rheumatic affection of the joints, accompanied by other ailments. He became unable to walk to school, and he finally left in May, 1662. His self-training now began, and Sacroborco's "De Sphæra" was lent to him, with the perusal of which he was so pleased that he forthwith commenced a course of astronomic studies. Accordingly, he constructed a rude quadrant and calculated a table of the sun's altitudes, pursuing his studies, as he said himself, "under the discouragement of friends, the want of health, and all other instructors, except his better genius."[54]
Alluding to accidents as sometimes developing greatness, Mr. Smiles remarks that Pope's satire was in a measure the outcome of his deformity; and Lord Byron's club foot, he adds, "had probably not a little to do with determining his destiny as a poet. Had not his mind been embittered, and made morbid by his deformity, he might never have written a line. But his misshapen foot stimulated his mind, roused his ardour, threw him upon his own resources, and we know with what result."
Again, in numerous other ways, it has been remarked, accidents have taken a lucky turn, and, if not being the road to fortune, have had equally important results. The story is told of a young officer in the army of General Wolfe who was supposed to be dying of an abscess in the lungs. He was absent from his regiment on sick leave, but resolved to join it when a battle was expected, "for," said he, "since I am given over I had better be doing my duty, and my life's being shortened a few days matters not." He received a shot which pierced the abscess and made an opening for the discharge, the result being that he recovered and lived to eighty years of age.
Brunel, the celebrated engineer, had a curious accident, which might have forfeited his life. While one day playing with his children and astonishing them by passing a half sovereign through his mouth out at his ear, he unfortunately swallowed the coin, which dropped into his windpipe. Brunel regarded the mischief caused by the accident as purely mechanical; a foreign body had got into his breathing apparatus, and must be removed, if at all, by some mechanical expedient. But he was equal to the emergency, and had an apparatus constructed which had the effect of relieving him of the coin. In after days he used to tell how, when his body was inverted, and he heard the gold piece strike against his upper front teeth, was, perhaps, the most exquisite moment in his whole life, the half sovereign having been in his windpipe for not less than six weeks.
In the year 1784, William Pitt almost fell the victim to the folly of a festive meeting, for he was nearly accidentally shot as a highwayman. Returning late at night on horseback from Wimbledon to Addiscombe, together with Lord Thurlow, he found the turnpike gate between Tooting and Streatham thrown open. Both passed through it, regardless of the threats of the turnpike man, who, taking the two for highwaymen, discharged the contents of his blunderbuss at their backs; but, happily, no injury was done, and Pitt had the good fortune to escape from what might have been a very serious, if not fatal, accident. Foote, too, met with a bad accident on horseback, which, at the time, seemed a lasting obstacle to his career as an actor. Whilst riding with the Duke of York and some other noblemen, he was thrown from his horse and his leg broken, so that an amputation became necessary. In consequence of this accident, the Duke of York obtained for him the patent of the Haymarket Theatre for his life; but he continued to perform his former characters with no less agility and spirit than he had done before to the most crowded houses. Similarly, on one occasion—a very important one—Charles James Matthews was nearly prevented making his first appearance on the stage through being thrown from his horse, but, to quote his own words, "the excitement of the evening dominated all other feelings, and I walked for the time as well as ever."
Some men, again, have owed their success to the accidents of others. A notable instance was that of Baron Ward, the well-known minister of the Duke of Parma. After working some time as a stable-boy in Howden, he went to London, where he had the good luck to come to the Duke of Parma's assistance after a fall from his horse in Rotten Row. The Duke took him back to Lucca as his groom, and ere long Ward made the ducal stud the envy of Italy. He soon rose to a higher position, and became the minister and confidential friend of the Duke of Parma, with whom he escaped in the year 1848 to Dresden, and for whom he succeeded in recovering Parma and Placenza. Indeed, Lord Palmerston once remarked, "Baron Ward was one of the most remarkable men I ever met with."
It was through witnessing an accident that Sir Astley Cooper made up his final decision to take up surgery as his profession. A young man, having been run over by a cart, was in danger of dying from loss of blood, when young Cooper lost no time in tying his handkerchief about the wounded limb so as to stop the hemorrhage. It was this incident which assured him of his taste for surgery. In the same way, the story is quoted of the eminent French surgeon, Ambrose Paré. It is stated that he was acting as stable-boy to an abbé at Laval when a surgical operation was about to be performed on one of the brethren of the monastery. On being called in to assist, Ambrose Paré not only proved so useful, but was so fascinated with the operation that he made up his mind to devote his life to the study and practice of surgery. Instances of this kind might be enumerated, being of frequent occurrence in biographical literature, and showing to what unforeseen circumstances men have occasionally owed their greatness.
A romance which, had it lacked corroborative evidence, would have seemed highly improbable, is told of the two Countesses of Kellie. In the latter half of the last century, Mr Gordon, the proprietor of Ardoch Castle—situated upon a high rock, overlooking the sea—was one evening aroused by the firing of a gun evidently from a vessel in distress near the shore. Hastening down to the beach, with the servants of the Castle, it was evident that the distressed vessel had gone down, as the floating spars but too clearly indicated. After looking out in vain for some time, in the hope of recovering some of the passengers—either dead or alive—he found a sort of crib, which had been washed ashore, containing a live infant. The little creature proved to be a female child, but beyond the fact that its wrappings pointed to its being the offspring of persons in no mean condition, there was no trace as to who these were.
The little foundling was brought up with Mr. Gordon's own daughters, and when she had attained to womanhood, by an inexplicable coincidence, a storm similar to that just mentioned occurred. An alarm-gun was fired, and this time Mr. Gordon had the satisfaction of receiving a shipwrecked party, whom he at once made his guests at the Castle. Amongst them was one gentleman passenger, who after a comfortable night spent in the Castle, was surprised at breakfast by the entrance of a troop of blooming girls, the daughters of his host, as he understood, but one of whom specially attracted his attention.