Читать книгу Elizabeth Gilbert and Her Work for the Blind - Frances Martin - Страница 13

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"Cette loi sainte, il faut s'y conformer

Et la voici, toute âme y peut atteindre:

Ne rien haïr, mon enfant; tout aimer

Ou tout plaindre."—Victor Hugo.

The early summer of 1838 was spent by the Vice-Chancellor and his family at Malvern. Bessie greatly enjoyed long walks on the hills, but either from over fatigue, or because the air was too keen for her, she began to suffer at that time from what she always spoke of as "my long headache." It was a headache that lasted many months and caused the parents almost as much suffering as the child. On their return to Oxford the family doctor was called in and promptly applied a blister to the back of the ears.

The blister did no good; the child was often quite prostrate with pain, probably neuralgia, but the doctor was a man of resource. The diary of Mrs. Gilbert is instructive as to the treatment of such a case fifty years ago. The entry "Gave Bessie two grains of calomel," begins in August and is continued at short intervals throughout the month. "Blisters behind the ears, to be kept open," are added to the calomel in September. In October we have reached the more advanced stage of calomel blisters, black draught (to be sipped, poor child), and leeches. The treatment was continued, with additions, throughout November, and on the 21st of December Mrs. Gilbert makes the not very surprising entry, "Bessie was worse this evening."

The parents were by this time alarmed; and the doctor acknowledged that he could do no more. Casting about for help, they bethought them of the physician whom they had seen in London some years previously, of his tenderness and sympathy.

The rough draft of a letter written to him by Mrs. Gilbert still remains to testify to the grave consideration given by the parents to the adequate statement of the case, to their endeavour to recall it to his mind and to their acknowledgment of his previous kindness and courtesy. One point in their letter may be mentioned. "She is very fond of, and has good talents for music," writes the mother, "but her pain is so much increased by it that her music has had to be discontinued."

Poor little girl! No privation could be greater.

Of the answer sent by Dr. Farre there is no trace. But all drugs disappear from the records, and there is an account of "veratrine ointment," "a preparation of Hellebore known to Hippocrates," sent down from London, and needing so much care in the application that the Oxford doctor himself came every night to rub it on the child's brow.

Early in 1839 she had quite recovered not only from the headache but from the effects of the remedies.

The music lessons were resumed, and before long she began the study of the harp. A younger sister remembers sitting by her to teach the pieces note by note. Bessie found it also very easy to play by ear and learnt much in this way; but the harp was a difficult instrument, and the management of it always fatigued her.

During her childhood, Cardinal, then the Rev. J. H. Newman was incumbent of St. Mary's, the church close to the house in High Street, and that which the family attended. Even up to the last days of her life Bessie used to say that she could not listen to a chapter in Isaiah, especially any of those read in Advent, without hearing the sound of his voice.

Cardinal Newman mentions in his Apologia that, on account of his doctrine and teaching, the Vice-Chancellor threatened no longer to allow his children to attend St. Mary's. But the children knew nothing of the proposed prohibition.[4]

Augustus Short, afterwards Bishop of Adelaide, was one of Mr. Wintle's curates at Culham. He remembers Bessie as a child, and visited her for the last time when he was in England in 1884. Mr. Coxe, the late Librarian of the Bodleian, was another of the Culham curates, the friend of a lifetime, whose farewell letter to Bessie was written shortly before his own death in 1881. He lived in Oxford, and went over to Culham every Sunday. At first he was accompanied by his young wife, but Mrs. Coxe was speedily overtaken by the cares of a family and could not go with him. Mrs. Gilbert, with her warm, kind heart, took pity upon the lonely wife, and invited her to spend the Sundays with them. In this way she saw much of the sisterhood, the pretty name by which the eight girls were known.

They generally walked out on Sunday afternoons, and when they reached a certain spot in Christ Church Meadows, Bessie would stop and say, "Here you have the best view of Christ Church Towers." Other friends of this and later times were Bishop Gray of Cape Town, Bishop Mackenzie, and Dr. Barnes, Canon of Christ Church. The Provost of Oriel, Dr. Hawkins, and Dr. Gilbert were great friends, and it was possibly on this account that Bessie was a special favourite with the Provost. Mrs. Gilbert's uncle, Mr. Wintle, was a fellow of St. John's. He was a wealthy bachelor, had a fine voice, sang well, and was very fond of the society of his great-nieces. The Gilberts were acquainted with nearly all the families of the heads of colleges in Oxford, and the handsome, clever little girls were favourites and were "made much of." When there was a dinner party at home they came in to dessert, and accompanied the ladies to the drawing-room, where Bessie would play and sing. She lived thus not merely in a world of ideas, but in the external world of facts, of things. When a friend once spoke of another lady as handsome, Bessie exclaimed, "Oh, Mrs. ——, with such a nose!"

