Page:The Eyes of Max Carrados.pdf/21

Rh Stanley?' when he, after pausing a little, said, 'God bless me, Mr Smith, how long have you been in England?' If twenty people were seated at a table near him, he would address them all in regular order, without their situations being previously announced to him. Riding on horseback was one of his favourite exercises; and towards the conclusion of his life, when he lived at Epping Forest, and wished to give his friends an airing, he would often take them the pleasantest road and point out the most agreeable prospects."

All the preceding, it will be noticed, became blind early in life, and this would generally seem to be a necessary condition towards the subject acquiring an exceptional mastery over his affliction. At all events, of the twenty-six biographies (including his own) in which Wilson provides the necessary data, only six lose their sight later than youth, and several of these—as and, for instance—are included for their eminence pure and simple and not because they are remarkable as blind men. Perhaps even must be included in this category, for his marvellous research work among bees (he it was who solved the mystery of the queen bee's aerial "nuptial flight") seems to have been almost entirely conducted through the eyes of his wife, his son, and a trained attendant, and not to depend in any marked way on the compensatory development of other senses. Of the twenty youthful victims, the cause of blindness is stated in fourteen cases, and of these fourteen no fewer than ten owe the calamity to small-pox.

To this general rule of youthful initiation Dr provides an exception. He was born at St Bees in 1771, and had already been practising for several years when he became totally blind at the age of