Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1886-09-22
THE BASILISK.
A STORY OF TO-DAY.
CHAPTER I.
RETROSPECTIVE.

CHAPTER I.
RETROSPECTIVE. =:
st. Bartimeus's Home for the Blind,
in Quex-road, Kilburn, is one of those
numerous institutions, half scientif fl
half charitable, and wholly. admirable,
which do so much to justify the nine
teenth century in its tenure of such an
advanced place among the ages.
Founded by private benevolence, the
Home gives what its name processes to
a limited number of patients of the
better class, whose means do not allow
of their enjoying the highest skill, ex-
cept under conditions of painful pub
licity, and who, but for the shelter
afforded by the Home. would have
been brought, perhaps, to beggary by
their affection. Of this refuge was l,
Frank Coplestone, an inmate; and one
fine afternoon in September, 1883, I
was sitting in the resident surgeons
sanctum, as had for some time past
been rather an established custom.
smoking a long pipe, and talking,
much like other people, over the con-
Germs of our little world with good DR..
Shaw.
In the pauses of our intimate and
desultory conversation, I reflected for
the hundredth time on the marvellous
and merciful faculty men possess of
becoming; if not reconciled, at least re-
signed, to the most dreadful conditions
of existence. Reconciled I was not.
But had I looked into a magician's
mirror four years ago, and seen myself
in the future the blind helpless being I
now was, I should have deemed it a
lying vision to have shown me capable
of living at all under such an afliction.
Four years ago! What ar immense
time for a young man to look forward
to! What an insignificant period to
look back upon, when the years have
hidden their chances, or quickly run
the gauntlet of slumbering ambition.
The last four years had been to me a
dream of horror, from which I was
only just awakening into a sober dark
ness. And yet I could sit smoking
with DR.. Shaw, and talk with every
day interest W. things in general. I
could not have done it had I really
shared Shaw's opinion of my case. I
knew he had come to consider it hope
less. The principle that made M a
tolerable companion, the principle that
kept me a living or a sane man, was
Hope.
The life at st. Bartimeus's, if not of
an e~xhilarating character, was made
as cheerful as circumstances allowed.
We were not, even the most forlorn of
us, left without the sense of sympathy
anu even friendliness. We had a good.
ly number of visitors who interested
themselves in ourinterests, and joined,
both actively and passively, in our en-
tertainments. Some were of the ma
ture of real friends, others were those
good souls, who feel that affliction
gives a brother a sort of claim upon
them, and generally contrive to let him
realize that he is a sort of poor rela-
ton of the human family, whose rights
cannot be g%ainsaid, but whose situation
allows of a certain goody-good dis
count upon their be%neyolence. Our
concerts were, in a limited sense, cele-
brated, if [ may with propriety say so,
as l was the chief musician Of the es.
t%ablishment. Plays, in which some of
us took part, with the extraordinary
facility which seems incredible, or at
least miraculous, to those who have
not had much experience of tho blind,
were not seldom performed in the
large hall of the Home. These plays
afforded at least as much qualification
to outsiders as to the inmates. For
the hall allowed of the erection of a
good sized stage, and accommodated q
large audience. This being the case,
b%enevolence and dramatic ambition
went hand-in-hand; and many anna
teurs who cared little for amusing the
blind, were glad to exercise their talent
upon so favorable an arena, before
their kinsfo]k and acquaintance. DR..
Shaw, though not much of an actor,
being, in fact, as he said, bothered by
having a lot If other people about him
was much given to recitations on these
festive occasions, and being some-
thing of a poet, often took the opportus
nifty of letting off his own compositions
which we're generally of a martial
character. AS l was always content
! In CIT oi1onFv md 1af MN fhnv1nhfo
run on as they would, while the good
doctor acclaimed his compositions, he
had come to regard me as a critic of
M mean order, and a useful court, of
first instance.
To-day, with ar apologize authority
of tone, which I had learned to inter-
pref as the precursor of a preliminary
reading, DR.. Shaw, our conversation
having turned on the next projected
entertainment, proposed to read me a
dramatic poem he had been writing for
the occasion. I settled myself to
think. He took a turn or two about
the room, and then accompanj ed my
thoughts with the not unmusical ca
dences of his partially trained voice.
And as he read l let my mind 60
back to the past, l saw myself again a
boy of nineteen, imaginative ,impuisive,
romantic: My mother. an officers
widow of scanty means, mad managed
to send me to q good school, and was
now continuing to let me- study music
in London. l had a taste, amount
ing to a passion for music
and l worked at it with
a will; being resolved not only to
make a living by it, but some time or
other, to make a name and fame as
we'll. How hard I worked! At school
l had done but moderately we'll. l
had no heart in the work there; and
though as Ihave said, a romantic and
imaginative boy, l was q tollerably
robust one, and devoted myself to
games with a zeal which might have
done no little if devoted to classics or
mathematics. The change from the
free open air school life to that of close
study and mental excitement in London