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PRESCOTT'S INFIRMITY OF SIGHT.
By GEORGE TICKNOR.
WHEN the “Ferdinand and Isabella” was published,
in the winter of 1837-8, its author was nearly
forty-two years old. His character, some of whose traits
had been prominent from childhood, while others had been
slowly developed, was fully formed. His habits were settled
for life. He had a perfectly well-defined individuality,
as everybody knew who knew anything about his occupations
and ways.
Much of what went to constitute this individuality was
the result of his infirmity of sight, and of the unceasing
struggle he had made to overcome the difficulties it entailed
upon him. For, as we shall see hereafter, the thought of
this infirmity, and of the embarrassments it brought with it,
was ever before him. It colored, and in many respects it
controlled, his whole life.
The violent inflammation that resulted from the fierce
attack of rheumatism in the early months of 1815 first startled
him, I think, with the apprehension that he might possibly
be deprived of sight altogether, and that thus his future
years would be left in “total eclipse, without all hope of
day.” But from this dreary apprehension, his recovery,
slow, and partial as it was, and the buoyant spirits that entered
so largely into his constitution, at last relieved him.
He even, from time to time, as the disease fluctuated to and
fro, had hopes of an entire restoration of his sight.
But before long, he began to judge things more exactly
as they were, and saw plainly that anything like a full recovery
of his sight was improbable, if not impossible. He
turned his thoughts, therefore, to the resources that would
still remain to him. The prospect was by no means a pleasant
one, but he looked at it steadily and calmly. All
thought of the profession which had long been so tempting
to him he gave up. He saw that he could never fulfil its
duties. But intellectual occupation he could not give up
It was a gratification and resource which his nature demanded,
and would not be refused. The difficulty was to
find out how it could be obtained. During the three months
of his confinement in total darkness at St. Michael's, he first
began to discipline his thoughts to such orderly composition
in his memory as he might have written down on paper, if
his sight had permitted it. “I have cheated,” he says, in a
letter to his family written at the end of that discouraging
period, — “I have cheated many a moment of tedium by
compositions which were soon banished from my mind for
want of an amanuensis.”
Among these compositions was a Latin ode to his friend
Gardiner, which was prepared wholly without books, but
which, though now lost, like the rest of his Latin verses, he
repeated years afterwards to his Club, who did not fail to
think it good. It is evident, however, that, for a considerable
time, he resorted to such mental occupations and exercises
rather as an amusement than as anything more serious.
Nor did he at first go far with them even as a light and transient
relief from idleness; for, though he never gave them
up altogether, and though they at last became a very important
element in his success as an author, he soon found an
agreeable substitute for them, at least so far as his immediate,
every-day wants were concerned.
The substitute to which I refer, but which itself implied
much previous reflection and thought upon what he should
write. He heard of it in London during his first residence
there in the summer of 1816. A lady, at whose house he
visited frequently, and who became interested in his misfortune,
“told him,” as he says in a letter to his mother, “of a
newly invented machine by which blind people are enabled
to write. I have,” he adds, “before been indebted to Mrs.
Delafield for an ingenious candle-screen. If this machine
can be procured, you will be sure to feel the effects of it.”
He obtained it at once; but he did not use it until nearly
a month afterwards, when, on the 24th of August, at Paris,
he wrote home his first letter with it, saying, “It is a very
happy invention for me.” And such it certainly proved to
be, for he never ceased to use it from that day; nor does it
now seem possible that, without the facilities it afforded him,
he ever would have ventured to undertake any of the works
which have made his name what it is.
The machine — if machine it can properly be called — is
an apparatus invented by one of the well-known Wedgewood
family, and is very simple both in its structure and use. It
looks, as it lies folded up on the table, like a clumsy
portfolio, bound in morocco, and measures about ten inches
by nine when unopened. Sixteen stout parallel brass wires
fastened on the right-hand side into a frame of the same size
with the cover, much like the frame of a school-boy's slate,
and crossing it from side to side, mark the number of lines
that can be written on a page, and guide the hand in its
blind motions. This framework of wires is folded down upon
a sheet of paper thoroughly impregnated with a black substance,
especially on its under surface, beneath which lies
the sheet of common paper that is to receive the writing.
