Elizabeth Gilbert and Her Work for the Blind Part 1

Elizabeth Gilbert and Her Work for the Blind.

by Frances Martin.

INTRODUCTION

There is a sacred privacy in the life of a blind person. It is led apart from much of the ordinary work of the world, and is unaffected by many external incidents which help to make up the important events of other lives. It is pa.s.sed in the shade and not in the open sunlight of eager activity. At first we should be disposed to say that such a life, with its inevitable restrictions and compulsory isolation, could offer little of public interest, and might well remain unchronicled. But in the rare cases where blindness, feeble health, and suffering form scarcely any bar to activity; where they are not only borne with patience, but by heroic effort are compelled to minister to great aims, we are eager to learn the secret of such a life. No details connected with it are devoid of interest; and we are stimulated, encouraged, and strengthened by seeing obstacles overcome which appeared insurmountable, and watching triumph where we dreaded defeat.

Elizabeth Gilbert was born at a time when kindly and intelligent men and women could gravely implore "the Almighty" to "take away" a child merely because it was blind; when they could argue that to teach the blind to read, or to attempt to teach them to work, was to fly in the face of Providence. And her whole life was given to the endeavour to overcome prejudice and superst.i.tion; to show that blindness, though a great privation, is not a disqualification. Blind men and women can learn, labour, and fulfil all the duties of life if their fellow-men are merciful and helpful, and G.o.d is on the side of all those who work honestly for themselves and others.

The life of Elizabeth Gilbert and her work for the blind are so inextricably interwoven, that it is impossible to tell one without constant reference to the other.

A small cellar in Holborn at a rent of eighteen-pence a week was enough for a beginning. But before her death she could point to large and well-appointed workshops in almost every city of England, where blind men and women are employed, where tools have been invented by or modified for them, where agencies have been established for the sale of their work.

Her example has encouraged, her influence has promoted the work which she never relinquished throughout life.

Nothing was too great for her to attempt on behalf of the blind, nothing seemed impossible of achievement. One success suggested a new endeavour, one achievement opened a door for fresh effort.

Free from any taint of selfishness or self-seeking, all her thought was for others, for the helpless, the poor, the friendless. Her pity was boundless. There was nothing she could not forgive the blind, no error, no ignorance, no crime. She knew the desolation of their lives, their friendless condition, and understood how they might sink down and down in the darkness because no friendly hand was held out to them.

And yet she was unsparing to herself, and a rigid censor of her own motive and conduct. This she could not fail to be, because she believed in her vocation as from G.o.d. She never doubted that her work had been appointed for her; she never wavered in her belief that strength given by G.o.d, supported her. She knew that she was the servant of G.o.d, sent by Him to minister to others. This knowledge was joy; but it made her inexorable and inflexible towards herself.

There are but few incidents in her peaceful life. It was torn by no doubt, distracted by no apprehensions, it reached none of the heights of human happiness, and sounded none of the depths of despair. If there were unfulfilled hopes, aspirations, affections, they left no bitterness, no sense of disappointment. A beautiful life and helpful; for who need despair where she overcame and gained so great a victory?

The materials for recording the history of Elizabeth Gilbert are scanty, but all that were possessed by her sisters and friends have been placed at my disposal. My love for her, and our long friendship, have enabled me, I hope, to interpret them aright.

FRANCES MARTIN.

_October 1887._

CHAPTER I

CHILDHOOD

"Moving about in worlds not realised."--WORDSWORTH.

Elizabeth Margaretta Maria, born on the 7th of August 1826, was the second daughter and third of the eleven children of Ashhurst Turner Gilbert, Princ.i.p.al of Brasenose College, Oxford, afterwards Bishop of Chichester, and of Mary Ann his wife, only surviving child of the Rev.

Robert Wintle, Vicar of Culham, near Abingdon.

The little girl, Bessie, as she was always called, was christened at St.

Mary's Church, which is close to the old-fashioned house in High Street known as the Princ.i.p.al's Lodgings, in which Dr. Gilbert lived.

