

* ACCIDENT IN THE LABORATORY. 255 



first anxiety was to ascertain whether fragments of the 

 porcelain dish had hit and penetrated the balls of the eyes. 

 With intense anxiety I passed my fingers carefully over the 

 blind orbs, and to my inexpressible relief, ascertained that 

 the eyes were there and not lacerated. I then pulled the 

 lids apart, one after the other on both eyes, and to my great 

 and grateful satisfaction, found that the objects in the room 

 could be dimly discerned as if through a thick and yellow 

 haze. I had now done everything for myself that I could 

 possibly do alone, and sat down to await the arrival of my 

 assistant. Happily he came at the critical moment. The 

 carriage of my friend and family physician, Dr. Eli Ives, 

 was at hand, and I was borne to my own house, distressed, 

 even more than by the injury, because I must inflict severe 

 mental suffering upon my devoted and affectionate wife. 

 Her firmness was, however, equal to her kindness, and no 

 heroine of romance or of the battle-field could have be- 

 haved better. 



It was an hour of dismay when I was carried, a blind 

 and suffering man, to my before happy home, perhaps, 

 like Milton in that one particular, to behold no more the 

 loved faces of my excellent wife, my sweet daughter of 

 one year and one month,* and of many loving and loved 

 friends. As I passed along from the College, I prayed 

 mentally that I might not thus be consigned to darkness, 

 so early after I had begun my professional career, and in 

 the bright morning of my domestic happiness. I was then 

 nearly through my thirty-second year, and had been but 

 five years fully established in my professorship. But it 

 pleased God to give me in time perfect restoration. My eyes 

 gradually recovered their strength ; and now, forty- seven 

 and a half years after the accident, and when I am almost 



* His eldest child, Maria, now Mrs. John B. Church, of New York, was 

 born June 16, 1810. The birth of this child, writes Mr. Silliman, " sent 

 joy to many hearts and grateful thanks to Heaven. With this new theme 

 of gratulation came a new motive for exertion and a novel source of hap- 

 piness, which, blessed be God, still remains." F. 