There are thus, when it is in use, three layers on the
right-hand side of the opened apparatus; viz. the wires, the
blackened sheet of paper, and the white sheet, — all lying
successively in contact with each other, the two that are
of wires which is uppermost. The whole apparatus
is called a noctograph.
When it has been adjusted, as above described, the person
using it writes with an ivory style, or with a style made of
some harder substance, like agate, on the upper surface of
the blackened paper, which, wherever the style presses on
it, transfers the coloring matter of its under surface to the
white paper beneath it, — the writing thus produced looking
much like that done with a common black-lead pencil.
The chief difficulty in the use of such an apparatus
is obvious. The person employing it never looks upon
his work; never sees one of the marks he is making. He
trusts wholly to the wires for the direction of his hand. He
makes his letters and words only from mechanical habit.
He must, therefore, write straight forward, without any opportunity
for correction, however gross may be the mistakes
he has made, or however sure he may be that he has made
them; for, if he were to go back in order to correct an error,
he would only make his page still more confused, and probably
render it quite illegible. When, therefore, he has
made a mistake, great or small, all he can do is to go forward,
and rewrite further on the word or phrase he first intended
to write, rarely attempting to strike out what was
wrong, or to insert, in its proper place, anything that may
have been omitted. It is plain, therefore, that the person
who resorts to this apparatus as a substitute for sight ought
previously to prepare and settle in his memory what he
wishes to write, so as to make as few mistakes as possible.
With the best care his manuscript will not be very legible.
Without it, he may be sure it can hardly be deciphered
at all.
That Mr. Prescott, under his disheartening infirmities, —
I refer not only to his imperfect sight, but to the rheumatism
from which he was seldom wholly free, — should, at the age
have aspired to the character of a historian dealing
with events that happened in times and countries far distant
from his own, and that are recorded chiefly in foreign languages
and by authors whose conflicting testimony was often
to be reconciled by laborious comparison, is a remarkable
fact in literary history. It is a problem the solution of
which was, I believe, never before undertaken; certainly
never before accomplished. Nor do I conceive that he himself
could have accomplished it, unless to his uncommon intellectual
gifts had been added great animal spirits, a strong,
persistent will, and a moral courage which was to be daunted
by no obstacle that he might deem it possible to remove
by almost any amount of effort.[1]
That he was not insensible to the difficulties of his undertaking,
we have partly seen, as we have witnessed how his
hopes fluctuated while he was struggling through the arrangements
for beginning to write his “Ferdinand and Isabella,”
and, in fact, during the whole period of its composition.
But he showed the same character, the same fertility
of resource, every day of his life, and provided, both
by forecast and self-sacrifice, against the embarrassments of
his condition as they successively presented themselves.
The first thing to be done, and the thing always to be repeated
day by day, was to strengthen, as much as possible,
what remained of his sight, and at any rate, to do nothing
when he was still not without some hope of its recovery, he
made this memorandum. “I will make it my principal purpose
to restore my eye to its primitive vigor, and will do
nothing habitually that can seriously injure it.” To this end
he regulated his life with an exactness that I have never
known equalled. Especially in whatever related to the
daily distribution of his time, whether in regard to his intellectual
labors, to his social enjoyments, or to the care of his
physical powers, including his diet, he was severely exact, —
managing himself, indeed, in this last respect, under the
general directions of his wise medical adviser, Dr. Jackson,
but carrying out these directions with an ingenuity and
fidelity all his own.
