Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-12-10
INFlRMITY CAN'T DUST THE
CAPTAIN FROM HIS SOUL
Blindness Defeated Sir Arthur Pearson
No More Than Similar Affections
Have Broken the Spirit Of
Thousands Of Others

A MONG all the theories about the nature
of man, there is none which can ignore
the fact that he Is something more than
mere bundle of physical forces which react
to the stimulus of the nerves
Something dwells in the tenement Of clay
that passes comprehension. There is Sir
Arthur Pearson, just dead from an accident.
who, though blind in his later years, refused
to succumb to his ailiction and faced the
world with his head erect and undismaycd.
The influence of his example and his active
encouragement saved from despair hundreds
OF soldiers blinded by the war The closing
OF the windows of the house did not neces-
sarily evict the tenant Though he was
doomed to live in it. he could still live in n
way worthy of man, just us the imprisoned
Bunyan wrote an immortal book.
Sir Arthur determined that no physical
intrmity should be allowed TO cripple the
human spirit 1t did not MAIN his spirit.
And the books are full of the records of other
men who have refused to bow down to
physical limitations. The tenant of their
body was too big to be mastered by it.
The case Of Milton will at once come to
mind, because he was afflicted after the
manner of Sir Arthur. He dictated his
great epic to his daughters, pcrfccting the
lines In the darkness that envcloped him
before reciting them to those who wrote
them on paper.
Prescott wrote his histories when his sight
was so dim that he had to employ others to
do his reading for him. He might easily
have abandoned his work on the plea that
Ciu
colt was so much more powerful than the
body he inhabited that he overcame its
weaknesses.
Senator Gore, of Oklahoma, is another
blind man who has made his way from OBJ
scurity to prominence in spite of obstacles
that force littler men to give up the fight
and hide in corner.
And long before Gore there was Alexander
II. stephens, so crippled that he had to be
wheeled into his place in the halls of Con-
greSS. Yet he was one of the most inf1u-
cntial leaders of that body, n statesman of
broad vision and politician ready to fight
his advcrsarics, who could have lifted him
with one hand and thrown him out of
window. But the tenant of that crippled
body was so big that it made him seem
giant.
Robert Louis Stevenson fought disease
for years and wrote in bed because he was
not strong enough to sit up. But there shone
through his eyes an unconQuerablc man who
came to grips with fate wrestlcd with it
and won.
Every one knows that Alexander Pope was
a hUnChbaCk. yet he became n fashionable
poet; and Byron had n club foot but his
mind was perfectly formed. Samuel John
son was afflicted with the kings evil, which
was continual irritation to his nerves. vet
he produced a volume of literature which
amazed his contemporaries and has been
the admiration of posterity.
SCarron, the French comic poet was
paralyzed during the last thirty years of
his life and in constant pain, but he did not
succumb, for he continued to write with
his accustomed brilliance.
Instances could be multiplied without
number. not only from the history of litera-
ture and politics, but from the history of
business and the professions as well, but it
is not necessary.
They are numerous enough to justify the
conclusion that there is nothing impossible
to the human will or the human mind or
the human soul, whatever the thing known
as the real man may be called
1t is not the body that does things. though
it is a useful tool. 1t is the invincibc spirit
within Tint has dared all heights and
pIumbcd all depths and sent it's Imagination
into the furthest reaches of infinite space
that it may search out the universe and
know it. And it was this spirit speaking
through Henley which said:
II matters not hom strait the gate,
Hoe charged wih puni8hmcntS the scroll
am the master Of my t0tc,