ft^' The Life and Writings q/' Francis Huher. 



often beguiled his own misfortune by such a confidence. The 

 seven years thus spent made such an impression on him, that 

 during the rest of his life, even when his blindness had been 

 overcome with such surprising ability as to furnish one of his 

 claims to celebrity, he was still fond of dissembling : he would 

 boast of the beauty of a landscape, which he knew of only by 

 hearsay or by simple recollection, — the elegance of a dress, — or 

 the fair complexion of a female whose voice pleased him ; and, 

 in his conversation, in his letters, and even in his books, he would 

 say, / have see7i, I have seen with my own eyes. These expres- 

 sions, which deceived neither himself nor any one else, were like 

 so many recollections of that fatal period of his life when he 

 was daily sensible of the thickening of the veil which was con- 

 stantly spread between him and the material world, and in- 

 creased his fear not only of becoming entirely blind, but of be- 

 ing deserted by the object of his love. But it was not so ; Miss 

 Lullin resisted every persuasion — every persecution even — by 

 which her father endeavoured to divert her from her resolution ; 

 and, as soon as she had attained her majority, she presented 

 herself at the altar, conducted by her maternal uncle, M. Rilliet 

 Fatio, and leading, if we may so term it, herself the spouse who 

 in his happy and brilliant days had been her choice, and to 

 whose saddened fall she was now determined to devote her life. 

 A friend, a relation, an intimate confidant, was at her side ; that 

 friend was my mother, and the story of this wedding of love 

 and devotion, often related by her to me in my youth, is con- 

 nected in my heart with the sweetest of my recollections. 



Madame Huber proved; by her constancy, that she was 

 worthy of the energy which she had manifested. During the 

 forty years of their union, she never ceased to bestow upon her 

 blind husband the kindest attention : she was his reader, his se- 

 cretary, his observer, and she removed, as far as possible, all 

 those embarrassments which would naturally arise from his in- 

 firmity. Her husband, in alluding to her small stature, would 

 say of her, mens magna in corpore parvo. As long as she lived, 

 said he also, in his old age, / was not sensible of the misfortune 

 of being blind. 



This aft'ecting union has been alluded to by celebrated pens. 

 Voltaire often noticed it in his correspondence ; and the episode 



