tted behind
them. The paper for writing was placed between the pasteboard and wires,
guided by which and using a black-lead crayon, he could write not
illegibly with closed eyes."

This contrivance, with improvements, he used for about forty years of
semi-blindness.

The documents on which he depended for his facts were read to him,
though sometimes for days he could not listen, and then perhaps only for
half an hour at a time. As he listened to the reading he made notes with
closed eyes. Then he turned over in his mind what he had heard and
laboriously wrote a few lines. For months he penned an average of only
three or four lines a day. Later he was able to work more rapidly and he
completed the book in two years and a half. No publisher was found who
was willing to bear the expense of issuing the volume, and the young man
paid for the plates himself.

Friends thought that now he would have to give up. His eyes were still
troubling him, he became lame, his head felt as if great bands of iron
were fastened about it, and frequently he did not sleep more than an
hour or two a night. Then came the death of his wife, on whom he had
depended for some years. At one time his physician warned him that he
had not more than six months to live. But when a friend said that he had
nothing more to live for, he made the man understand that he was not
ready to hoist the white flag.

He lived for forty-five years after it was thought that he could never
use his eyes again, and during all this time he worked steadily and
patiently, accomplishing what would have been a large task for a man who
had the full use of all his powers.

An Englishman was told by his physician he could never see again. For a
time the news weighed heavily upon him. Afterward he said: "I remained
silent for a moment, thinking seriously, and then, summoning up all the
grit I possessed, I said, 'If God wills it, He knows best. What must be
will be. And,' I added, putting my hand up to a tear that trickled down
my face, 'God helping me, this is the last tear I shall ever shed for my
blindness.'" It was. He secured the degrees of doctor of philosophy and
master of arts. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and
the Chemical Society. He made many valuable scientific discoveries and
inventions, saved a millionaire's life, and received the largest fee
ever awarded any doctor--$250,000.

To these men difficulties were a challenge to courage. They accepte