Many of the fellows of Brasenose College were frequent visitors at the Vice-Chancellor's Lodgings, and the old friends, Dr. Kynaston and Mr. Bazely, were constant as ever. They joined the girls in their walks, and paid frequent visits to the schoolroom, where the younger ones would hide their caps to prevent them from leaving.

Bessie used to delight in these visits, and looked back upon them as the very sunshine of life at Oxford. Her poetry and music gained her much sympathy. At this time, when she was about fourteen, she wrote a poem on the violet which was much praised. At fifteen her intellectual activity was the most remarkable point in her character, whilst at the same time there was an equally remarkable absence of that rebellion against authority which marks an epoch in so many young lives. Boys and girls of that age begin to fret against the restrictions of childhood and youth; they endeavour to cast aside laws and restraints; they are eager to "live their own life" and to enjoy a freedom which they are all unfit to use. Bessie knew nothing of this, or rather, she knew it in a very modified, even attenuated form. The one extravagant desire which marked her adolescence, was to be allowed the privilege of pouring out tea!

It was urged in vain that she would not know if cups were full or half full, that she could not give to each one what they wanted of tea or water, milk or sugar. Her reply was always the same, she would know by the weight. The decision of the parents, however, went against her, and she had her one small grievance. She did not "take turns" in making tea.

In the summer of 1841 Bessie, with a sister of nearly her own age, and one of the little ones, went on a long visit to Culham. They took the harp with them and practised diligently. They read history together. Bessie gave daily lessons to her young sister, reading with her Scott's Tales of a Grandfather, and teaching the child to love them as she herself did. Whenever she had charge of a younger sister, poetry entered largely into her scheme of education, and the "little sister" still remembers the Scott, Wordsworth, and Mrs. Hemans, "Hymns for Childhood" which she learnt at this time.

Bessie loved romantic ballads and stories. She was more imaginative than any of "the others;" and "the others" thought that the loss of sight acted upon her like the want of a drag upon a wheel, when the coach goes down hill. During this visit Bessie had such a constant craving and eager desire for books, that even in their walks she induced her sister to read aloud. They thus read Southey's Curse of Kehama, and she was so much excited by it that somewhat to the alarm of younger persons she went about repeating aloud "the words of that awful curse."

There were plenty of books at Culham. Mr. Wintle interdicted two or three, but amongst the rest his grandchildren were at liberty to select. They picked out all that promised to be "most exciting," and this free pasture made the visit memorable. Bessie was still "Blossom" to her grandfather, a Blossom that he admired and loved, but Blossom only. Never was a Blossom whose words and deeds have been treasured in such loving hearts.

"We looked upon her as a sort of prophetess;" and this view was confirmed by incidents that occurred in 1842. The sisters were walking together, and first one and then another suggested strange things that might happen. "Why, who knows," said Bessie, "in less than a month our house may be burnt down and we may be living in a palace!" Now within a month it is recorded that a rocket let off in the street, and badly aimed, went through the windows of the nursery in which several children were asleep. The governess happened to be in the room, and with great presence of mind seized the rocket and threw it back into the street. Now here was at any rate the possibility of a fire. Still more impressive was the fact that within the month Dr. Gilbert was appointed to the See of Chichester. They would really live in a palace.

Much excitement and no little awe in the nursery, not so much because the father was a bishop as because Bessie was a prophetess. The bishop would be comparatively innocuous in the nursery, but who could tell what a prophetess might foresee!

And so the pleasant Oxford life came to an end; and in spite of a prospective palace, the sisterhood thought the change a calamity. Bessie specially disliked leaving her old friends, and her regret at parting from them did not diminish but increased with time. Doubtless in later years the inevitable restraint of her life lent an additional charm to the memory of her youth in Oxford. The constant solicitude of parents, friends, and sisters had kept from her in early days the knowledge of limitations; but in the time that was at hand she was to go forth to face the world and to learn more of the meaning of the mysterious word blind. Canon Melville, who knew her in Oxford, writes to one of her sisters as follows:—

The College, Worcester, 1885.

I have a very clear memory of the person and character of your sister Bessie; it is a pleasure to me to recall them.

The natural gifts and graces of her mind and disposition were only heightened by the loss of her eyesight. That wonderful compensating power which often makes amends for loss of faculty in one sense by corresponding intensity in another, her moral and spiritual sensitiveness with that inward joyfulness recording itself in outward expression of a pleased and happy countenance, were remarkably evident. Out of many little traits indicative of this and her quiet intuition of what favourably or otherwise might strike her moral sense, I remember once when the appearance of some one she personally, for some unknown reason, disliked, was being remarked upon, and I had pronounced my admiration of it, she turned quite gravely to me, and with deep earnestness, as if she was then seeing or had recently seen the form and figure of him of whom we were talking, exclaimed, "Oh, Mr. Melville, I cannot agree with you! How can you admire him!" Something that had jarred with her moral perceptions having made her transfer her judgment on the character to the form and features of the person, as though she had seen the analogy she felt there must be between the outward and the inward.

