12 September: Boreham on Blindness

Shuttered Casements
The fine work that is being done at St. Dunstan's Training College for the Blind—a work in which our Australian blinded soldiers are sharing to the full—reminds us that it was on September 12, 1783, that Mr. Havy showed a few friends in Paris the book that he proposed to produce to enable the blind to read by sense of touch. We all feel that anything that can be done to assist those who have sacrificed their sight in the nation's service to become blind to their own blindness represents not only a commendable venture of benevolence, but a valuable patriotic enterprise. Nothing is more depressing, nothing more paralysing than that sense of helplessness, of futility, and of frustration that haunts the minds of men and women who, disqualified for the ordinary avocations of life, feel themselves to be dependent on the charity of others. The blind must be delivered from this excruciating mortification. The task that confronts their more fortunate fellow citizens is to extend to them such helpful co-operation and wise direction as shall enable them, with legitimate pride, to stand upon their own feet.

It is sometimes said that, speaking generally, the blind are a cheerful community: they seldom betray any symptoms of mental distress on account of their affliction. How far, one wonders, is this airy generalisation well-founded? Have we not to distinguish between things that differ? For these darkened legions must be divided sharply into two distinct classes: and as between those two classes, the consciousness of deprivation differs materially. An enormous chasm must of necessity yawn between the intellectual and emotional condition of those born blind and that of those upon whom blindness has fallen with a tragic sense of desolating calamity.

The Courage That Smiles Through The Gloom
It may be argued that, in one way, the latter are the better off, since their minds are stored with the images impressed upon their memories in their seeing days. Experience goes to show, however, that it is much more difficult for these people to face their adversity bravely. As a general rule, those who have been born blind, and who have from infancy learned to accommodate themselves to the possession of a restricted number of faculties, pass through life with singular serenity, and even gaiety, constituting themselves a standing rebuke to those who, more generously endowed, display a spirit much less amiable and appreciative. Learning early in life to develop to their maximum capacity such powers as they do possess, these gallant souls contrive to make the senses that they command serve the office of the one that they lack. The blind girl at Drumtochty, of whom Ian Maclaren writes, boasted that, to her, the fragrance of the flowers was sweeter and the song of the birds more blithe, than to anybody else. "But mind ye," she added, "it's no as if I'd seen once and lost ma sight: that might have been a trial. But I've lost naething: by life has been all getting!" This engaging attitude of mind is, we imagine, fairly characteristic of the intellectual outlook of those who have never seen.

As against this, there are those upon whom darkness falls, like a devastating catastrophe, at midday. It is too late in life to educate to fresh uses the powers that remain. It takes time for the mind to compose itself, and for the various faculties to reconcile themselves to new methods of living and new avenues of intellectual impression. The stories of Pepys, of Prescott, and especially of Milton, prove that even the bravest spirit quails and falters at such a time: it finds it impossible to pass with a light heart from the sunshine to which it has been accustomed into the cheerless gloom that seems to await it. It takes time to make friends with the darkness. In his "Life of Milton," Mark Pattison tells us that, at the age of 43, blindness fell on the poet like the sentence of death and he took it for granted that he had reached the end of everything. Yet it was in the days that followed that "Paradise Lost" was written.

Handicaps Are Not Excuses, But Inspiration
One of the most inspiring circumstances in human history is the fact that, in every age, the finest types of mind have persisted in regarding the heaviest handicaps, much as handicaps are regarded in the field of sport—as incentives to more strenuous effort rather than as excuses for the abandonment of the struggle. They have recognised the justice of Bacon's immortal maxim: "Whosoever hath anything fixed in his person that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur within himself urging him to rescue himself from scorn." It is probably to some such philosophical consideration that we owe the masterpieces of Homer, the discoveries of Huber, and the priceless work of those other sightless seers to whose dazzling genius it is always a pleasure to pay tribute. The law of compensation, too, operates towards the blind with special amplitude and generosity. As soon as Prescott had accommodated his powers to his changed conditions, he chuckled over the reflection that, being able to work as well in the darkness as in the light, he now possessed an immense advantage over his friends.

And, after all, is not blindness a matter of degree? Is there not a sense in which we are all blind? Every man we meet, as soon as he begins to descant upon his pet theme, makes us feel how much has eluded our own observation. The astronomer makes us blush over our ignorance of the stars: the botanist impresses us with our failure to notice the beauties in the bush: the ornithologist convinces us that we have been blind to all that is best in the birds. The Scriptures warn us that it is possible to see men and miss God, to concentrate on Time and overlook Eternity. Such distressing forms of myopia, common to us all, should surely generate such a sympathy for the sightless as shall make us eager to place all our gifts at their command.

F W Boreham

Image: Reading By Touch