He was an early riser, although it was a great effort for
him to be such. From boyhood it seemed to be contrary
to his nature to get up betimes in the morning. He was,
therefore, always awaked, and after silently, and sometimes
slowly and with reluctance, counting twenty, so as fairly to
arouse himself, he resolutely sprang out of bed; or, if he
failed, he paid a forfeit, as a memento of his weakness, to
the servant who had knocked at his chamber-door.[2]
His
failures, however, were rare. When he was called, he was
told the state of the weather and of the thermometer. This
was important, as he was compelled by his rheumatism —
almost always present, and, when not so, always apprehended
— to regulate his dress with care; and, finding it
difficult to do so in any other way, he caused each of its
heavier external portions to be marked by his tailor with
according to the temperature, sure that their weight would
indicate the measure of warmth and protection they would
afford.[3]
As soon as he was dressed, he took his early exercise in
the open air. This, for many years, was done on horseback,
and, as he loved a spirited horse and was often thinking
more of his intellectual pursuits than of anything else
while he was riding, he sometimes caught a fall. But he
was a good rider, and was sorry to give up this form of
exercise and resort to walking or driving, as he did, by
order of his physician, in the last dozen years of his life.
No weather, except a severe storm, prevented him at any
period from thus, as he called it, “winding himself up.”
Even in the coldest of our very cold winter mornings, it
was his habit, so long as he could ride, to see the sun rise on
a particular spot three or four miles from town. In a letter
to Mrs. Ticknor, who was then in Germany, dated March,
1836, — at the end of a winter memorable for its extreme severity,
— he says, “You will give me credit for some spunk
when I tell you that I have not been frightened by the
cold a single morning from a ride on horseback to Jamaica
Plain and back again before breakfast. My mark has been
to see the sun rise by Mr. Greene's school, if you remember
where that is.” When the rides here referred to were
taken, the thermometer was often below zero of Fahrenheit.
On his return home, after adjusting his dress anew, with
reference to the temperature within doors, he sat down,
almost always in a very gay humor, to a moderate and even
spare breakfast, — a meal he much liked, because, as he said,
so begin the day happily. From the breakfast-table he
went at once to his study. There, while busied with what
remained of his toilet, or with the needful arrangements for
his regular occupations, Mrs. Prescott read to him, generally
from the morning papers, but sometimes from the current
literature of the day. At a fixed hour — seldom later than
ten — his reader, or secretary, came. In this, as in everything,
he required punctuality; but he noted tardiness only
by looking significantly at his watch; for it is the testimony
of all his surviving secretaries, that he never spoke a severe
word to either of them in the many years of their familiar
intercourse.
When they had met in the study, there was no thought
but of active work for about three hours.[4]
His infirmities,
however, were always present to warn him how cautiously it
must be done, and he was extremely ingenious in the means
he devised for doing it without increasing them. The
shades and shutters for regulating the exact amount of light
which should be admitted; his own position relatively to
its direct rays, and to those that were reflected from surrounding
objects; the adaptation of his dress and of the
temperature of the room to his rheumatic affections; and
the different contrivances for taking notes from the books
that were read to him, and for impressing on his memory,
with the least possible use of his sight, such portions of
of them the result of painstaking experiments, skilfully and
patiently made. But their ingenuity and adaptation were
less remarkable than the conscientious consistency with
which they were employed from day to day for forty years.
In relation to all such arrangements, two circumstances
should be noted.
The first is, that the resources of his eye were always
very small and uncertain, except for a few years, beginning
in 1840, when, from his long-continued prudence or from
some inscrutable cause, there seemed to be either an increase
of strength in the organ, or else such a diminution of its
sensibility as enabled him to use it more, though its strength
might really be diminished.
Thus, for instance, he was able to use his eye very little
in the preparation of the “Ferdinand and Isabella,” not
looking into a book sometimes for weeks and even months
together, and yet occasionally he could read several hours
in a day if he carefully divided the whole into short portions,
so as to avoid fatigue. While engaged in the composition
of the “Conquest of Mexico,” on the contrary, he was able
to read with considerable regularity, and so he was while
working on the “Conquest of Peru,” though, on the whole,
with less.[5]
But he had, during nearly all this time, another difficulty
to encounter. There had come on prematurely that gradual
alteration of the eye which is the consequence of advancing
years, and for which the common remedy is spectacles.
