JOHN MILTON ON HIS BLINDNESS.
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."
Miss Helen Keller's attainments, her emergence from a life in which there was neither light nor sound to a communicative relationship with others, are a marvel of the present day. The best things have all become hers through the single medium of touch. The compound obstacles which she has had to overcome make her case, perhaps, the most remarkable on record.
There have been, however, many famous blind persons in history. Stengel mentions a young cabinet-maker of Ingolstadt, who, having lost his sight, amused himself by carving wooden pepper-mills, using a common knife. His want of sight seemed to be no impediment to his manual dexterity.
Sir Kenelm Digby has given particulars about a gifted blind tutor. He surpassed the ablest players at chess; at long distances he shot arrows with such precision as almost never to miss his mark; he constantly went abroad without a guide; he regularly took his place at table, and ate with such dexterity that it was impossible to perceive that he was blind; when any one spoke to him for the first time he was able to tell with certainty his stature and the form of his body; and when his pupils recited in his presence he knew in what situation and attitude they were.
Uldaric Schomberg, born in Germany toward the beginning of the seventeenth century, lost his sight at the age of three years; but as he grew up he applied himself to the study of belles-lettres, which he afterward professed with credit at Altorf, at Leipsic, and at Hamburg.
Bourcheau de Valbonais, born at Grenoble in 1651, became blind when very young—soon after the naval combat at Solbaye, where he had been present. But this accident did not prevent him from publishing the "History of Dauphiny," in two volumes, folio. He had made profound researches into the history of his province.
Mastered Chemistry and Mathematics.
Dr. Nicholas Sanderson, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge, was one of the most remarkable men of his time. Born in 1682, at a small town in the County of York, he died at Cambridge in 1739, at the age of fifty-six years. He invented a table for teaching arithmetic palpably to the blind.
Dr. Henry Moyes professed the Newtonian philosophy, which he taught with considerable success as an itinerant lecturer. He was also a good chemist, a respectable mathematician, and a tolerable musician.