Of the history of her self-devotion to the personal and industrial improvement of those under like affliction with herself her whole life was an illustration. Of that many must have much to tell.

During the removal from Oxford the Bishop and Mrs. Gilbert were in London with two daughters, of whom Bessie was one; Fanny and the younger ones were left under the charge of the faithful governess, Miss Lander, and in bright and copious epistles they inform Bessie of all that is going on in the old home. They tell how they had heard Adelaide Kemble in Oxford, whom Bessie is shortly to hear at Covent Garden; how they met many friends at the concert; how one gentleman told them that Adelaide Kemble sang better than Catalani; and how three who had not heard Catalani said she was equal to Grisi. How some of the "Fellows" went home to supper with them, and how they all stayed up till twelve o'clock, a great event for the little girls and their governess, who all send "love and duty to papa and mamma."

There is another letter to Bessie, still in London, though the parents have returned to Oxford, which gives a happy picture of last days there. Bessie sends as farewell presents some of the little chains which she makes, and the sisters sew them together for her. The father receives a farewell presentation of plate, the elder girls darn rents in the gowns of their friends, the Fellows of Brasenose, and so on it runs:—

My dear Bessie—I write to you now in a great hurry to tell you to send Mr. Melville's chain to-morrow by Mr. ——, as I expect we shall see him some time to-morrow, and I could sew it for him. I sent the mat on Tuesday, and when he came to tea in the evening he said he must come to thank you for it to-day; but as I told him he would not be able to see Sarah and Henrietta after this week, he seemed to say that he should wait till next week to see you, which I hope you will think quite fair. The plate was presented to papa yesterday. The address was short, but a very nice one, and I suspect chiefly written by Mr. ——. Papa's answer I have not seen, as he had only one copy, which he left with the Vice-Principal. We were none of us there, which I am almost sorry for, although it would very likely have been too much for us. Papa is delighted beyond measure with it.... We went last night to drink tea at aunt's, and then went to sleep at the Barnes's. We are going to dinner there to-night and sleep, for there is not a bed here. The glasses and all the pictures are gone, and that has made the house more deplorable than ever. Miss A. is here now, and seems pretty well. You know that Mary and I have been mending Mr. A.'s gown for him.

He came this morning for it and stayed some time. He said he could not have got it done anywhere else so nicely; that is a long darn that Mary did for him. The B.'s have told Mr. W. that they will keep their acquaintance with him for our sakes, so that he will not be quite deserted; are not you glad of it? Will you ask Miss Lander to send word where she left her Punch and Judy? If she doesn't remember, I daresay it will be found; but we have not seen it. There is a chance, I believe, of Mr. A.'s taking Selham, but you must not say anything about it. All send love to everybody.—Believe me to be your affectionate sister, F. H. L. G.

Whilst the parents were in London this year, Bessie paid one visit which produced a great and lasting effect upon her. She accompanied her mother to the blind school in the Avenue Road; and this seems to have been the first time that the blind, as a class of the community, apart from the majority, and separated by a great loss and privation, came under her notice. The experience could not fail to be painful. She contrasted the lot of these young people with her own in her happy home, and shrank back in pain from institutions in which the afflicted are herded together, the one common bond that of the fetters of a hopeless fate. The matron of the girls' school, afterwards Mrs. Levy, remembers this visit, and says the impression produced on her by the bishop's daughter was that she was "delightful, beautiful, full of sympathy for the blind." She remembers also that the Bishop preached in Marylebone Church in aid of the blind school, taking as his text words that must often have comforted and strengthened his own heart, "Who hath made the blind and deaf, but I the Lord?"

This year, 1842, was altogether a memorable one. Bessie's grandfather, as a young man, had a living or curacy at Acton, where his chief friend, the squire of the parish, was a Mr. Wegg. Another friend of whom he saw much at this time was Mr. Bathurst, afterwards General Sir James Bathurst, aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington. A third was Miss Hales, companion and friend of Mrs. Wegg. The Gilberts and the Bathursts were Miss Hales's dearest friends; and she had a god-daughter in each family, they were Catherine, younger daughter of Sir James Bathurst, and Bessie, the blind grand-daughter of Mr. Wintle. Mrs. Gilbert always corresponded with Miss Hales, sent her copies of Bessie's verses, and information as to the health and progress of the child. Miss Hales died in 1842, and by will divided her fortune between her two god-daughters.

Bessie was thus placed in a different position from that of any of her sisters; she alone when she attained her majority would have an independent income during her father's lifetime. The Bishop was relieved from anxiety as to the future of his blind daughter, and the necessity of ample provision for her; but he felt strongly, and wished her also to feel, that the possession of money brings with it duties and responsibilities.