STORIES OF THE BLIND.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1157, 4 May 1894, Page 31

STORIES OF THE BLIND.

In modern times Henry Fawcett stands out as a marked example of a man to whom blindness was no bar against his attaining high position in tho State. Few accident* seemed likely to have so disastrous a termination as that from which tho dead Postmaster General of a past administration suffered. He was quite a young man when ho quietly heard tho doctor’s remark that he would never more see the light of day. For a time his futuro life seemed without promise. The blow was a fearful one. But in Henry Fawcett there was an indomitable will which crushed down everything in its way. He went on in his familiar course, and quickly found that though ho had lust the sense of sight his other senses—as happens sometimes had g.liued in strength. He had that faculty which Coleridge once ascribed to John Gough, tho clever blind botanist, geologist, and mathematician: “ His face sees all over ; it is all one eye." Henry Fawsett was happy in marrying a woman who was a true helper to him in his darkened life. A friend of Mrs Fawcett’s once said that “ she was not only hands an.d ears to her husband, but often hope and light." With her assistance ho revisod his early work, the “Manual of Po’i»ical Economy," and aidod him in matiy ways in his political work. He had a marvellous memory, and those who remember the late Postmaster General on the platform and in the House of Commons still speak of his extraordinary grasp of facts and statistics. When he was at the Post Office he astonished the officials by his knowledge of tho routiue of the great department in his charge, and stories are still current at St. Martin’s le Grand, illustrating his command of detail and power of organisation.

The inscription on tho memorial recently erected in Yauxhall Park, Lambeth, well speaks of Fawcett’s work. “After losing his sight," it states, “ by an accident, at the age of twenty-four, ho became Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge, member of Four Parliaments, and fiom 1880 to 1881 HorMijeaty’s Postmaster-General. His inexorable fidelity to his convictions commanded the respect of statesmen. His chivalrous self devotion to the cause of the poor and the helpless won the affections of his couutrymen and his Indian fellow-subjects. His heroic acceptance of the calamity of b’indness has left a memorable example of tho power of a brave man to transmute loss into gain, and to wrest victorv from misfortune."

The life story of the blind poet, Philip Bourke Marston, may not be so well known as that»f tho sightless statesman. It is a history full of pathos. Maratou was the Bon of Dr Westland Marston, not unknown as a dramatist and poet. When blindness overtook him he was yet in his icons. His poems even then were noteworthy for their power and beauty, and his work received the admiration of older poets such as Daute Gabriel Roaetti, William Morris, and Swinburne. Before he was twenty-one Philip Marston became engaged to a Miss Mary Nesbit. Unhappily this lady deyeloped symptona of consumption, which only too rapidly grow and grew until she feared for her life. But while she was thus wasting away not a word of complaint passed from her to her lover, whose sightless eyes saw nothing of the change that was rapidly convng over her.

In 1871 his first book of verse—“ Song Tide"—appeared, and perhaps the last gift he made to Miss Nosbit was a copy of this book. The autumn of the samo year saw the death of Miss Nesbit, and the youug blind poet was plunged into a despairing state from which with difficulty he recovered.

Then, in after years, Marston found in his father and sister the helpmates he needed. He wrote many sonnets, most of thsm of rich imaginative power. He found in the typewriter an excellent means of transferring his thoughts to paper, In this way he wrote a large number of his

poems and his few short stories. He lived in the Eußton Read, and grew to hate the font and bustle of tho town, with its janglin'g befis< Of his love lot the Country and the sc*, Mr William Sharp tclfe ft pretty story. “Oh! whit ia that?" Mara toil eaxaly asked, as he and Mr Sharp crossed tho downs west of Folkestone. “To my surprise, what hid excited him was the crying of the young lambs as they tumbled or frisked about their mothers. He had so seldom bet n out of London in the early spring that so common an incident ns this had all tho charm of newness to him. A frisky youngstdr Wae easily enticed alongside, and tho blind poet’s almost childlike happiness in playing with tho woolly little creaturo was something delightful to witness. A little later I espied one which had only been a few hours in the world, and speedily placed it in his arms. lie would fain have carried it away with him. In his tender solicitude for it he waß like a mother over her firstborn."

Nevorof robust health, Maratcm’s health in tho eigh'ies visibly declined, and a sunstroke, followed by a serious illness, completed the mischief. Ho died on February 14, 1887, after a life of considerably hard work, considering his position. His poems formed four volumes, and have probably been bettor appreciated in America than in this country. At any rate, during his life Marstnn found for his work a f*r!better markot in tho States. Mr Walter Scott has, however, published a selection of tho poet’s versos in a cheap form, which has had a large sale in Great Britain.

Another remarkablo blind man is Dr Moon—fortunately still alive—who has devoted himself for many years to improving tho condition of sightless people by providing them with books which they may read and pictures which they may “boo.” His life story is an interesting ono. He became blind in 1839, and sinco then he has lived, as ho says, “a long night but a bright day." When he began his work in Brighton, in 1840, and had got togother a small class of blind poople —which has long since developed into the Asylum for the Blind, now in the east of tho town—he taught them the embossed system ; but many of his pupils had such difficulty in learning, that he was driven to simplify the alphabet and to reducs tho number of marks and contractions. His simplified characters are now applied to 400 languages. “ I did not become blind," Bays Dr Moon, “ till I was twenty years of age, and therefore I perfectly well remember colours, and how men and animals looked, and what a horse was liko. But a b ind girl I knew, who had been blind all hor life, always thought that a horse had four legs, walking upon two and holding tho other two up as you do your arms. It was that which made mo think of 4 pictures for the blind.’

“ I prepared one of a house —f*n embossed house. She at first thought it was an animal —remember, she had never seen light or anything else on earth ; but a triend who was with her, and who had only recently become blind, felt tho picture, and cried out: ‘ Oh, you goose, Lizzie ! Why, it’s a house, and a largo ono 100.* ”

So successful his been the outcome of Dr Moon’s work that no less than 177,000 volumes of the Bible, embossed according to hi* plan have been circulated. In his efforts to assist his fellows he ia largely assisted by Sir Charles Lowther, himself a blind man.—London Million .