ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE BLIND IN POETRY AND

MUSIC.

SERIES III.--SECTION I.

SOME EXPLANATION OF THE METHOD BY WHICH THE BORN BLIND GAIN A KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXTENSION, MAGNITUDE AND AP PEARANCE OF DISTANT OBJECTS.

IT is not difficult to understand how it is that the obstacles which imperfect sight throws in the way of blacksmithing, painting, or anatomical investigations, are no impediments to the study of music, or even to very superior attainments in it, both as an art and a science. But we confess it is not so easy to perceive how it happens that some persons, denied the blessings of sight from birth, can describe scenes so graphically that even a connoisseur of natural scenery could not detect their condition; or how, indeed, they can form any notion of objects as they must appear to the eye from a distance, of the nature of light itself, of the indescribable glory of the sun, moon, and stars, and much less of those peculiarly pleasurable sensa. tions which the blending of light and shade, and contrast of colors produce.

It is not wonderful that those who regard sight as the grand avenue to the mind, and who through this

entrance receive most of their impressions from without, are slow to believe that so many fields of enterprise, and rich subjects for contemplation, are open to the blind. How, say they, can one whose ideas of extent and superficial area can be gathered only from the distance within his reach, or the space of ground over which he may have traveled, form any adequate conception of the magnitude of a mountain, or picture to himself a vast landscape, diversified with groves, meadows, sunny hill-sides, winding streams, with plains and grazing flocks, and here and there isolated trees, at distinct though irregular distances from each other? That the born blind do possess this imaginative power, and even the ability to form new combinations from isolated ideas, is clearly shown in their writings.

The following descriptive lines gathered from the poems of Blacklock, by Spence, his critical reviewer, mav serve to demonstrate this fact:

"Mild gleams the purple evening o'er the plain."

"Ye vales, which to the raptured eye,
Disclosed the flowery pride of May;

Ye circling hills, whose summits high,
Blushed with the morning's earliest ray."

"Let long-lived pansies here their scents bestow,
The violets languish and the roses glow;
In yellow glory let the crocus shine-
Narcissus here his love-sick head recline;
Here hyacinths in purple sweetness rise,
And tulips tinged with beauty's fairest dyes."

"On rising ground, the prospect to command,
Untinged with smoke, where vernal breezes blow,
In rural neatness let thy cottage stand;

Here wave a wood, and there a river flow."

"Oft on the glassy stream, with raptured eyes,
Surveys her form in mimic sweetness rise;
Oft as the waters, pleased, reflect her face,
Adjusts her locks, and heightens every grace."

"Oft while the sun

Darts boundless glory through the expanse of heaven,

A gloom of congregated vapors rise;

Than night more dreadful in his blackest shroud,
And o'er the face of things incumbent hang,

Portending tempest; till the source of day

Again asserts the empire of the sky,

And o'er the blotted scene of nature throws
A keener splendor."

The idiosyncrasies of the blind, or those traits of the mind which the want of sight from birth has uniformly developed, have long furnished the seeing with curious subjects of metaphysical speculation. Many strange conjectures have been hazarded, and some very happy conclusions arrived at; but as yet, we think they have not received sufficient attention from the blind themselves. In view of this fact, we have ventured to offer, in this connection, a few remarks, as the result of our united experience. Not that we fancy ourselves equal to the task of explaining to the seeing what, to ourselves, is mysterious, but we are persuaded that many of the manifestations of mind that seem peculiar only to our class, may be accounted for, on as strictly philosophical

principles as though they had been developed by a full use of all the senses.

Our first inquiry is, then, by what means are those faculties of the mind which perceive physical objects, and contemplate and retain facts concerning them, developed? We answer, by the very impression which those objects produce upon the mind through the external senses. The conversion of these impressions or shadows of the external world, into its own nature, not only affords it healthful exercise, but increases its capacity for the reception of facts. Knowledge is its aliment; and the senses are so many mouths through which it receives its food. But, it may be asked, what if sight, that medium through which the mind can take cognizance of so large a field of objects at the same time, be obstructed from birth; will not the powers of the mind lie dormant? Certainly not, for every essential fact relative to the nature or properties of outward objects, would reach the mind through the other senses or channels of communication, although they might not come robed in such gorgeous colors. A pill may possess medicinal properties, whether it is sugared or not. Delicious fruits are as inviting to the blind man's taste, as gratifying to his appetite, and quite as salutary in their effect upon the system, as though he could behold the bright, rich colors with which nature has painted them.

Color, it should be remembered, is nature's dress, and not nature's self. No one will contend that beautiful colors are essential to the existence of bod

ies. Correct ideas of every terrestrial object might have been presented to the mind without them. To illustrate this more clearly a certain quantity of nutritious food is requisite to the support of our animal nature. Now, this aliment may be introduced directly into the stomach without the ordinary process of mastication, and produce the same salutary effect. Indeed, all food might be prepared for the immediate action of this organ, by artificial means. But, in order to afford us greater enjoyments than those of simply answering nature's demand, the God of nature has given us the sense of taste. Yet, had he denied us this source of pleasure, we can conceive how life might have been perpetuated, and all the physical powers naturally developed.

We come now briefly to notice the superior advantages which some of the senses possess over sight, the degree of cultivation of which they are susceptible, and the manner in which they can be made to perform nearly all the functions of the visual organ. This is a large subject, and so thickly enveloped in the mist of metaphysical science, that scarce a ray from our feeble light can be expected to reach it. But darkness to the blind has no terrors. In the first place, then, we remark that, to the eye alone, the common properties of bodies, namely, hardness, density, elasticity, etc., are not cognizable. To the sense of touch, only, are they appreciable. For example: Glass is a hard, dense and brittle body, but independent of the sense of touch, the eye could never have