Blinding

“ Sometimes in the late evening one walks busily up and down the ward doing this and that, forgetting that there is anything beyond [Pg 46] the drawn blinds, engrossed in the patients, one's tasks—bed-making, washing, one errand and another—and then suddenly a blind will blow out and almost up to the ceiling, and through it you will catch a glimpse that makes you gasp, of a black night crossed with bladed searchlights, of a moon behind a crooked tree.
The lifting of the blind is a miracle; I do not believe in the wind. ”

“ I have studied the expression of the eye in those born blind. These poor people, who could not even see dim shadows of objects, nor distinguish night from day, as though a sevenfold bandage covered their eyes, used to play instruments and be happy together, nor would anyone have thought that in them the eye was dead, insensible for ever to light; but it was only its movements which gave it an expression of joy and amiability, which inspired confidence and tenderness. ”

“ Let any one among us, who walks in the sunlight, taking his eyes as matters of course, cover them up for a moment, and think what it would be to grope about in a perpetual darkness,—not that he may give himself a gratulatory hug at his freedom from his neighbour’s affliction, but that, feeling its magnitude he may pity it,—and he too would possibly turn and relieve the sorrows of the poor blind man, as the placard bade him do. ”

“ There is the connubial blindness, ma’am, which perhaps you may have observed in the course of your own experience, and which is a kind of wilful and self-bandaging blindness. There is the blindness of party, ma’am, and public men, which is the blindness of a mad bull in the midst of a regiment of soldiers clothed in red. There is the blind confidence of youth, which is the blindness of young kittens, whose eyes have not yet opened on the world; and there is that physical blindness, ma’am, of which I am, contrairy to my own desire, a most illustrious example. ”

“ First, adaptation of vision to a dark room, like those used for flyers during the war. Then the drops of black liquid that the professor had invented, slowly spreading over the eyes, subtly altering the rods and cones of the retina, the nerve endings sensitive to light.
And I began to live in a gradually fading world. Have you ever wondered what it's like to go blind? The increasing dusk and darkness around the edges of your vision, the little errors and mistakes that begin to crop up in everyday life. ”

“ The blindness in the eyes is so complete and set in such a full array that it acts at first on one almost like a kind of vision. The eyes hold themselves like pictures of eyes, like little walls, as if real eyes were in behind them. One wonders if there is any one who could ever manage to break through them, fleck up little ordinary human things—personality, for instance, atmosphere, or light—against them. ”

“ We have, then, the senses of hearing, touch and smell, each playing its part in the development of the blind child, and each playing it so well that the lack of eyesight is not keenly felt in early childhood. Not until it is old enough to understand the thoughtless remarks of well-meaning people, to catch the pitying tone, to feel the compassionate touch, does it realize that this lack of eyesight is to prove an almost insurmountable barrier to its future success. ”

“ A bandage is passed over the eyes, lest in the first tenderness of the recovered sense, it should be fatally affected by the sudden transition from darkness to light. But between the awful blank of total privation of vision, and the temporary blank of vision merely veiled, there lies the widest difference. In the moment of their restoration, the blind have had one glimpse of light, flashing on them in an overpowering gleam of brightness, which the thickest, closest veiling cannot extinguish. The new darkness is not like the void darkness of old ”

“ The eye of the sun itself is blind; and for ever, while it dazzles us with its light, blind it must remain. Nay, what need has it for sight at all, if in blindness it be able to fulfil its mission? And yet implicit within its vast energies, there lies the gift of sight. ”

“ But a great deal she understands about blindness! And why should she?—Look here, Topknot; which would you rather do? Have your eyes put out, and lots of candy to eat, or, your eyes all good, and not a speck of candy as long as you live? ”

“ Every year, on the evening of that day, she would enter the best parlour, and, after closing the door behind her, she would walk across to the window and raise the dark green blind a little way. When the blind was drawn a broad shaft of light would cross the room and hundreds of little bits of dust would come in with the light and dance gaily all together in the golden beam. ”

