Elizabeth Gilbert and Her Work for the Blind Part 7

W. Hanks Levy, who called at her request to tell her about the blind poor, was one of whom she had often heard, and with whom she had already corresponded. He was an a.s.sistant teacher at the school in Avenue Road, married to the matron of the girls' department.

Levy was of humble origin and blind from early youth. His education, such as it was, had been received at the Avenue Road School, but he was essentially self-taught. Outside of the narrow routine of the school he had worked and striven to obtain knowledge, to find help for himself and others. He was a man of small stature and of slender build, with plentiful dark hair on head and face. He wore darkened spectacles, which covered the sightless eyes. His nose was large and well formed, and the mouth fairly good. All the features were marked by extreme mobility, a sensitive tremulousness often seen in the blind. It is as if they did their thinking outside. Bessie had this same tremulous mobility of feature; her soul fluttered as it were about a thought, and you saw hope, apprehension, joy, fear, or dismay when it was first presented to her.

Levy was a man of eager intelligence and generous heart. He earnestly desired the amelioration of the condition of the blind. Their disabilities had pressed upon him from his youth upwards, and upon all around him.

Living in an inst.i.tution, and able to measure himself by no higher standard than that which it offered, he had not, however, realised the actual limitations of blindness. It is doubtful whether he ever did realise them. He would, therefore, have been an unsafe guide, but he was an excellent follower. He would have resented interference from those whom he called "the sighted," but he submitted to the blind lady; her nurture, training, and delicate sense of the fitness of things gave her a strong hold over him. He accepted her judgment when it was opposed to his own will, and faithfully carried out her views and wishes.

During this first interview in Queen Anne Street he told her of the various inst.i.tutions in Great Britain and their work, and especially of the work done in London. At her request he investigated carefully, and obtained dates, facts, and figures that were reliable. Bessie found that the inst.i.tutions for the blind provided instruction for the young, and for them only. Statistics showed, however, that by far the greater number of blind persons lose their sight as adults, from such causes as fever, smallpox, and accidental injury. They lose sight when others are dependent upon them, and when blindness means either the life of a beggar or life in the workhouse. And again she learnt that the existing inst.i.tutions dismiss young men and women who have been fairly educated and taught a trade, on the a.s.sumption that, as adults, they can practise their trade and earn a living. This conjecture tells cruelly upon the blind. They leave many of the inst.i.tutions with an adequate stock of clothes, and either with tools or with money to purchase tools; and then begins a hopeless struggle. Private friends diminish in numbers, and are gradually lost. The blind men and women cannot go about from place to place in search of work, cannot work without special contrivances, which are not to be found in ordinary workshops, and have no market for their goods if they work at home.

But do blind people wish to work, or would they not rather beg? asked many to whom Bessie spoke on this subject. To this she replied that she did not know; must try to find this out. For some months, at her request, Levy went into the streets and accosted every blind beggar whom he met, asking him or her to tell the story of life to a blind man.

"Which would you rather do, work or beg?" he would ask when the speaker had finished. And in almost every case the answer was "Work." "Why, I'd rather work, but how can I get work; or, if I get it, how can I do it?

And where can I sell it, if I work at home without orders?"

These were the difficulties that experience brought to light, and after many months of close and patient investigation, Bessie at length saw a way open before her. "Don't work yourself to death," a friend said to her at this time. "Work to death," she said, with a happy laugh; "I am working to life."

She saw that some one must come forward to befriend the blind poor, some one who could supply material, give employment, or dispose of the articles manufactured.

Why should she not do this?

Her parents warmly approved of the course she proposed to take, and brothers, sisters, friends encouraged her. They saw that it would bring occupation and interest, which she sorely needed. They could not foresee how the little rill was to widen into a broad stream, and what far-reaching results it would have.

In May 1854 "Bessie's scheme" was started. Seven blind men were employed at their own homes, material was purchased for and supplied to them at cost price; the articles manufactured were to be disposed of on their account, and they were to receive the full selling price, minus the cost of material.

