Geoffroy
Saint-Hilaire, when his blind eyes beheld the future of zoology.

LETTER VII.

TO A YOUNG MAN OF BRILLIANT ABILITY, WHO HAD JUST TAKEN HIS DEGREE.

A domestic picture--Thoughts suggested by it--Importance of the senses
in intellectual pursuits--Importance of hearing to Madame de
Stael--Importance of seeing to Mr. Buskin--Mr. Prescott, the
historian--How blindness retarded his work--Value of all the five
senses--Self-government indispensable to their perfection--Great value
of longevity to the intellectual life.

It is always a great pleasure to me to pass an evening at your father's
house; but on the last occasion that pleasure was very much enhanced
because you were once more with us. I watched your mother's eyes as she
sat in her place in the drawing-room. They followed you almost without
ceasing, and there was the sweetest, happiest expression on her dear
face, that betrayed her tender maternal love for you and her legitimate
maternal pride. Your father was equally happy in his own way; he was
much more gay and talkative than I have seen him for two or three
anxious years; he told amusing stories; he entered playfully into the
jests of others; he had pleasant projects for the future, and spoke of
them with facetious exaggeration. I sat quietly in my corner, slyly
observing my old friends, and amusing myself by discovering (it did not
need much perspicacity for that) the hidden sources of the happiness
that was so clearly visible. They were gladdened by the first successes
of your manhood; by the evidence of your strength; by the realization of
hopes long cherished.

Watching this charming picture with a perfect sympathy, I began to have
certain thoughts of my own which it is my present purpose to communicate
to you without disguise. I thought, first, how agreeable it was to be
the spectator of so pretty a picture; but then my eyes wandered to a
painting that hung upon the walls, in which also there were a mother and
her son, and this led me a long way. The painting was a hundred years
old; but although the colors were not quite so fresh as when they left
the palette of the artist, the beautiful youth who stood radiant like a
young Apollo in the centre of the composition had not lost one of the
great gifts with which his cunning human creator had endowed him. The
fire of his eye had not been quenched by time; the bloom of his cheek
still flushed with faint vermilion; his lip was full and im