reduce all that mass of statistics to a few salient facts. There are too
many statistics and figures for me. I never could do anything with
figures, never had any talent for mathematics, never accomplished
anything in my efforts at that rugged study, and to-day the only
mathematics I know is multiplication, and the minute I get away up in
that, as soon as I reach nine times seven–
[Mr. Clemens lapsed into deep thought for a moment. He was trying to
figure out nine times seven, but it was a hopeless task, and he turned to
St. Clair McKelway, who sat near him. Mr. McKelway whispered the answer,
and the speaker resumed:]
I’ve got it now. It’s eighty-four. Well, I can get that far all right
with a little hesitation. After that I am uncertain, and I can’t manage
a statistic.
“This association for the–”
[Mr. Clemens was in another dilemma. Again he was obliged to turn to Mr.
McKelway.]
Oh yes, for promoting the interests of the blind. It’s a long name. If
I could I would write it out for you and let you take it home and study
it, but I don’t know how to spell it. And Mr. Carnegie is down in
Virginia somewhere. Well, anyway, the object of that association which
has been recently organized, five months ago, in fact, is in the hands of
very, very energetic, intelligent, and capable people, and they will push
it to success very surely, and all the more surely if you will give them
a little of your assistance out of your pockets.
The intention, the purpose, is to search out all the blind and find work
for them to do so that they may earn, their own bread. Now it is dismal
enough to be blind–it is dreary, dreary life at best, but it can be
largely ameliorated by finding something for these poor blind people to
do with their hands. The time passes so heavily that it is never day or
night with them, it is always night, and when they have to sit with
folded hands and with nothing to do to amuse or entertain or employ their
minds, it is drearier and drearier.
And then the knowledge they have that they must subsist on charity, and
so often reluctant charity, it would renew their lives if they could have
something to do with their hands and pass their time and at the same time
earn their bread, and know the sweetness of the bread which is the result
of the labor of one’s own hands. They need that cheer and pleasure. It
is the only way you can turn their night into day, to give them happy
hearts, the only thing you can put in the place of the blessed sun. That
you can do in the way I speak of.
Blind people generally who have seen the light know what it is to miss
the light. Those who have gone blind since they were twenty years old–
their lives are unendingly dreary. But they can be taught to use their
hands and to employ themselves at a great many industries. That
association from which this draws its birth in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
has taught its blind to make many things. They make them better than
most people, and more honest than people who have the use of their eyes.
The goods they make are readily salable. People like them. And so they
are supporting themselves, and it is a matter of cheer, cheer. They pass
their time now not too irksomely as they formerly did.
What this association needs and wants is $15,000. The figures are set
down, and what the money is for, and there is no graft in it or I would
not be here. And they hope to beguile that out of your pockets, and you
will find affixed to the programme an opportunity, that little blank
which you will fill out and promise so much money now or to-morrow or
some time. Then, there is another opportunity which is still better, and
that is that you shall subscribe an annual sum.
I have invented a good many useful things in my time, but never anything