A STUDY OF BLINDNESS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue 9435, 6 September 1907, Page 2

A STUDY OF BLINDNESS.

M. Maurice de ]a Sizeranne has -written a. book on "The Blind Sisters of St. Paul," which contains a study, portly psychological, of blind women, by a. blind 1 man. For M. die la Sizeranne (whioss .bretheir Robert is known in Engkaid by his studies of English PxeRa'phaieli'te «urt, and especially of Ruskin) has ihdmself been blind isimce his ninih year. He writes of tlhe blind as one of themselves, and views blindness fitfom the inside, •which gives his utterance a peculiar value and aoithority. This is the most interesting portion of the book bo the general reader 3 for eveoi on the psychological side he confines himseLf to maitters underetood by and appeailing to all. Does a blind woman sacrifice anything by entering a religious life? » Is she not already cut off from the world ? By no means so much as people think, he answers ; "there is a real sacrifice. He ssfcs out to demonstrate this by showing the possibilities still open through the cultivation of the otlher senses after' sight is gone- Given .the needed tempe.rament, even intimate poetic and artistic delight in nature remains possible (nob of course tihe painter's, which nests wholly <xa the eye). The season® reveal themselves to the ear, the nostrils, the nervous .surfaces of face and body ; and the sun, strikes on the skim diversely. Not only in the country, but also in the town, such enaaiges are perceptible. In summer through open doors and windows the air comes laden with the odors of humanity. "The heat develops the aroma of clothes worn bypeople we meet." One wonders whether to most seeing people this "aroma of clothes" is so patent as many passages show it is to the writeT. The loss of sight is compensated 1 by increased keenness of the 'remaining senses, as- is the way of nature-, and' wonderfully so is the sense of smell. The .autihor quotes from an American letter, which states that in< some diea-f -mutes it is* <as much developed os in sporting dogs : — "Julia B — cam take a dozen gJoves, and after smelling ifche .hands ,amd faces of several people present, she- can. return each glove to the hand it .belongs to. Helen. Keller recognises the clothes of people about iher, even when they have been 1 washed. And another girl, Elizabeth A — , if sihe stand by an open window, can tell by the smell who is coming ■towards her." With the .hearing blind tKe development is less acute, but obviously exferuordinaTy. M. de la Sizeranne quotes letters from blind women, full of sen1 sitive and excellent description, which bear out his assertion as to the possible , poetic delight of the blind in nature, but they are "too long for >us to cite. The ifragrance of iruits, the sound of the foot on grass or among dead leaves, "odors oi blossoms, alnd feel of sun and j wind, and a. keen sensibility to all I natural sound®, compose view Jess, yet vividly recognisable laind-ecapes, co to speaks in which we scarcely note the absence of sight. There is one charactenatic touch : "The footpauh, skirting the meadow was .bordered by upstamding glasses, like a natural hand-rail to iguide and assist quick walking.'' Only the blind would have used that simile. STet it is not by v the hand., but by the elbow and. abov^> all the foot, that a blind woman chiefly guides herself (though the blind, says the author, feel with Dhe whole body). To thisi must be added the quick ear, while even characteristic odoons may identify a. given spot. The tapping blind beggar of the street, who parades and exaggerates his limitations, is very different from the trained and adiroit blind. M. die la Sizeramine is interestingly minute on the means by which a blind person, finds .'his way about a room (for exanupje), without visible groping or fumbling— foot and- ear doing moat. But in a e&sainge' house or room a preliminary .tour"to "examine the mature and position of .the cnief pieces of fiuivniture is necessary. In a hotel such a tour of the room assigned him will also enable him to judge pretty surely itihe class , and tariff of the hotel. Nay, at a restaurant, the way the table is laid, the thickm«ss of the crockery and glass,' polish of the- plate, manners of the waiters, tone of conversation, amd a. "certain something in the air," tell him the probable cost of his lunch with close accuracy before lie has tasted a, morsel, declares the writer. _When people kindly set a blind man on his way (he truly remarks), they invariably draw ihim into the middle of the road, no matter how wide, and 6ay : "You are quite dm the middle, there is nothing in your way, you can go forward qiuite safely, you have only to walk straight before you." Only! That is just the impossibility, without sight. And left ito himself, the blind man tons straight back to the side, where there is something to guide Him. — the side -witHi gardens and open fields. He is, in. fact, like a seeing man in a dense iog, who (if he (has any semee) does precisely the same. Snow, with changing noises, rain, .high, wind, loud traffic, etc., which deaden or drown his familiar , guiding sounds, baffle the blindi personi. He can judge space traversed, and- a door at a given distance from his stairting-point he will enter with certainty. Numbers of blind women do all the work and management of a house, sometimes making clothes. They make excellent nurses, and even cook. The author quotes an amazing letter from a blind American woman, who nuatnried, rained; and kept at ."school a perfectly managed family, ,kept house . and cooked for her husband', made the chikben'B clothes, cooked, cakes and pastry which her husband sold' in his grocer's shop. Wihen has health failed they were" able to retire on their -savings. The- affections are peculiarly strong in Mind women, and they are liable to the fatality .of love. For, M. die la Sizeranme admits, it is to them '"sually a fatality, and can seldom reach a happy issue. After reading liia detailed analysis, one can hardly dissent from Ihis conichisioai that Wind devotes of religion -make their owirf sacrifice of a much more Teal shore in life and the ■world than people suppose. Or say, he finailly adds, that the hopes and prospects they surrender to religioni are illusions. Sometimes, in giving up our illusions, wo sacrifice WJiot we hold dearest on earth. That is a sad and true saying, which 'perhaps goes to the root of what we call "sacrifice."— Atheaiseum.