Even when he was using what remained to him of sight on
the “Conquest of Mexico” with a freedom which not a little
animated him in his pursuits, he perceived this discouraging
change. In July, 1841, he says: “My eye, for some days,
feels dim. `I guess and fear,' as Burns says.” And in
June, 1842, when our families were spending together at
Lebanon Springs a few days which he has recorded as
otherwise very happy, he spoke to me more than once in a
tone of absolute grief, that he should never again enjoy the
magnificent spectacle of the starry heavens. To this sad
deprivation he, in fact, alludes himself in his Memoranda of
that period, where, in relation to his eyes, he says: “I find
a misty veil increasing over them, quite annoying when
reading. The other evening B— said, `How beautiful
the heavens are with so many stars!' I could hardly see
two. It made me sad.”
Spectacles, however, although they brought their appropriate
relief, brought also an inevitable inconvenience.
They fatigued his eye. He could use it, therefore, less
and less, or if he used it at all, beyond a nicely adjusted
amount, the excess was followed by a sort of irritability,
weakness, and pain in the organ which he had not felt for
many years. This went on increasing with sad regularity.
But he knew that it was inevitable, and submitted to it patiently.
In the latter part of his life he was able to use his
eye very little indeed for the purpose of reading, — in the
last year, hardly at all. Even in several of the years preceding,
divided exactly by the watch into portions of five minutes
each, with at least half an hour between, and always stopping
the moment pain was felt, even if it were felt at the first
instant of opening the book. I doubt whether a more persistent,
conscientious care was ever taken of an impaired
physical power. Indeed, I do not see how it could have
been made more thorough. But all care was unavailing,
and he at last knew that it was so. The decay could not be
arrested. He spoke of it rarely, but when he perceived
that in the evening twilight he could no longer walk about
the streets that were familiar to him with his accustomed
assurance, he felt it deeply. Still he persevered, and was
as watchful of what remained of his sight as if his hopes of
its restoration had continued unchecked. Indeed, I think
he always trusted that he was saving something by his anxious
care; he always believed that great prudence on one
day would enable him to do a little more work on the next
than he should be able to do without so much caution.
The other circumstance that should be noticed in relation
to the arrangements for his pursuits is, the continually increased
amount of light he was obliged to use, and which he
could use without apparent injury.
In Bedford Street, where he first began his experiments,
he could, from the extreme sensitiveness of his eye, bear
very little light. But, even before he left that quiet old
mansion, he cut out a new window in his working-room,
arranging it so that the light should fall more strongly and
more exclusively upon the book he might be using. This
did very well for a time. But when he removed to Beacon
Street, the room he built expressly for his own use contained
six contiguous windows; two of which, though large, were
glazed each with a single sheet of the finest plate-glass,
nicely protected by several curtains of delicate fabric and of
a light-blue color, one or more of which could be drawn up
that was admitted through any one opening could be excluded
by solid wooden shutters. At first, though much
light was commonly used, these appliances for diminishing
it were all more or less required. But, gradually, one after
another of them was given up, and, at last, I observed that
none was found important. He needed and used all the
light he could get.
The change was a sad one, and he did not like to allude
to it. But during the last year of his life, after the first
slight access of paralysis, which much disturbed the organ
for a time, and rendered its action very irregular, he spoke
plainly to me. He said he must soon cease to use his eye
for any purpose of study, but fondly trusted that he should
always be able to recognize the features of his friends, and
should never become a burden to those he loved by needing
to be led about. His hopes were, indeed, fulfilled, but not
without the sorrow of all. The day before his sudden
death he walked the streets as freely as he had done for
years.
Still, whatever may have been the condition of his eye at
any period, — from the fierce attack of 1815 to the very end
of his life, — it was always a paramount subject of anxiety
with him. He never ceased to think of it, and to regulate
the hours, and almost the minutes, of his daily life by it.
Even in its best estate he felt that it must be spared; in its
worst, he was anxious to save something by care and abstinence.
He said, “he reckoned time by eyesight, as distances
on railroads are reckoned by hours.”
One thing in this connection may be noted as remarkable.
He knew that, if he would give up literary labor altogether,
his eye would be better at once, and would last longer.
