Anecdotes of the Blind

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Author, 1835 - Blind - 52 pages

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Page 42 - Thus with the year Seasons return ; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; But cloud instead, and everduring dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of nature's works, to me expunged and rased, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
Page 31 - We saw the very faces of the Jews : the staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage. We saw the buffet ; my soul kindled with a flame of indignation, and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clenched.
Page 32 - ... to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice — "but Jesus Christ — like a God!
Page 31 - It was some time before the tumult had subsided so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious, standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not. conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall.
Page 31 - I had heard the subject handled a thousand times : I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose, that in the wild woods of America, I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give, to this topic, a new and more sublime pathos than I had ever before witnessed.
Page 31 - Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do' — the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief.
Page 42 - O loss of sight, of thee I most complain! Blind among enemies, O worse than chains, Dungeon or beggary, or decrepit age! Light, the prime work of God, to me...
Page 43 - Annulled, which might in part my grief have eased, Inferior to the vilest now become Of man or worm ; the vilest here excel me, They creep, yet see, I dark in light exposed To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong, Within doors, or without...
Page 30 - Having frequently seen such objects before, in travelling through these states, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship. Devotion alone should have stopped me, to join in the duties of the congregation ; but I must confess, that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness, was not the least of my motives. On entering the house, I was struck with his preternatural appearance.
Page 32 - Guess my surprise when on my arrival at Richmond, and mentioning the name of this man, I found not one person who had ever before heard of James Waddel.

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