"A fine handsome child, with flashing black eyes," she is said to have been; and then for three years we hear nothing more. There was a nest of little children in the nursery, and in the spring of 1829 a fifth baby was to be added to them. In the diary of the grandfather, Mr. Wintle, we find the following entries:--

1829.--April 6. Little Elizabeth alarmingly ill with scarlet fever.

" 7. Child very ill.

" 8. Child somewhat better.

" 18. Letter from Mary Ann [Mrs. Gilbert], stating that little Elizabeth had lost one eye.

" 21. Went to Oxford. Little girl blind.

July 9. Dr. Farre and Mr. Alexander say there is no chance of little Bessie seeing.

And so the "flashing black eyes," scarcely opened upon the world, were closed for ever, and all memory of sight was very speedily obliterated.

Mrs. Gilbert had not been allowed to nurse or even to see her little girl, who had been removed from the nursery to a north wing, stretching back and away from the house. It was the father who watched over and scarcely left her. Mrs. Gilbert believed that the child's recovery was owing to his unremitting care. Dr. Gilbert's common sense seems to have been in advance of the medical treatment of that period; and he insisted on open windows, change of bedding and clothing to suit the exigencies of the case. When the child was thought to be sinking, he took upon himself the responsibility of administering port wine; this may or may not have saved her life, it is certain she struggled through and survived a dangerous, almost fatal attack.

But the handsome, healthy baby was sightless; one eye was entirely and the other partly destroyed, the throat ragged and certain to be always delicate, ears and nose also affected. A childhood of much suffering was inevitable--and then?

It was the father who bore the first brunt of this sorrow. It was he who listened to the pathetic appeal of the little one, "Oh, nursie, light a candle," to her entreaty to be taken "out of the dark room," to the softly-whispered question, "If I am a _very_ good 'ittle girl may I see my dolly to-morrow?" He had been full of courage, hope, and resource at the most critical times, but he was broken-hearted now, and would rush weeping from the child's bedside.

It was not until July, by that time a fifth baby was in the nursery, that the parents took their little Bessie to London, and there, as Mr.

Wintle's diary tells, the case was p.r.o.nounced to be hopeless. The renowned oculist of that day, Mr. Alexander, told them that there was no possibility of sight; the eyes were destroyed, the child was blind. Dr.

Farre, whom they also consulted, showed much sympathy with the parents in their affliction, and they looked upon him as a friend raised up to advise and comfort them. Many years later they appealed to him on behalf of their blind child, and reminded him of the encouragement and help he had given them. It was doubtless he who suggested that blindness should be made as little as possible of a disability to the child, what other help could he give in such a case?--that she should be trained, educated, and treated like the other children; that she should share their pleasures and their experience, and should not be kept apart from the mistaken notion of shielding her from injury.

It was with these views that the parents returned to Oxford, and it was these that they consistently carried out henceforward. There was no invention, no educational help for the blind which they did not inquire into and procure; but these were only used in the same way that one child might have one kind of pencil and another child another pencil.

The sisters who were nearest her own age speak of Bessie as gay and happy, "so like the others that it is difficult to pick her out from them." Surviving friends who remember the Gilbert children, the _sisterhood_, as the eight little girls came ultimately to be called, say that the group is ineffaceably stamped upon the memory, but that there was nothing special to attract attention to the individual members of it. And yet the figure of the blind child does emerge, distinct and apart, and the reminiscences of youth and childhood are numerous enough to manifest the interest with which every part of her career was followed in her own family.

The parents had decided that she was to be treated exactly like her sisters. When she came into a room they were not to give her a chair; she was to find one for herself. Dr. Gilbert specially could not endure to have it suggested that she could not do what the others did. "Let her try," he would say. So Bessie tried, and, ordinarily, succeeded. He was specially anxious that she should behave like the others at table, should be as particular in eating and drinking as they were, and should manage the food on her plate without offence to others. He encouraged her in ready repartee and swift intellectual insight. When the father joined his children in their walks it was always Bessie who took his hand. She invariably sat by him at breakfast, and when the children went in to dessert it was Bessie who sat by his side and poured out his gla.s.s of wine. "How do you know when it is full?" some one asked. "By the weight," she replied. The father, we may be sure, was training her in the transfer of the work of one sense to another, and helping her to supplement the lost eyesight by touch and sound, raising her up to the level of other children; and his initiative was followed in the family.