His physicians all told him so, and their opinion was rendered
certain by his own experience; for whenever he ceased
to work for some time, as during a visit to New York in
he took a journey or indulged himself in holidays of such a
sort as prevented him from looking into books at all or
thinking much about them, — his general health immediately
became more vigorous than might have been expected from
a relief so transient, and his sight was always improved;
sometimes materially improved. But he would not pay the
price. He perferred to submit, if it should be inevitable, to
the penalty of ultimate blindness, rather than give up his
literary pursuits.
He never liked to work more than three hours consecutively.
At one o'clock, therefore, he took a walk of about
two miles, and attended to any little business abroad that
was incumbent on him, coming home generally refreshed
and exhilarated, and ready to lounge a little and gossip.
Dinner followed, for the greater part of his life about three
o'clock, although, during a few years, he dined in winter at
five or six, which he preferred, and which he gave up only
because his health demanded the change. In the summer
he always dined early, so as to have the late afternoon for
driving and exercise during our hot season.
He enjoyed the pleasures of the table, and even its luxuries,
more than most men. But he restricted himself carefully
in the use of them, adjusting everything with reference
to its effect on the power of using his eye immediately afterwards,
and especially on his power of using it the next day.
Occasional indulgence when dining out or with friends at
home he found useful, or at least not injurious, and was encouraged
in it by his medical counsel. But he dined abroad,
as he did everything of the sort, at regulated intervals, and
not only determined beforehand in what he should deviate
from his settled habits, but often made a record of the result
for his future government.
The most embarrassing question, however, as to diet, regarded
the use of wine, which, if at first it sometimes seemed
found useful, and was prescribed to him. To make everything
certain, and settle the precise point to which he should
go, he instituted a series of experiments, and between March,
1818, and November, 1820, — a period of two years and
nine months, — he recorded the exact quantity of wine that
he took every day, except the few days when he entirely
abstained. It was Sherry or Madeira. In the great majority
of cases — four fifths, I should think — it ranged from
one to two glasses, but went up sometimes to four or five,
and even to six. He settled at last, upon two or two and
a half as the quantity best suited to his case, and persevered
in this as his daily habit, until the last year of his life, during
which a peculiar regimen was imposed upon him from
the peculiar circumstances of his health. In all this I wish
to be understood that he was rigorous with himself, — much
more so than persons thought who saw him only when he
was dining with friends, and when, but equally upon system
and principle, he was much more free.
He generally smoked a single weak cigar after dinner,
and listened at the same time to light reading from Mrs.
Prescott. A walk of two miles — more or less — followed;
but always enough, after the habit of riding was given up, to
make the full amount of six miles' walking for the day's
exercise, and then, between five and eight, he took a cup of
tea, and had his reader with him for work two hours more.
The labors of the day were now definitively ended. He
came down from his study to his library, and either sat
there or walked about while Mrs. Prescott read to him
from some amusing book, generally a novel, and, above all
other novels, those of Scott and Miss Edgeworth. In all
this he took great solace. He enjoyed the room as well as
the reading, and, as he moved about, would often stop before
the books, — especially his favorite books, — and be
sure that they were all in their proper places, drawn up ex
on a dress-parade, — sometimes speaking of them, and
almost to them, as if they were personal friends.
At half past ten, having first taken nearly another glass
of wine, he went to bed, fell asleep quickly, and slept soundly
and well. Suppers he early gave up, although they were a
form of social intercourse much liked in his father's house,
and common thirty or forty years ago in the circle to which
he belonged. Besides all other reasons against them, he
found that the lights commonly on the table shot their horizontal
rays so as to injure his suffering organ. Larger evening
parties, which were not so liable to this objection, he
liked rather for their social influences than for the pleasure
they gave him; but he was seen in them to the last, though
rarely and only for a short time in each. Earlier in life,
when he enjoyed them more and stayed later, he would,
in the coldest winter nights, after going home, run up and
down on a plank walk, so arranged in the garden of the
Bedford-Street house that he could do it with his eyes shut,
for twenty minutes or more, in order that his system might
be refreshed, and his sight invigorated, for the next morning's
work.[6]
Later, unhappily, this was not needful. His
eye had lost the sensibility that gave its value to such a
habit.
