Waterbury Democrat., 1901-04-16
HAS LOST HIS SIGHT.

ITOuDleS III q DatIaIOn nave "
 fallen the author of "The Light of Asia" Buddha's interpreter to the English speaking race, like that greater epic poet before him, is stricken with blindness. Deprived of the brightness of the visual ray, Sir Edwin Arnold has been compelled to relinquish much of the active literary
 work on which he has mainly spent
 the last 40 years on the editorial staff of the London Daily Telegraph.
 Domestic clouds have added to the burden of years and waning physical powers, as only recently son, who was solicitor, was arrested in the United States and found guilty on trial in London on charge of embez- element.
 A letter just received in New York from the veteran author and journal ist suggests with what courage he is facing these severe affiictions. To use his own words: My condition would be sad one without patience and resignation. never despair, and go on with my work, thanking Heay- en for my unimpaired mental pow CTS"
 Relieved from the exacting pressure of Fleet street, Sir Edwin Arnold, 1t may be hoped, may be able to give to the world some fresh picture of the glowing east like those on which al- ready rest securely his fame and rep utation.
 How many editions his Light of
 Asia' has passed through it would now be hard to tell The book was
 published in 1879, and at once att tained such popularity that ten years ago there had been published more than 40 editions in England and some 80 acknowledged editions in America. It was the outcome of his early life in India, where he passed several years in the stirring times of the mntiny.
 His career at Oxford had been a bril- Liant one. Like Tennyson at Cam
 bridge, he carried off at the sister
 university the blue ribbon for poetry
 winning the Newdigate, with prize poem on the Feast of Belshazzar." :" There have been but few instances where the early promise was so we'll fulfilled in after life. After a brief spell as schoolmaster in England
 he received an appointment as prin- cipal of the government Sanscrit coll lege, at Poona, in the Bombay presi- dency.
 On his return to England after
 services which twice received the thanks of the governor in council, he
 became attached to the editorial staff
 of the Daily Telegraph. It was on be-
 half of the proprietor of that journal that he arranged the first expedition of MT. George Smith to Assyria, as we'll as that of Sir Henry Stanley, in the joint expedition of the New York
 Herald, in search of Liyingstonedan and
 the completion of his discoveries. Though Sir Edwin Arno1d's later volumes of verse have not been so popular as his storySof Buddha, his poetical translati ions from the San scrit epics and of the Persian poet Saldi brought him various distinc- tions from eastern rulers. He is 2
 knight commander of the Indian em-
 pire. A younger brother, Sir Arthur Arnold, whose labors as commis- sioner in the Lancashire cotton fam inc brought him into notice, has since
 been prominent in London municipal
 government, and gained another Lnighthood for this Kentish family.
 Romance has followed Sir Edwin
 Arnold more or less throughout his
 career. A long stay in Japan some
 years ago led to his marriage with
 Japanese lady, as his third wife.
 She is a typical Japanese beauty, her
 name signifying Jewel of the Dark
 River."' To Sir Edwin Arnold's en-
 thusiasm for the Land of the Chrys- anthemum is due much of the cult of
 things Japanese which of late years
 have manifested themselves in an
 English house interior.