A cellar was rented in New Turnstile, Holborn, at the cost of eighteen pence a week, and Levy was engaged as manager, with a salary of half a crown a week, and a percentage upon the sales. The cellar was to be a store-room for materials and goods, and as the basket-makers could not bleach their baskets at home, a binn was fixed so that this part of the work could be done in the cellar. Levy recommended a young man named Farrow to put up the bleaching binn. Farrow had lost his sight at eleven years old in consequence of a gun accident. He had been educated in the St. John's Wood School, was a very good carpenter and cabinetmaker, and a man who could readily turn his hand to anything. But like many others who had left the school, he was without work or prospect of work.

He fixed the bleaching binn and arranged the cellar as a store-room without any a.s.sistance, and from 1854 to the present time he has been employed by the inst.i.tution which sprang from that small dark cellar in Holborn.

Levy's theory was that no man with sight should interfere with the blind; that an opportunity ought to be afforded them of showing that their work is thorough and complete, and that they can stand alone. It may, at that time, have been necessary to take such a step in order to convince the general public that blind men and women could do anything at all, but the theory involves a limitation which is to be regretted.

Bessie's education, experience, and sympathy would naturally lead her to try to restore the blind to their place and their work in the world, to ameliorate their condition but not to alienate them, not to separate them from home and companions. Her own happy youth, her work in the schoolroom at Oxford, her enjoyment of the home at Chichester, all tended to prevent her from being drawn into the current with enthusiasts who looked upon the blind, less as afflicted, than as persecuted and oppressed. She had gradually learnt that blindness is a limitation which the most loving and tender care cannot entirely remove. To be blind, to be a woman, both imply considerable restrictions: but Bessie was not predisposed to consider one state any more the fault of society than the other. She would labour to remove the disabilities of either condition, but she always recognised that they were inherent, and did not arise from persecution or ill-will.

It is necessary to say so much at this time, because we shall see that in many points Bessie did yield to the judgment of one who took an extreme view; who, himself educated in an inst.i.tution, surrounded only by blind people, often of a very feeble capacity, had learned to look upon himself more as a member of an oppressed and persecuted race than as an afflicted man. Levy wished to show that the blind could do their work and manage their affairs in their own way, and that it was as good a way as any other. No "sighted" man was to interfere in the workshop.

He invented a system of embossed writing, and he used to send to Chichester weekly accounts of the money paid for basket and brush material, and in wages. This money was remitted by Bessie, and when brushes and baskets were sold she was to receive the price paid for them. The liabilities that she undertook were rent, manager's salary, percentages on sale, incidental expenses, and losses. These, with only the cellar and seven blind men at work, would not be more than she could afford, and with the approval of her family she set to work bravely to sell her brushes.

The only point on which the Bishop gave advice was, that difference of creed should not be taken into consideration in selecting the workmen to be employed. He urged this very strongly, and Bessie carried out his wishes.

Levy's bills, in embossed writing, were copied by Bessie's mother and her sisters; the weekly accounts were kept by these ladies from May 1854, when the cellar was taken, until the end of the year.

In the earliest records comes the pathetic entry: "Man to see colour."

This man, in spite of Levy's resolve to employ none except the blind, reappears pretty often as the "Viewer." He used to "view" the baskets and their colour.

On the 16th of August 1854 Levy's wages were raised to 10s. per week, and at that time the cost of rent, postage, and porter for one week amounted to no more than two s.h.i.+llings and two pence.

The cellar was, however, found to be inadequate to the requirements of the undertaking, and it was decided that Levy should take a small house, No. 83 Cromer Street, Brunswick Square. Bessie rented one room from him at half a crown a week. It was to be used as a shop, and was known as the Repository. The cellar in Holborn was given up.

As the work of the seven blind men depended mainly upon orders, there was no great acc.u.mulation of stock, but some few specimens were on hand.

During the year 1854 Levy's accounts were copied sometimes by Mrs.

