totally blind.
He was, at the time when this calamity fell upon him, about forty years
of age. The Directors of the Bank gave him a small pension, and he had
a very small income of his own; he was married, with one son, who was
shortly after taken into the Bank as a clerk. The man and his wife
came into the parish, and took a tiny cottage, where they lived very
simply and frugally. But within a year or two his hearing had also
failed, and he had since become totally deaf. It is almost appalling
to reflect upon the condition of helplessness to which this double
calamity can reduce a man. To be cut off from the sights and sounds of
the world, with these two avenues of perception closed, so as to be
able to take cognisance of external things only through scent and
touch! It would seem to be well-nigh unendurable! He had learnt to
read raised type with his fingers, and had been presented by some
friends with two or three books of this kind. His speech was, as is
always the case, affected, but still intelligible. Only the simplest
facts could be communicated to him, by means of a set of cards, with
words in raised type, out of which a few sentences could be arranged.
But he and his wife had invented a code of touch, by means of which she
was able to a certain extent, though of course very inadequately, to
communicate with him. I asked how he employed himself, and I was told
that he wrote a good deal,--curious, rhapsodical compositions, dwelling
much on his own thoughts and fancies. "He sits," said the Vicar, "for
hours together on a bench in his garden, and walks about, guided by his
wife. His sense of both smell and touch have become extraordinarily
acute; and, afflicted as he is, I am sure he is not at all an unhappy
man." He produced some of the writings of which he had spoken. They
were written in a big, clear hand. I read them with intense interest.
Some of them were recollections of his childish days, set in a somewhat
antique and biblical phraseology. Some of them were curious reveries,
dwelling much upon the perception of natural things through scent. He
complained, I remember, that life was so much less interesting in
winter because scents were so much less sweet and less complex than in
summer. But the whole of the writings showed a serene exaltation of
mind. There was not a touch of repining or resignation about them. He
spoke much of the aesthetic pleasure that he received from an increased
pow