In his exercise, at all its assigned hours, he was faithful
and exact. If a violent storm prevented him from going
out, or if the bright snow on sunny days in winter rendered
it dangerous for him to expose his eye to its brilliant reflec
about the colder parts of the house, or he would
saw and chop fire-wood, under cover, being, in the latter
case, read to all the while.
The result he sought, and generally obtained, by these
efforts was not, however, always to be had without suffering.
The first mile or two of his walk often cost him pain —
sometimes sharp pain — in consequence of the rheumatism,
which seldom deserted his limbs; but he never on this
account gave it up; for regular exercise in the open air
was, as he well knew, indispensable to the preservation of
whatever remained of his decaying sight. He persevered,
therefore, through the last two suffering years of his life,
when it was peculiarly irksome and difficult for him to
move; and even in the days immediately preceding his first
attack of paralysis, when he was very feeble, he was out
at his usual hours. His will, in truth, was always stronger
than the bodily ills that beset him, and prevailed over them
to the last.[7]
The case of Thierry — the nearest known to me — was different.
His great work, “Histoire de la Conquête de l' Angleterre par
les Normands,” was written before he became blind. What he published
afterward was dictated, — wonderful, indeed, all of it, but
especially all that relates to what he did for the commission of the
government concerning the Tiers État, to be found in that grand
collection of “Documents inédits sur l'Histoire de France,” begun
under the auspices and influence of M. Guizot, when he was minister
of Louis-Philippe.
When he was a bachelor, the servant, after waiting a certain
number of minutes at the door without receiving an answer, went in
and took away the bed-clothes. This was, at that period, the office
of faithful Nathan Webster, who was remembered kindly in Mr. Prescott's
will, and who was for nearly thirty years in the family, a true
and valued friend of all its members.
As in the case of the use of wine, hereafter to be noticed, he
made, from year to year, the most minute memoranda about the use
of clothes, finding it necessary to be exact on account of the rheumatism
which, besides almost constantly infesting his limbs, always affected
his sight when it became severe.
I speak here of the time during which he was busy with his
Histories. In the intervals between them, as, for instance, between
the “Ferdinand and Isabella” and the “Mexico,” between the
“Mexico” and “Peru,” &c., his habits were very different. At
these periods he indulged, sometimes for many months, in a great
deal of light, miscellaneous reading, which he used to call “literary
loafing.” This he thought not only agreeable, but refreshing and
useful; though sometimes he complained bitterly of himself for carrying
his indulgences of this sort too far.
How uncertain was the state of his eye, even when it was
strongest, may be seen from memoranda made at different times,
within less than two years of each other. The first is in January,
1829, when he was full of grateful feelings for an unexpected increase
of his powers of sight. “By the blessing of Heaven,” he says, “I
have been enabled to have the free use of my eye in the daytime during
the last weeks, without the exception of a single day, although
deprived, for nearly a fortnight, of my accustomed exercise. I hope
I have not abused this great privilege.” But this condition of things
did not last long. Great fluctuations followed. In August and September
he was much discouraged by severe inflammations; and in
October, 1830, when he had been slowly writing the “Ferdinand
and Isabella” for about a year, his sight for a time became so much
impaired that he was brought — I use his own words — “seriously to
consider what steps he should take in relation to that work, if his
sight should fail him altogether.”
Some persons may think this to have been a fancy of my
friend, or an over-nice estimate of the value of the open air. But
others have found the same benefit who needed it less. Sir Charles
Bell says, in his journal, that he used to sit in the open air a great
deal, and read or draw, because on the following day he found himself
so much better able to work. Some of the best passages in his great
treatises were, he says, written under these circumstances.
On one occasion, when he was employed upon a work that
interested him because it related to a friend, he was attacked with
pains that made a sitting posture impossible. But he would not
yield. He took his noctograph to a sofa, and knelt before it so as to
be able to continue his work. This resource, however, failed, and
then he laid himself down flat upon the floor. This extrarordinary
operation went on during portions of nine successive days.
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