Gilbert, sometimes by Bessie's sisters or her sister-in-law. They were quite clear to the two princ.i.p.als, but outsiders found them confused and confusing. Bessie's younger brother took them in hand and tried to reduce them to order, but the task was a hopeless one. Some bills were entered more than once, whilst others were not entered at all. To Bessie, who kept these accounts with unfailing accuracy in her head, the difficulties with regard to entries must have seemed one of the disabilities of sight. We learn some particulars as to the original plan from a statement by Mrs. Gilbert; for each amanuensis kept her own special copy of accounts.

"As much is to come back from the men for material as has been originally expended by Bessie for material.

"The men take material weighed out by Mr. Levy one week and pay for it the next week.

"This, with the value of the stock of material on hand, should tally with what has been originally paid for materials of mats or baskets."

Some light is thrown on the view of all concerned with regard to these pecuniary details by a letter from Levy, dated 5th December 1854, and written from

W. H. Levy's Repository for Articles Manufactured by the Blind Books and apparatus for their use 83 Cromer Street Brunswick Square.

He writes with regard to a description of mat which only one man, Burr, can make, so that it will take him two or three weeks to execute an order from Brighton, wanted immediately. He asks Miss Gilbert to have the kindness to advise him concerning this matter, and says he has enclosed last week's accounts, but is "fearful through the multiplicity of business that the items, although correct in general, are somewhat confused in detail." Then follows a lengthy superscription--

I remain Dr. Madam with Grat.i.tude and Respect Your obedient Humble S^t.

W. H. LEVY.

The "confusion in detail" seems to have been considerable, and Mr.

Gilbert's summary for 1854 was as follows:--

Total of disburs.e.m.e.nts on Levy's account 159 11 0 Total of Mandeville's bills not entered 60 5 8 ------------ 219 16 8

Total of receipts for material (presumably from workmen) 54 4 11 Total of other receipts (presumably sales) 32 8 9 ------------ Total receipts 86 13 8 Loss 133 3 0

To this are added the following remarks:--

This account is only approximate. To the disburs.e.m.e.nt should certainly be added about 6 paid to Levy for himself and not entered, and one lost bill of Mandeville's (4: 18: 6), if not more than one. The receipts also are probably imperfect.

The word _loss_ is one that would not approve itself to either of those chiefly concerned. Bessie was _giving_ freely of her income, Levy was spending economically and carefully. Each knew that there was no error, though there might be irregularities which seemed considerable to those who were not primarily concerned in the great cause.

For three months in 1855 there follow a most bewildering series of accounts. Disburs.e.m.e.nts, receipts, sales, and a few donations are all entered on one page. Such a course probably induced further remonstrance from _the sighted_, and in March 1855 a more orderly system is adopted.

Receipts and disburs.e.m.e.nts are neatly kept on separate pages, and confusion henceforth ceases.

We may recall that Bessie always hated "sums," and found them bewildering. She was, however, very accurate in mental calculation. She knew what money she had advanced, on what occasions and to whom. No amount was omitted or entered twice over in her memory. It was only by slow degrees that she learnt the value of written records, the nature of them, and the necessity of absolute accuracy in matters of business.

Ledgers and cash books and journals at first indicated merely a certain incapacity in _the sighted_; but time and experience taught her that they were indispensable.

The work of the Repository had engrossed much of her time, but in the summer she accompanied her parents and other members of the family on a tour in Scotland. She was in very good health, and walked with a brother and sister from Stirling to Bannockburn and back. Her love of early Scottish history gave her a special interest in the places visited. As they drove through Glencoe it was carefully described to her. Inverness, as being near Culloden, was specially attractive. At Oban she heard of the taking of Sebastopol, and this recalled her to the interests and anxieties of that time. She enjoyed staying at Scotch hotels; but on the whole she had derived less pleasure from the Scotch than from the Irish tour. She found nothing so beautiful as the Killarney echoes, and missed the warm-hearted sympathy and genuine interest of the Irish peasantry and guides.

The one point that stood out pre-eminent as the outcome of her visit to Scotland was her inspection of the School for the Blind in Edinburgh.

The work done there gave her many ideas, inspired many hopes and plans.

But she saw more clearly than ever that her scheme was a new departure, and returned with confidence in her own power, and that of her blind workmen, to carry it forward.