A special tie between the father and his blind child was always recognised. If any favour was to be asked it was Bessie who was sent to the father, and also if any difficulty arose amongst the children they would say, "We will tell Bessie," "We will ask Bessie."

There seems to have been no jealousy of her influence, no opposition to it. The sisters thought it her right to be first, and looked upon it as a great distinction, honour, and privilege to have a blind sister. It was their part to make her feel as little as possible the difference between herself and them, and to help her to be as independent as they were. She was taught to dress herself unaided as early as the other children. She was full of fun, and enjoyed a romping game; she would much rather risk being knocked over than allow any one to lead her by the hand when they were all at play. She was pa.s.sionate as a child, liable to sudden violent outbursts of anger; and as there were a good many pa.s.sionate children together, she was quite as often mixed up in a quarrel as any of the others.

One incident remembered against her was that at seven or eight years old she seized one of the high schoolroom chairs and hurled it, or intended to do so, at a governess who had offended her. Another was that when she was somewhat younger, at the close of their daily walk, she and a little sister hurried on to enjoy the luxury of ringing the front door bell. It was just out of reach, and the little girls on tiptoe were straining to get at it. An undergraduate, pa.s.sing by, thought to do them a kindness and pulled the bell. Bessie stamped with anger, and turned upon him a little blind pa.s.sionate face: "Why did you do it? You knew I wanted to ring."

"A most affectionate nature, unselfish, generous, but pa.s.sionate and obstinate; so obstinate no one could turn her from the thing she had resolved on," says one of the sisters.

In after life we find a temper under perfect control, and a will developed and trained to sweet firmness and unwavering endurance; but these showed themselves in the fitful irregularity of a somewhat wilful childhood.

In accordance with the precept of her father, Bessie wanted to do everything that other children did. She _would_ try, and nothing but her own individual experience would convince her of the limitations of her powers. The fire and the kettle were great temptations to her. One day in the nursery at Oxford she tried to reach the kettle, slipped and fell in front of the fire, tried to save herself by grasping the hot bars of the grate, and the poor little hands were badly burnt. We may be sure how the parents would suffer with their blind child in such an accident, and yet they would not encourage a panic, or allow any unnecessary restrictions to be put upon her actions.

A few years after scarlet fever the Gilbert children had measles. All memory of the occurrence would have faded out had it not been for Bessie. Her throat, as we have said, was ragged and impeded, and throughout life the only way in which she could swallow any liquid was in very small sips and with a curious little twist of nose and mouth. In after life she used to compare herself to Pascal, saying how much better her own case was, for Pascal was obliged to have his medicine warmed before he could sip it, whilst she could take hers cold.

There are some who still remember how they pitied her when they saw Bessie sitting up in bed sipping a black draught, and they can recall the resolution with which she did it, and the conscientiousness with which she took all, to the last drop.

Some twenty years later she was walking in the garden at Eversley with Charles Kingsley, and he said to her, "When you take medicine you drink it all up. I spill some on my frock, and then I have to take it over again." It was one of those swift intuitive glances of his; he saw in the delicate woman the same patient courage that had characterised the child. She had much suffering from her throat throughout life, and as a little girl was nearly choked by a lozenge. The noteworthy point of the incident is that in the wildest tumult of alarm of those around her, the child was quite calm.

There was so little sense of her inferiority to others in early youth that it was only as the sisters grew up that they realised how much Bessie knew, and how much she could do, in spite of her blindness. As a child they all looked upon her as very clever. One of their Sunday amus.e.m.e.nts was to play at Sunday school, and Bessie was invariably made the mistress.