700 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
Finally, we come to the work of editing. So many blind persons 
have published and are publishing remarkable articles and works 
that I have nothing really new to say on this subject. The editing of 
a work of erudition scarcely presents more difficulties than for a 
popular work. It merely requires more precision as concerns num- 
bers, masses of dates—all things which require scrupulous care. It 
presupposes above all a mass of notes at the bottom of the pages, 
references to texts, and documentary proofs. All that may take one 
by surprise at first, but, by means of the notesin “ braille,” itis always 
possible, without too much labor, to attain a rigorous exactness. My 
volumes are studded with figures and exact references. My extracts 
having been made methodically, and the results drawn from them 
carefully recorded with all the indications arranged in proportion to 
and in accordance with the circumstances, it was easy for me to sup- 
port my assertions with the critical proof which they demanded. 
There again it sufficed for me to refer to my memoranda, where every- 
thing was noted. 
As to the mechanical execution and the actual composition, two 
methods were open to me. I could write out the work in “ braille ” 
in such a way that I could read and correct the matter myself, and 
turn the copy over to a typewriter to put into type, or I could copy 
my rough draft again on my own typewriter. I have used both 
methods, sometimes preferring the one and sometimes the other, ac- 
cording to circumstances. When I had to do with particularly 
difficult pages, requiring special accuracy, it seemed to me better to 
make a rough draft in relief, in order to be able to consider and 
compare it freely. For ordinary passages I much preferred the 
typewriter from the first. 
One may be surprised that the rough drafts in “braille” were not 
always preferred. The writing, in spite of numerous abbreviations, 
was rather slow, and, furthermore, required a certain expense of 
physical energy. These two circumstances lessen the buoyancy of the 
mind and divert attention from the work of composition toward the 
details of mechanical execution. I am aware that some blind persons 
are less sensible of these inconveniences, but I know that there are 
others like myself who find themselves disconcerted by them. Type- 
writing, on the contrary, is quick and easy. It accompanies but does 
not interfere with the flow of the mind, which is scarcely conscious 
of its very flexible mechanism. Doubtless a person who can see finds 
it difficult to understand how anyone can write without being able 
to read over the paragraphs that are finished. TI find that habit 
triumphs over this difficulty—at all events, with me it was a triumph 
without labor. The care involved in a methodical and rather rigid 
composition is in part the cause. When one has his plan well in mind, 
with even the details in order, one does not lose the thread of its 