“ But the blind are quite agreeable and ornamental compared with the maimed, the diseased, the shrivelled, the distorted, who lie under walls and upon the staircases of public buildings, station themselves at street corners, ride about on donkeys, and everywhere disgust you with their nauseous presence, and pester you with their piteous whine. ”

“ But, blindfolded as I was, I found that they are literally right, and that our sense of seeing is so much stronger that it blinds us to the less acute sensitiveness of the other organs. Partly by hearing, partly by that sixth sense of the blind, I knew that we passed through a thriving hamlet of people, not men alone, but women and children. ”

“ That, as everyone knows, is the classical way of beginning the game of Blind Man’s Buff; and supposing that the blinded man pro tem, is properly bandaged, and cannot get a squint of light up by the side of his nose, and also supposing that he confuses himself by turning round the proper number of times honestly, he will be in profound darkness, and in utter ignorance of the direction of door, window, or the salient objects in the room. ”

“ The improvement in my vision since I have been under treatment has been indisputable. After two weeks the intangible suffering caused by light left me, and it has never returned. I can go out in the brightest sunlight without glasses of any kind, and, although my eyes feel weak and I squint a little, there is no real distress. I can look out of a window onto a sunny street, and when I turn back again into the room there is no blindness. ”

“ Blindness always comes of course from head-wounds, and head-wounds mean the disorganization of all the nervous centers. The Directrice left her work and went upstairs into the sick man's room and sat down by his bed. The great-shouldered, massively muscled fellow clutched at her like a scared child, and began in a rapid, hysteric whisper to tell her of the awful things he saw in his eternity of blackness. For he was not really blind, he told her, he saw, yes he saw, but only not what was really there ... ”

“ Furthermore, his blindness, by quickening all his remaining faculties, enabled him to hear without effort everything going on around him.
The Lure within. The chatter in the brilliant drawing-rooms, the swish of silks, the trailing of velvets on silken carpets, the rustle of starch and frills on the parquet floor, the perfume used by the women, the 130smell of furs, candles, lamps and the warm air heavy with fragrant flowers, the murmur of distant fountains and music—everything touched the sensitive nervous organism. ”

“ Many people, stone blind, have come long distances for eye-lotion, and to-night a man nearly blind came in, leading a man totally blind for eight years, asking me to restore his sight. The blind had led the blind from a camp twenty-four miles off! Octogenarians believe that I can give them back their hearing, and men with crippled or paralysed limbs think that if I would give them some "Feringhi ointment," of which they have heard, they would be restored. ”

“ Nor is it really darkness, as the mind discovers towards the end of the sick and restless vigil. The eye also is attuned to that which limits and surrounds its potentialities. The blinds are drawn, but still some faint mysterious greyness creeps between them and the window. ”

“ Already he felt a new stir in his veins. He struggled to speak.
"No yet," the girl whispered. "Don't make any effort yet."
She gave him more of the liquor. He felt strength returning to his muscles. He tried to open his eyes. The sharp pain was a swift reminder of his blindness. "I'm blind——" he told her.
"No matter, I'll save you." Even his blindness would not put a barrier between them. One glance at the inflamed lids, however, told her that in all probability it was just a temporary blindness from some great irritation, soon to be dispelled. "Can you eat?" she asked. ”

“ Blindness wraps the outer world about with a dark veil, which likewise envelops the brain, entangling and impeding its processes; and yet by the aid of inherited conceptions and impressions gained from other sources, the brain creates in this darkness a world of its own, sad, gloomy, and sombre, but not devoid of a vague poetry peculiar to itself. ”

“ What you have no idea of you cannot miss; and their not definitely missing this great region out of their sight seems due to the fact that their very idea and memory of it is lost along with the sensation. A man blind of his eyes merely, sees darkness. A man blind of his visual brain-centres can no more see darkness out of the parts of his retina which are connected with the brain-lesion than he can see it out of the skin of his back. He cannot see at all in that part of the field ”

