The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1900-12-08
WISE ONES CROSSES.
THE GREAT OF EARTH HAD TO
EAR THEM. .sstlS
Some Mental or Physical Inf1rmity Which
Wrung Agony from Beneath the Crown
of Distinguished Persons Physical
Defects Of Superior Men. @

worlds S great men it seems as il the
majority had some mental or physical
inflrmity which Wrung their broWs in
agony beneath their crown Of bays.
Homer is said to have been blind,
Though it is probable that his blind
ness was an affection Of his later years,
else how could he have written of the,
I. Wine-dark sea and the '.rcsJ fin
gered daWn?" Demosthenes, as every
schoolboy knows, suffered and over
came his defect by making speeches
with pebbles in his mouth to the
waves breaking on the Grecian shores,
Milton was a martyr to gout, and it
was his gouty constitution, combined
with his Unsuitable thirst for work,
that finally brought on his blindness.
Before he was forty he had lost the
sight Of one eye by the deposit Of
equity crystals around the optic nerve.
Though warned that arduous work
meant total blindness he undertook to
write a reply to Claude de Saumaise's,
book on ,3.The Divine Right. Of Kings
and as he wrote impenetrable darkness
slowly closed over him. It was not un-
til after he was wholly blind that he
gave to the world paradise LOST
Pope was a hunchback with wasp
>ish temper, and was made constantly
miserable by realizing sense of his
malfOrmations. His deformity once
was made the occasion of brutal jest
|, by a soldier whose 'sensibilities Pope's
venomous tongue had pierced to the
quick. One evening at a tavern which
he frequented the poet was discussing
with some friends what was likely to
: be the proper punctuation of a passage
in the Iliad which he was then trans
lating. There was much diversity of
opinion, and a soldier in the room sug-
gested that perhaps an interrogations
mark had been omitted. Pope angrilyi
asked what he knew about interroga-
tion marks. "A mark of ,interroga-.
ton, calmly replied the soldier, sis a
crooked little thing that asks impu-
dent tions. Ss<S.s,@-zs*# t:.
DR. Johnson. the dictionary man,
suffered greatly from scrofula, then
called kings evil"-a disease Of which
it was believed the "kynges Of Eng
land, by the power which God hath
gwen to them, doth make the sickle
man whole" Accordingly Johnson
was touched" by Queen Ann, but was
not cured, the Salic law evidently in
terfering with the operation of the
hearing power. In addition to being
eaten with scrofula. DR.. Johnson was
afflicted with hypochondria, which al
most amounted to insanity. He lived
in constant dread of going crazy, and
even on his deathbed translated his
prayers into Latin to prove to himself
that he had not lost his mental facul-
ties. trt.. ~
The poet Cowper did all his best
work in the intervals between fits OF
the deepest religious melancholia. Mary
Lamb went insane. Byron, otherwise
as beautiful as Greek god, had club
foot. Who that once has read can
forget Macauley's antithetical desrip-
ton of Byron? "He had head that
sculptcrs loved to copy, and a foot
iLuG sUGlOIMlLy VI 1CAIAO O005oAho AAA
( the street mimicked." Sir Walter Scott
was lame. One leg was slightly short
erf than the other and one Of his feet
was distorted. = Carlyle was a chronic
dyspeptic, and Charles Kingsley slut
tered. Robert Louis Stevenson did his
best work after the Edinburgh. doctors
had told him he had only half a lung
left" Mahomet, Julius Caesar and
Napoleon were epileptics. Nelson had
two acquired deformities. He lost one
eye and his left arm in battle. When
his arm was amputated one OF the
nerves unWittingly was bound up in
the ngature applied to one of the ar
teries, and as result the gallant ad-
miral suffered much pain for several
wears The German emperor has an
imperfect development Of his left arm, n
and President Kruger is said to be a
sufferer from Bright's disease. Louis
Pasteur was afflicted with partial par
alysis.. 5 .s*sS VA S*s " ii nj. 4
Bacteria In Earth. ~
4 shoyelful Of earth, Mr.. G. Clarl