“ But human beings are often called to still greater trials—to total loss of sight—in other words, to perfect blindness. This calamity results from many causes; for example, the cornea may become so opaque as to be incapable of transmitting rays of light into the interior chamber of the eye; or the crystalline lens, also, may become opaque (cataract;) disease of the iris, attended by closure of the pupil, will produce blindness, as will also paralysis, or loss of energy, in the retina or optic nerve, (Amaurosis or Gutta serena.) ”

“ If thine eye be blinded, thy whole body is in darkness." If you cut off a finger, or the tip of the ear, there is indeed pain, but the loss is not so great, nor is the disfigurement attended by so much pain as it would be were you to take out the eyes, mutilate the nose, or saw through a bone. Some members we can dispense with and yet live: without others life is an impossibility. ”

“ The spectacle of men—particularly young men—who have given their sight for their country is, to most observers, a moving one. Melancholy are the reflections of the visitor who meets, for the first time, a promenading party of our blind patients. It is the plain truth, nevertheless, that the blind men themselves are far from melancholy. One of the rowdiest characters we ever had in the hospital was totally blind. The blind men's wards are notoriously amongst the least sedate. ”

“ It occurred to him that the squeaks sounded very much like those button-shaped hollow whistles that children put in their mouths to make strident sounds of varying pitch. Gradually, all his senses returned to normal. Even his eyes under the blindfold ceased to report [39] only glare blindness, and he saw those peculiar, dissolving grayish patterns that human eyes transmit from darkness. ”

“ Blindness is a very general characteristic [Pg 129] of creatures which dwell in darkness. There are all stages between total blindness and weak eyes. Now, do these blind creatures live in darkness because they are blind, or have they become first weak-eyed and then blind because of the continuous disuse of their eyes? ”

“ My husband would say to me: ‘Bessy, the red window at New House did look nice to-night as I came home from market. I’m sure they’re reading and studying something learned, astrology or such, behind that red blind.’ ‘Don’t you believe it, James’ says I, ‘learned it may be, but not according. If they want to burn a light all night they could have a black blind. Who else has got a red blind? ”

“ We observe however, that the blind have a more delicate and accurate touch than we, because, not having sight to guide them, they depend upon touch for the judgments we form with the aid of sight. Why then do we not train ourselves to walk, like them, in the dark, to recognize by the touch all bodies we can reach, to judge of objects around us, in short, to do by night and in the dark all they do in daytime without eyesight? ”

“ The blind, though unable to perceive the light of the sun, are, nevertheless, capable of experiencing its continual heat. The blind in heart, however, among the people of the Bayán—and to this God is My witness—are impotent, no matter how long the Sun may shine upon them, either to perceive the radiance of its glory, or to appreciate the warmth of its rays. ”

“ They are sorry, honestly sorry, and want so much to help, but to their minds blindness is the greatest of all afflictions, and loss of eyesight is accompanied by a corresponding loss of physical ability and mental vigor, unless the person so afflicted is unusually gifted, and, in that case, he is regarded as the marvel of the age. ”

“ Some in blindness, eager to escape the sun, dash themselves against the rocky lintel and posts of the entrance, and fall broken and mangled at your feet, as tremblingly you shrink from the bruised clots fluttering in dying spasms about you. ”

“ A blind man called attention to his dim eyes; a pale, scrofulous youth displayed the sores on his legs; a paralytic woman sought to join her woeful twisted hands: did the authorities wish to see them all perish, did they refuse them the last divine chance of life, condemned and abandoned as they were by the science of man? ”

“ I see this miracle performed every day, yet to me it is ever new, ever wonderful, stimulating me to greater efforts for my people—because the blind are my people, and their joys and sorrows, triumphs and defeats, find an echo in my heart. ”

“ As ordinarily used the word blindness signifies a degree of defective sight which unfits the patient for any occupation requiring the use of the eyes. Scientifically it means a state in which there is no perception of light. ”